There’s one book that I’ve given 40 copies away probably. And it’s called Reminiscence of a Stock Operator. And for anyone who wants to be a trader or an investor, this is the Bible. It was written in 1932 by a guy who was, at that time, maybe the world’s greatest speculator. Jesse Livermore is the fictional character. And what’s crazy about it is you can read it today in 2020, and it literally is still the Bible. And so every great trader annotates it, tears pages out of it. I used to be able to tell when people would come to interview to work and they’d say, “I really, all I care about is trading.” And I was like, “Well, tell me two books you’ve read about trading.” “Oh, I haven’t read any books.” And I was like, “Okay, here’s a book. Go read it and come back when you’ve read it. But you’re not getting a job, because you lied. Because you lied to me because you really didn’t care that much about trading if you’ve never read a book on it.” But that’s the book. And there’s a terrible anecdote or afterword to it is that two years after he wrote the book, the guy committed suicide because he just couldn’t take the — he lost his fortune yet again. But he put every rule that you need to — you know, the discipline side of it is all in that book. And it’s a quick read; you can read it in three hours.

Lately, I’ve liked there’s a woman named Bronnie Ware. She wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying . And she was a hospice nurse who had spent time with people in the last 90 days of their life. And she would learn like what their regrets were. Or, sometimes, she’d learn what their happiness was. So, there was an example of this woman who was from a super rich family, and she decided to marry an artist. And the family excommunicated her. And she’s like 32 years old. She gets cancer, and she dies. And she hasn’t heard from her family in years. And her mom comes to her, at the end, and says, to be honest, I was just jealous. You were living life on your own terms. And I’ve got all of these obligations. I don’t even like my life that much. And I was just kind of pissed off that you could go marry some artist and be this happy. And I realized how wrong I was. But this woman who is dying says I have no regrets. I got to be with the person I wanted to be with. And I would have loved to have lived longer, but nobody knows how much time they’re going to have. At least I got to have the time that I got the way I wanted to have it, the best I knew how. And then, they would have another person who the opposite was true. They would be dying, and they’d say, “Promise me, Bronnie, that you will not live life according to other people’s thinking because I lived my whole life trying to please other people.” “And if I could have it over again, I wouldn’t do that.” And so, she does a great job of having the example of the person who did it well with no regrets, and the person who is like fuck, I’m dead now, and if I could do it over again, I’d do it different. And so, it’s motivating to say, gosh, how am I measuring up against those five things? And so, I like that book because it kind of takes people out of the here and now and kind of forces you to confront a broader set of issues. Tim Ferriss: Yeah. I think that, for me, in the last few years, I’ve had a lot of friends pass away in the last two years or so, including Terry Laughlin, rest in peace, who is in this book just a few weeks ago. And I found it really, in an odd way, reaffirming to familiarize myself with death and grief and grieving in almost a preemptive way. One of my favorite people, I’m sure you’ve spent time with him, Matt Mullenweg, incredible entrepreneur, but first and foremost, just a beautiful human being, and he lost his father in a very unexpected way. And he recommended On Grief and Grieving to me. And I think it’s a very useful exercise to familiarize yourself with the details of death and people passing. Mike Maples: And I learned a lot of this from Julie who is the love of my life and puts up with me. And she’s helped all of these people who have had cancer. And so, as a result, she ends up seeing a lot of people pass. And I think more than anybody, she taught me that, in the last bit of time you have, all of the shit falls away. All of the expectations, all of the external stuff. And so, you just hope that when that time comes, you’re like I did the best I could. I did it the way I could. And so, that’s why I find that book helpful. It’s not because I’m preoccupied with dying. I hope I live a long time. But it’s like when the time comes, I want to say I did it my way. I did the best I could. I honored the gift. So, that’s a good book. And there’s business books, too, but we’ll do that some other time.

Well, there are two different ones. There’s Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which invariably shows up on these lists of 100 books you should read before you die, which really had a big impact on me, and I’ve spoken about it at Sequoia founder events. I’ve given it to many people. I just think the book is amazing in terms of helping clarify what it is that motivates you and what drives you, “What is your purpose,” because we are not really driven by monetary rewards or pleasure by itself. So, that, to me, is a fantastic book. The other one is an annual series called America’s Best Science and Nature Writing , and it’s this collection of about two dozen articles from American publications, written for a lay audience across a range of topics. It could be, “What’s the latest insights from physics and astronomy,” to, “What’s happening in genetics,” “What’s happening with anthropology,” or things like that. I mean, it’s absolutely fascinating.

I’m a big fan of history, Tim. American history, revolutionary history. Living now for almost 20 years in Princeton, surrounded by revolutionary history. Even as a kid I was. There’s a great book by an author named Benson Bobrick called Angel in the Whirlwind . It’s a history of the American Revolution. Obviously, countless histories of the American Revolution have been written. This one’s pretty special in that he’s a great storyteller. There is a great hero in the book. Do you want to guess who the hero of the American Revolution is? It’s not a trick question. Tim Ferriss: I don’t even want to – I’m afraid to embarrass myself. John Crowley: George Washington. Tim Ferriss: There we go, okay. John Crowley: So, easy answer, George Washington. Tim Ferriss: I was going to go for the layup, but I was like, I might flub it. John Crowley: He picks a villain and it’s Benedict Arnold.