Note: The Bookrat email is a spin-off from Anthony Pompliano's Pomp Letter. You will receive all future book summaries here, while still receiving Pomp's finance, economics, and bitcoin commentary on The Pomp Letter. Our goal is to separate the two types of content to make it easier to consume.

Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly

I read one book per week. Last week’s book was Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Wednesday morning.

Book’s main argument:

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired Magazine and he has seen quite a lot during his 71 years of life. Over the decades, Kelly would write down various lessons for himself so he could revisit them later. This book is a compilation of all the lessons that Kelly thought were worth writing down. It is better to learn lessons from someone else's life, rather than have to make the same decisions and mistakes to figure things out yourself. This quick read will help you do exactly that.

5 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Family is one of the most important aspects of life. This is true for children and adults. You can create a great family atmosphere and environment by intentionally carrying out a few activities. Kelly writes:

"To build strong children, reinforce their sense of belonging to a family by articulating exactly what is distinctive about your family. They should be able to say with pride, “Our family does X.”"

"You can find no better medicine for your family than regular meals together without screens."

"Invent as many family rituals as you can handle with ease. Anything done on a schedule—large or small, significant or silly—can become a ritual. Repeated consistently, small routines become legendary. Anticipation is key."

"For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should but double the time with them."

💡 Idea #2 — Many people have the wrong idea about work. It doesn't have to be a soul-sucking activity that you dread from the morning you wake up to the second you close your eyes at night. There is a much better path to be pursued. Kelly writes:

"Don’t create things to make money; make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work."

"Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become."

"You cannot get smart people to work extremely hard just for money."

"Do more of what looks like work to others but is play for you."

"It doesn’t matter how many people don’t appreciate you or your work. The only thing that counts is how many do."

💡 Idea #3 — You are not going to agree with everyone, but that doesn't mean you can't learn something from everyone you come in contact with. Learning is all about being interested and having patience to ask the right questions. The skill of learning can be acquired. Kelly writes:

"Learn how to learn from those you disagree with or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe."

"The best way to learn anything is to try to teach what you know."

"A superpower worth cultivating is learning from people you don’t like. It is called “humility.” This is the courage to let dumb, hateful, crazy, mean people teach you something, because despite their character flaws, they each know something you don’t."

"The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they’ll find you. To be interesting, be interested."

💡 Idea #4 — Cherish your friends. Treat strangers like your friend. We live in a world where many people seek as many connections as possible, but there is value in having high-quality connections with a small number of people. Friendship may sound like an outdated concept, but it never goes out of style. Kelly writes:

"Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways, a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat."

"Treating a person to a meal never fails and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends."

"When you are young, have friends who are older; when you are old, have friends who are younger."

"An honest friend is someone who wants nothing at all from you."

💡 Idea #5 — There is a pandemic of loneliness and unhappiness in modern society. You are in control of your happiness though. It is not hard to be happy, you just have to be willing to do the right work. Kelly writes:

"Unhappiness comes from wanting what others have. Happiness comes from wanting what you already have."

"The greatest killer of happiness is comparison. If you must compare, compare yourself to you yesterday."

"When you lend something, pretend you are gifting. If it is returned, you’ll be surprised and happy."

"Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points."

Memorable quotes:

Don’t be the best. Be the only.
Write to discover what you think.
Promptness is a sign of respect.
“No” is an acceptable answer even without a reason.
Very few regrets in life are about what you did. Almost all are about what you didn’t do.
The most effective remedy for anger is delay.
If nobody else does what you do, you won’t need a resume.
Let your children choose their punishments. They’ll be tougher than you will.
If you want something to get done, ask a busy person to do it.
Buy used books. They have the same words as the new ones.
You will be judged on how well you treat those who can do nothing for you.
No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.
Don’t let your email inbox become your to-do list run by others.
To combat an adversary, become their friend.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This was a very enjoyable book. It can be read in a single afternoon. The book felt like I was reading a hall of fame of tweets from someone who had thought deeply about the world. Definitely recommend reading this one if you have the time.

My first big takeaway is how disciplined Kevin Kelly had to be to write down every lesson he learned over the years. Even if someone had a masterplan to write a book like this one, it would be difficult to document the hundreds of ideas that you have throughout your average day. Jocko Willink says "discipline equals freedom" and it feels like that is what Kelly accomplished here.

My second big takeaway was the importance of simplicity. Kelly is able to take complex, yet powerful, ideas and boil them down into a single sentence. The ability to communicate in these pithy single sentences is incredibly valuable, especially in the internet age where attention spans have shortened and social media platforms reward virality to those who can evoke emotion from their audience.

My third big takeaway is how important the creation of family values and culture is. Clayton Christensen talks in How Will You Measure Your Life? about instilling family values in your children, which is almost identical to Kelly's view of creating family traditions and a sense of family belonging. Any time I hear more than one well-respected, thoughtful person articulate the same idea, I make sure to pay attention. Just as you can create the life you want, you can also create the family you want too.

My fourth and final takeaway was Kelly's unique view of money. He says "money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money" and "almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money." This belief flies in the face of the mainstream narrative. Every day someone is tweeting how they believe their lack of access to capital is stopping them from accomplishing a dream. The good news is that we still have a lot of innovations left to create. The technology sector is just beginning. I will leave you with this final piece of wisdom from Kevin Kelly: "This is the best time ever to make something. None of the greatest, coolest creations 20 years from now have been invented yet. You are not late."

You are not late, my friend. Get started today.

As I mentioned, last week’s book was Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Wednesday morning. Reply to this email with your thoughts, including what you agreed or disagreed with. I will respond to as many emails as I can.

-Pomp