Our Favorite Books of 2018

Life gets busy, and reading always seems to be one of those things we push to the side. But we (the Millennial Planners) have always connected on the books we read and the takeaways we get from them.  I went an entire year thinking I didn’t read much, but after Regan asked us to share our favorite books, I was pleasantly surprised how much we all read collectively.

Keeping up with an old tradition, we decided to pass along our favorite books that we read in 2018.  

[Taken from our email exchanges a few weeks back. No filter.]

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Regan

Fiction:

• The Stormlight Archive (Books 1-3 of a fantasy series)

  • Game of Thrones level hype

• Pet Sematary - Stephen King

  • Truly skin-crawling first person. My favorite King ending so far.

• Misery - Stephen King

• The Outsider - Stephen King

• Slaugterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Non-fiction:

• Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre - Jeff Pearlman

  • Nothing I knew as a child was true! A very adult perspective on one of my childhood heroes.

• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

• Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

Joe

• The Compound Effect - Darren Hardy (reread)

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker

• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman

Luke

• Running Man: A Memoir, by Charlie Engle - A story of a crack-addict turned ultra marathon runner. Very inspiring, but it is one of those stories where nothing ever seems to go right for someone. 

• Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami - This was my fifth or sixth time reading this book. It was originally my first Murakami novel. It never fails to bring me back to that magical place I entered the first time I read it. 

• Foundation, by Issac Asimov - This was my favorite of the several Sci-Fi novels I read this year. It was also on Elon Musk's list...but I am not going to let him take credit for popularizing an author who has written 500 books and is published in 9 out of the 10 Dewey categories. 

• The Martian, by Andy Weir - I know I am late to the game on this one but it was amazing. I was impressed at the author's attention to detail when it comes to scientific principles. This was by far the book I most recommended. 

• The Giver, by Lois Lowry - A childhood favorite. One of my favorite dystopian novels. 

Bryan

• Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One - Terry Crews (the old spice guy, and actor)

  • easy read, his first book. shared his bio and rough childhood. It opened me up to a powerful concept I've embraced in 2018 - being vulnerable and recognizing who you are, what your issues are, and accepting their impact on your daily behavior.  

• Your Money and Your Brain - Jason Zweig

  • super fascinating stuff and it felt like a way more tangible version of "thinking fast and slow" (which 99% of ppl don't actually finish, bc boring).  Jason did all these studies on himself to see how humans are wired and how much of our programming contradicts being good with money.

• Barking Up The Wrong Tree - Eric Barker

  • Eric writes a blog about a concept I love - what popular culture says it takes to be successful is wrong a lot of the time.  I love counter-culture stuff in general.  I did not finish this book, probably made it halfway through.  I had high hopes, but something about the writing style didn't make me want to continue on.  That said, I could pick up at any random Chapter and it would read well.

• Atomic Habits - James Clear

  • another blogger, which I actually recommend you sign up for if you like the concept (2x week emails).  I appreciate James' concise writing style too.  Perhaps Recency Bias is at play, but I feel this concept has impacted me the most this year.  "we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems." "atomic" meaning small things, over and over, matter.  Goals are useful, but not the measure - habits (daily behavior) are what create progress and nothing happens overnight.  It's a double-edged sword - habits multiply in both directions.  Lifting weights weekly creates positive effects that compound.  Similarly, 1 cigarette per day will compound negatively.  The book also describes how to create positive systems.  One major one?  Tribes (Millennial Planners, anyone? ;) ). Note: I'm only on Ch. 5 of this book, and it's clearly already impacting me greatly.

• Principles - Ray Dalio

  • There are actually 2 books in the edition i have - that's why it's physically huge. I read the first half- Life Principles - and appreciated Dalio’s mindset towards making rules and creating systems that allowed Bridgewater to grow and how he learned from his mistakes. Dalio is a bit dry, but his takeaways are quite interesting. So it's good for those who want no-nonsense and straight to the point advice on life and business.

• Blogs

  • I read blogs more than anything and am on Twitter more often.  I'm an official Ritholz fanboy, and mostly read posts from their newest addition, Nick Magguili (https://ofdollarsanddata.com/).

Happy reading, everyone!

The Left Hand of Financial Planning

Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. "If this goes on, this is what will happen." A prediction is made. 

Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. 

                        -Ursula K. Le Guin

Though extrapolation is an element in Financial Planning, it isn’t the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the planner’s or the client’s. Variables are the spice of life.

I joined the ranks of financial planners because of my passion for decision making. My greatest enjoyment is derived from weaving between the complexities of life while balancing living in the moment and delaying gratification. This is paired with a tremendous amount of desire to understand the incentives and hopes that drive each of us to do the things we do. We see that this is true in finance and health, two things that affect everyone. These elements meet in a quote by Atul Gawande from his book Being Mortal:

“In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story.”

“A story” is not an extrapolation, a plan, or a Monte Carlo. These are simply tools used to identify how certain emotions and experiences are to be manufactured. There is no objective “successful plan” or widely agreed upon default assumption for how people desire to live their lives; “variables are the spice of life.” 

Money is merely a single variable that can be emphasized or deemphasized. Our goal should be to work towards an understanding of all variables and inputs – this is how we can help others make the most quality decisions.  

I am letting this post serve as a reminder to myself – to practice humility in my relationships and to understand that quality decisions do not come from spreadsheets, financial models, or a CRM. Quality decisions comes from intimate, empathetic relationships.

Our Favorite Books We Read In 2016

Last year we listed our favorite books we read in 2015. We compiled a similar list for 2016. As before, we purposely did not aim for a certain number each, so all the books listed are books we think are excellent. In other words, it is a list focused entirely on quality and not at all on quantity.

Regan

• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• On the Road - Jack Kerouac
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
• The Shining - Stephen King
• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World - Adam Grant

Bryan

• Anything You Want - Derek Sivers

Bryan’s commentary: This book is the story how Derek Sivers accidentally created the online business giant, CDBaby.com, then eventually sold it and decided to donate a healthy chunk of the proceeds to charity.  In the book, you learn why he first started the business, how he managed it, and the lessons and key advice he learned along the way. I took several notes in the book itself and re-read many paragraphs because they resonated with me deeply. It is essentially 80 small pages of straight-to-the-point advice that actually makes sense.  Sivers' attitude towards business is nothing short of refreshing. He was originally a musician, producer, engineer, then started CDbaby.com when he wanted a way to sell his CDs online. He taught himself how to computer program so he could create a 'buy now' button on his website, which was the first time any musician had done this. His friends heard about his ‘buy now’ button and asked him to make one for them too.  He made them for his friends only, who ended up telling their friends about it too. He did it all for free. Several, nice favors led to a multi-million dollar company. Although several tech, venture capitalists offered over the years, he never took investor money (except for his Dad's) because he didn't see the point. He was like “why do I need all of these investors?”  They would respond, “so you can keep growing and making more money.”  His response to that was, “well, I already have a lot of money.”  Within his business, he made a few errors and paid for them dearly, but ultimately, he was in it to help musicians and others he cared about. Best advice from this book: don't create a new business for the sole purpose of making a lot of money, simply start doing favors for others and keep doing what your audience is asking of you. If you’re good, it will become your new business.

Luke

• East of Eden - John Steinbeck 
• The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 
• Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World - Tim Sultan
• Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - Joshua Foer
• The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival - John Vaillant
• Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card

Joe

• When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
• Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World - Tim Sultan
• Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
• Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - Joshua Foer
• The Power of One: A Novel - Bryce Courtenay