The Surprising Books That Billionaires, Chess Prodigies, Performance Coaches, and Bestselling Authors Recommend

The Surprising Books That Billionaires, Chess Prodigies, Performance Coaches, and Bestselling Authors Recommend

December 1, 2014 by Shane Parrish

One question Tim Ferriss asks people on his mind-blowing podcast is “What book have you gifted most often to others, and why?” This is one of my favorite parts of the show.

Below are some of the answers from people like Tony Robbins that might catch your attention. Thanks to this list, I just got a lot of my Christmas shopping done.

Before we get to that though, let’s recap the books that Tim has recommended.

• What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph (Complement with this exploration of Stoic philosophy.)
• The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance (Pair with these two passages from the book on how he advanced faster than others and why the key to learning is depth over breadth.)
• Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (Pair with the daily routines of famous creatives: artists, writers, composers. Also check out Hemingway’s routine.)
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

Ok, now it is time for Tim’s podcasts guests to take over. Here are some of the ones that caught my eye. While I’ve read a lot of these, there were some very interesting new finds. I ended up ordering several books.

Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of WIRED magazine, recommends:

• Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman
• The Adventures of Johnny Bunko by Daniel H. Pink
• So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport
• Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts

Tony Robbins, performance coach to Bill Clinton, Serena Williams, Paul Tudor Jones, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey, and a bunch of other people you’ve heard of, recommends:

• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E.Frankl (Complement with this rare video clip from 1972 where Frankl tells us why we should believe in others and the human search for meaning.)
• The Fourth Turning by William Strauss
• Generations by William Strauss
• Slow Sex by Nicole Daedone (I’m guessing he didn’t give a copy of this to Clinton … or maybe he did.)
• Mindset by Carol Dweck (Complement with Angela Duckworth on how we can develop grit.)

Neil Strauss has written 7 New York Times bestsellers, including The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. He offers:

• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca (I love Seneca. Why? Among other things we can learn a lot from him about creativity, wisdom, reading, and saving time. Complement with the stoic reading list.)
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gregory Rabassa
• The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
• Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera

Ryan Holiday is an author and the media strategist behind authors Tucker Max and Robert Greene. Ryan mentioned Farnam Street in his podcast with Tim and might be the only person I know who consistently reads more than I do. He recommends:

• Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius (Complement with How to Act: Four Habits of Thought to Eliminate and Debts and Lessons)
• The Art of Living by Epictetus (Complement with this.)
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (A lot of people talk about this but few people understand a black swan.)
• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (This contains the seeds to both The Black Swan andAntifragile. If you’re new to Taleb, start with FBR.)
• Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson (Complement with Franklins 13 virtues and his rule for decision making.)
• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Cherow (This has been on my shelf since Charlie Munger recommended it, time to pull it out.)
• How to Live by Sarah Bakewell (Montaigne is full of awesomeness.)
• The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen
• Tough Jews by Rich Cohen
• Edison – A Biography by Matthew Josephson (I loved Isaacson’s biography on Edison, which was also recommended by Munger.)
• Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity by Brooks D. Simpson
• The Control of Nature by John McPhee
• Giving Good Weight by John McPhee
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (A New York Times best-selling authorrecommended this book to me.)

Ramit Sethi is a personal finance advisor and entrepreneur. Sethi is the author of the 2009 book on personal finance, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, a New York Times Bestseller. He recommends:

• The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande (I loved this book.)
• Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink (Complement with why we eat more than we think and how sugar affects the brain.)
• The Robert Collier Letter Book by Robert Collier
• Age of Propaganda by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson
• The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson
• Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi
• Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca and William Novak
• What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School: Notes From A Street-Smart Executive by Mark H. McCormack

Still not satisfied? See what Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Bill Gates recommend.

Over to you

Comments are on. Let me know what book you give away most often? For me it’s Peter Bevelin’s Seeking Wisdom and Robin Dreeke’s It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone.