I’ve Read 1,000+ Books. These 20 Changed My Life Forever.

I’ve Read 1,000+ Books. These 20 Changed My Life Forever.

I've averaged 96 Kindle books every year for the past few years. This doesn't include physical books or audiobooks, which I also devour...

I’ve read more than 1,000 books in my lifetime.

Over the past few years, I’ve averaged at least 100 books per year. You can see my Kindle book stats in the photo below. That doesn’t include physical books or audiobooks, which I also devour. 😁

So, people always ask me which books changed my life. Not just the ones that were good reads, but the ones that stuck with me and fundamentally changed my thinking.

Out of everything I’ve read, these are the twenty that have had the most profound impact on who I am. Some rewired how I think, while others slapped me in the face at just the right time.

NOTE: All of the links in this article are affiliate links. Thank you in advance if you purchase any of them through the links here.

1. Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

I’ve reread this book more than any other on this list. It is a masterclass in success philosophy. Hill basically says that your outer world reflects your inner world. Success starts in your imagination, gets fueled by emotion, and hardens into reality through persistence.

He also teases a “secret” at the beginning of the book. Many people have tried to guess the secret, and nearly everyone is wrong. What’s funny is that Hill actually reveals the secret in his other works, so there IS a right answer, but I won’t spoil it here.

The first time I read this book, I didn’t get it. It felt too abstract. But when I revisited it, I started to connect the dots. I started noticing all the little things I was doing that were making me a more successful person.

2. The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ Demarco

This book reads like it was written by someone slapping you across the face while yelling, “WAKE UP!”

MJ DeMarco doesn’t sugarcoat anything, which I love. His premise is simple: the “slow lane” (work 40 years, save 10%, retire old) is a terrible way to live life. The better alternative is to get in the “fast lane,” which is all about building businesses that scale beyond your time.

What I love most about this book is its practicality. MJ tells you exactly how to structure your business using his CENTS framework, which stands for Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale. Here’s what each one of those words means:

Control: If somebody else can yank the rug out from under you, you’re not in the Fastlane. If Amazon can nuke your account, Google can bury you with an update, or one supplier can hold you hostage, you don’t have control… you have permission.
Entry: The harder it is to get in, the less crowded it is once you’re inside. Entry is all about barriers. If someone can copy your business model in a weekend, it’s no good. Most people see barriers and run away, but Fastlaners embrace them.
Need: If you solve a painful, urgent problem for people, then you don’t need to be a genius marketer because the market will meet you halfway.
Time: The business should make money when you’re not there. If revenue stops when you stop, that’s a glorified job.
Scale: This is all about how many people you can serve. All else being equal, the more people you can serve, the more money you can make.

3. How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis was one of those rare people who actually got rich and then wrote a book about it. This book is raw, funny, and brutally honest. He doesn’t pretend to be virtuous about wealth. He tells you how it works and what his journey was like.

His main lesson is all about ownership. You get rich by having equity and owning things. Everything else is just noise.

Dennis has this way of stripping the romance out of entrepreneurship. He says things like, “If you want to get rich, you’ll have to sacrifice relationships, sleep, and sometimes your sanity.” It’s real, not feel-good fluff. And that’s why it sticks.

4. The Outsiders by William Thorndike

This book should be mandatory reading for every business owner. It’s a deep dive into how eight unconventional CEOs created insane returns for their companies.

Thorndike profiles people like Henry Singleton, Tom Murphy, and Katharine Graham. These people weren’t media darlings but quietly crushed the market for decades. They were disciplined capitalists in the truest sense who ignored noise and made rational decisions.

The biggest takeaway from this book is that the best CEOs were all incredible capital allocators. Meaning they treated every dollar like it belonged to a shareholder, because it did. They were masters of getting returns on their investments.

It changed how I view investing. I started asking myself where my next dollar can do the most work. That one shift increased my returns and enjoyment in business.

5. The Trick To Money Is Having Some by Stuart Wilde

The title sounds snarky, but the book is surprisingly deep. Wilde talks about money like it’s energy, flowing to where it’s respected. His idea is that people repel money by being too desperate for it.

That idea hit me like a ton of bricks. Because when you’re starting out, you do feel desperate. You want to pay bills, prove yourself, and well, survive. But desperation stinks, and people can smell it. It leaks into everything you do. Wilde taught me to loosen my grip and act as if money was a natural byproduct of value, not something I had to beg for.

6. And David Perceived He Was King by Dale Mast

I’m not a theologian, but this book blew me away. It’s about identity. The premise is that the biblical David didn’t become a king when he was crowned; he became one when he perceived himself as one. That’s the real turning point.

How many people have all the skills and opportunities, but still operate from a small self-image? They’re qualified but don’t act like it.

This book helped me understand that identity isn’t something you earn. It’s something you step into. You can’t outwork a weak self-concept. And once you actually see yourself differently, your decisions change automatically.

7. The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch

This book made me allergic to inefficiency. You’ve probably heard of the Pareto Principle before, which is all about how 80% of your effects come from 20% of your causes, but you’ve likely never heard it explained like Koch explains it in this book.

The math gets wild when you realize the 80/20 principle is fractal. Meaning 4% of your inputs create 64% of your outputs, too. In my business, it meant doubling down on the few actions that really mattered while getting rid of everything else.

Once you understand this principle, you will begin to see leverage everywhere. Too many people are drowning in busywork that looks like progress. This book helps fix that problem.

8. The H Factor of Personality by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton

I geek out on personality types, and I believe the HEXACO personality test is the best one in the world. This book is all about the “H” factor (Honesty-Humility) of the HEXACO model of personality.

The gist of the book is that high H people are fair, modest, and sincere, while low H people are manipulative and entitled. Once you understand that, you start seeing it everywhere. Why some clients are nightmares, why some partnerships implode, why some people thrive in trust-based businesses, and why some people torch every bridge they cross.

This book made me much better at reading people and realizing that I do my best work with high H people. Low H people will always show you who they are eventually. This book gave me the framework to recognize it faster and protect my energy.

9. Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

This one’s the holy grail of copywriting. You’re not a serious marketer until you have a beat-up copy of this somewhere in your house. Eugene Schwartz teaches the psychology of effective advertising and how markets evolve in awareness. For instance, someone who knows nothing about who you are should be approached differently from someone intimately familiar with your brand.

I remember the first time I read it, I had to stop every few pages to process what I was learning. Schwartz shows you how to channel demand rather than create it (a huge lesson). In other words, you can’t make people want something they don’t already want. You can only tap into an existing desire and direct it toward your offer.

That single idea changed my marketing approaches forever. I stopped trying to convince people and started trying to understand them.

10. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

If Hill taught me how to think about success and Schwartz taught me how to write copy, then Sowell taught me how the world actually works.

I highly recommend reading this book, even if you’re not interested in economics, because Sowell’s writing style is one of the best I’ve ever seen. He has a way of simplifying complex topics and being extremely clear. He doesn’t rely on jargon and graphs like other economics texts do. Instead, he uses logic and common sense. He explains why things cost what they do, how incentives drive behavior, why government “solutions” often make problems worse, and so much more.

I’ve probably given this book more than any other, and I believe it should be required reading for all existing and aspiring politicians.

11. How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World by Harry Browne

Browne basically says most people live trapped lives because of the mental prisons they’ve built for themselves. He calls them “traps,” like the Group Trap, the Identity Trap, the Government Trap, and the Intellectual Trap.

They all boil down to one core mistake: believing your happiness depends on the permission or behavior of others.

That idea felt like freedom in a sentence. It made me question how many things I was doing because I thought I “had to.” I questioned how much of my life was shaped by obligation rather than intention.

It’s not an easy book to read because it forces you to face the ways you’ve given away your power. But once you put its teachings into practice, you’ll start living a freer life.

12. The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham

Imagine if Warren Buffett had a sarcastic Texas twin who cursed a little and taught business owners how not to be idiots. That’s Keith Cunningham.

This book is basically a greatest hits album of painful business lessons condensed into one-liners like:

“The dumb tax is the most expensive tax you’ll ever pay.”

He teaches you how to think on purpose. He even recommends setting aside “Thinking Time,” where you literally schedule an hour to ask yourself high-quality questions and write out the answers.

He also has example questions at the end of every chapter to help spur your thinking. Even if you don’t read the entire book, you should still get it for these questions alone.

13. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Hopkins wrote this book more than a century ago, and it’s still more relevant than 99% of the marketing advice on the internet.

The book's basic premise is that advertising should prove itself. Hopkins was split testing before the term even existed. He was tracking metrics and seeing which ads worked better. That skill set enabled him to make obscene amounts of money for his clients.

Every direct response marketer in the world today is standing on Hopkins’ shoulders, whether they know it or not.

14. Start With No by Jim Camp

This is the greatest negotiation book ever written, bar none.

Most negotiation books mistakenly teach you how to chase a “yes.” Jim Camp flips the script and says you should start with no. Why? Because “yes” is often a stall, while “no” creates clarity. You’ll see what I mean when you read the book.

Jim Camp made me realize how manipulative most sales and negotiations really are. His approach is the opposite. He says the goal isn’t necessarily to close every deal; it’s to protect our decision-making abilities. If you can respect the other person’s decision-making abilities in a negotiation, you will begin doing a lot better.

15. Curse Of The High IQ by Aaron Clarey

This book is about what it’s like to have above-average intelligence in a world designed for mediocrity. If you’ve ever wondered why you get bored easily, why groupthink drives you nuts, or why most meetings feel like nails on a chalkboard… this book is for you.

Clarey posits that smart people often struggle because they expect rationality from irrational systems. Once you accept that, you can stop fighting reality. You can stop wasting energy trying to “fix” everyone and everything. It’s liberating, honestly.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but Clarey’s concepts helped me live a happier, healthier life.

16. The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert

I consider Gary Halbert to be the greatest marketer who ever lived. He has influenced me more than anyone else on this list. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Gary.

He wrote these letters to his son from prison (yes, really). Somehow, they became one of the greatest marketing tutorials ever written.

They’re part fatherly advice, part business manual, and part life philosophy. He talks about everything from growing bigger arms to street smarts to direct mail. The Boron Letters taught me more about human nature than most psychology books.

17. Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Maltz was a plastic surgeon who noticed that after changing people’s appearances, their self-confidence sometimes changed. It seems obvious today, but it wasn’t back then, so he started studying why.

He discovered that your brain acts like a servo mechanism, automatically moving you toward the image you hold of yourself. If you change the image, everything else can follow.

I read this in my early twenties, and it stuck like glue. Because the truth is, many business owners don’t have business problems; they have self-image problems. They’re capable of success but don’t see themselves as successful people yet. So, they unconsciously sabotage themselves. Maltz gives you the tools to reprogram that internal picture.

18. My Philosophy For Successful Living by Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn is my all-time favorite motivational speaker. I actually recommend listening to all of his audiobooks instead of reading them. He has an uncanny way of saying simple things that rearrange your brain.

He’ll drop gems like, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” and “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.” There are so many ideas embedded in the entrepreneurial culture that stem from Jim Rohn. If you’ve never read or listened to any of his material, you’ll be shocked at how much you find out comes from him.

19. Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is another person whose audiobooks I recommend over his books. However, I make an exception for this one because it’s so jam-packed with insights that you will want to physically highlight it and take notes so you can reference them later.

This book is Tracy’s magnum opus. It is a roadmap for goal-setting, confidence, discipline, and more. He breaks down everything from self-esteem to visualization to habit formation into one tight framework.

What stood out to me was how he connects belief systems to results. If you believe you’re worth little, you’ll unconsciously make decisions that confirm it. It’s like Maltz meets Hill (so you can see I have a particular taste 😁).

20. No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy

This is the best productivity book I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of them. Dan Kennedy teaches you to guard your time like your life depends on it because, in many ways, it does.

His entire thesis is that time management is really self-management. Time itself can’t be managed because it ticks whether you like it or not. What you can manage is what you allow in your day, who you allow to interrupt you, and what standards you enforce regarding your availability.

He’s ruthless about this. To Dan, “being busy” is the ultimate sign of being out of control. Busyness is not a badge of honor. It is proof that you’ve surrendered your boundaries. Most entrepreneurs, he says, aren’t running businesses; their businesses are running them.