Top 10 Productivity Books
for High Achievers

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #544: Top 10 Productivity Books for High Achievers

Jeff Sanders
What was the last great book you read?

How did it change your life?

Books have changed my life more than just about anything.

And this week, we're going to review just a few of my all-time favorites.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode #544 - The Top 10 Productivity Books for High Achievers.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer specializing in delivering high-energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth.

If you want to learn more, head over to jeffsanders.com/speaking.

In the episode this week, I'll break down my top 10 list of productivity books, how each book has radically transformed my own life and work, and how I think you should approach your next book to get the most value from it.

Let's dig in.

The first book that I read voluntarily after college was John Maxwell's Your Roadmap to Success.

Reading that book changed my life in an instant.

Not because that particular book offered anything special or unique, but because it was my first personal growth book, and I couldn't believe I had just discovered an entire new world of possibility.

This week, we're going to dive deep into a few of my all-time favorite books in the worlds of productivity, personal development, health and fitness, habits, mindset, discipline, and more.

Let's just dig right in.

These are my top 10 productivity books for high achievers.

We're going to start with number 10 and count this thing down to number one.

It's in reverse order of what I usually do here on this show, but I love a good checklist.

This is going to start us off with an awesome list.

Number 10.

I discussed this book in this podcast for years and it's one that I reread last year again because this book changes my perspective so often and I need it so regularly.

The book is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.

I have the book right here in my hands right now.

In fact, I have an entire stack of books that I'm going to be going through.

If we were on video, you would see that I have a lot of books here, actually more than 10, which you'll hear in a second.

But this first one, The Obstacle is the Way, is such a game changer in terms of mindset, overcoming challenges, acknowledging the quote that I always list here on this show from Albert Einstein, which is in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

From that perspective, that's what this book tackles head on.

It tackles the idea that your challenge is your opportunity.

It's not just in the middle of challenges you're going to find ways through it.

It's that the challenge itself is the thing, which sounds a bit bizarre.

It's a bit paradoxical in some ways, but it's a mindset shift for me every single day to ask the question, "What am I facing today?

What is my biggest challenge?

What is my biggest opportunity to move myself forward based on the idea that the challenges are what I'm seeking?"

Which is so counterintuitive.

Most of us believe that we are seeking a finish line.

We are seeking success and ease and comfort.

We are seeking the results that come from hard work.

But Ryan makes the argument that what we are seeking is the hard work itself.

And that is not very appealing.

That is not the kind of thing the average person dreams about.

You don't wake up at 5 a.m. and think, "I'm so excited to do hard things today."

That's just not the mentality.

You might be excited to go do something that you love to do.

You might have enthusiasm about doing an activity that brings out the best in you.

But generally speaking, that is going to involve some sense of challenge and obstacles and difficulties.

And we as people thrive with work.

We thrive through work and because of it, and we need it.

It is in our DNA to do difficult things and grow from those experiences.

And that honestly is a through line for all these books we're going to discuss today because obstacles are everywhere.

The challenges that we have are numerous in every area of life and work.

And to have a mindset around that reality, that we are in that space all the time, this will be a game changer for you if you have not read this book.

So once again, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.

I have both listened to the audio book and read the physical book numerous times, and I think you will as well.

Okay, that first book is down.

Next book coming up.

Number nine.

This is also a book.

Oh, by the way, every single book in this list I've discussed on this podcast before, none of these are new.

These are all the same books I've discussed because these books are so amazing.

Number nine, Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.

David is a controversial figure.

He is the kind of guy you either love him or hate him.

And I say that because he is intense.

And I want to underline, bold and italicize the word intense.

He is the most intense human being I have ever encountered.

I've never met him personally.

I think if I did, he would scare me.

That's kind of the point because he brings about this energy, this discipline, this perseverance.

And speaking of difficult problems, David's tagline for his life is stay hard because that's his goal all the time is to face challenges and to be strong and disciplined and to work your way through these things with just such intense grit that it's impossible not to want to excel by hearing his story.

He has written two books and I've read both of them, but the first one is the most powerful because it introduces his personal story.

David's background is a complicated, messy, kind of sad story in many ways.

There are so many obstacles he has faced that I have never faced in my life and probably never will.

And it's because of that he had a choice.

At some point in his life, he had to choose, do I let the obstacles of my past define me or not?

Will I forge a new path forward because I have no other choice but to either die mentally, physically, metaphorically from these past experiences or am I going to be reborn as a new man for him, a new David to move forward with this intense drive to excel.

And his motivations, they are complicated.

There's a lot of cobwebs in his closet, but it is the kind of thing where he said it's because of those cobwebs, I'm going to move forward with, with focus.

He said to himself, I'm going to fight through this anyway.

I'm going to become the man I know I can be despite or in because of these obstacles.

So for David, the obstacle is the way that's part of his story.

That is his story.

So if you want a great read, if you want to be inspired, if you want to be scared to go move yourself forward, the book can't hurt me is a powerful one.

And one that I, it is, uh, I will say this, let me pause for a second.

The book is very explicit.

It is extreme.

It is for adults and it is hardcore.

If you're up for that challenge and you want to radically change your life, if you were looking for a reinvention, I cannot speak highly enough of this book.

Once again, you're going to love it or you're going to hate it, but either way it will change you.

And I believe that's for the better.

Okay, moving on next book.

Number eight, actually number eight are three books.

Uh, these three books all share the same kind of vibe, which is habit change.

And so the three books that I have pulled out for number eight include atomic habits by James clear, which is a very popular book.

Uh, James has been a guest in this podcast a couple of times.

He's an awesome guy.

This book has sold millions of copies.

It is very popular because it is a very good book.

The second book in this habit series is the compound effect by Darren Hardy.

I've discussed this book for probably 10 years on this show.

It's an awesome, a slightly older book, I guess at this point, uh, but also phenomenal for habit change and understanding compounding, uh, interest compounding habits over time.

And the third is my book, the five a.m.

Miracle by Jeff Sanders.

All three of these books play on the same methodology of, we want to change our life by changing what we do every day.

So as a high achiever, as someone who wants to, you know, climb the next mountain, write the next book, uh, build the next business, do something dramatic and transformative.

That's wonderful.

It's awesome to have amazingly large ambitions.

The problem is, is that you cannot climb a mountain or achieve something grand in one fell swoop.

It is going to require repeated efforts over time.

And these books just really drill home.

The idea as well as this podcast as well, drill home, the idea that life is lived one day at a time that every single morning at 5:00 AM, perhaps you can wake up and choose to live differently today.

You can double down on your best habits.

You can fight and knock away bad habits, but either way, you're probably going to do the same things day after day and the impact, the compounding effect of those choices will be apparent over time.

Good habits will scale to become great.

Bad habits will scale to become disastrous.

And so our goal is to incorporate the best habits we can that are consistent and beneficial to us and our goals.

And when you understand how habits work, which all of these books kind of speak to that, you can understand how to transform your natural tendencies, how to stop doing things you know are not good for you and to start doing things that you maybe you've been procrastinating on or delaying.

All of this is human behavior, human psychology to overcome our desire to not do the thing we know we should do, which I think really speaks to what habits fight in such a powerful way.

Once a habit is established, you have the ability to do something fairly mindlessly and get the benefits of that choice that you make one time and then just bake it into your life so you do it over and over again with a lot less effort as time passes on.

And so the goal here is to craft the kinds of habits that can change your whole life so that high achievement, grand goals can be achieved because you have the kinds of habits that set you up for that kind of success.

One of the things about habits I want to mention for sure is this reality that I have faced probably in the last year or two, which is the reminder that habits are us.

We are a reflection of our past choices.

So if you want to improve your life in the future, say six or 12 months from now, you want to be a newer and better version of you.

Your habits are going to define 95% of that success.

It will not be a one-time choice.

It will not be a sporadic, impulsive decision.

It will be habitual decisions that you make every single day over and over and over.

That's it.

You want to change your life?

Change what you do every day.

Number seven.

This is a classic in the world of productivity as well, and that would be impossible for me not to mention and talk about forever.

I'll keep it short though.

Of course, the classic Getting Things Done by David Allen.

If you have not read this book, yes, it is old.

Yes, it has been rewritten and updated over the years, but it is a staple in the world of productivity for one key reason.

This is why I reread this book and why I continue to reference it.

What David Allen has done in this book is provide a framework.

It is a way for you to approach productivity that is methodical.

It is strategic.

It is for the most part non-emotional, and it really just asks the question, what's next?

What's your next action?

Just define what that is and do it.

That's it.

It really keeps things very simple.

Now the way he goes about allowing you to craft a life where that's possible, it can be complicated depending on how you view it.

Mostly because there's a lot of lists.

There's a lot of structural changes in your life and work, but that's where the value comes from.

It comes from that transformative change to view your work in a new way.

The systems that I use are based on that.

My task manager, Nosebee, is based off of the Getting Things Done framework.

The idea of what's the next action, that question, is one that I ask myself a thousand times a day because I'm trying to figure out what my next best move is.

This book will help you answer that question.

It will help you establish the framework that you need to ask and answer the right questions so that what you need that matters most is in front of you and everything else is organized, archived, put away, not distracting you, not causing problems, but the things that matter are here and the things that don't matter are there.

With that in mind, you didn't ask yourself the question, what could I do differently?

How could I restructure my productivity?

How could I build a new framework so that I get the most value from my day and my time that I can?

In a nutshell, that's the book.

There's a lot more to it than that with weekly reviews and two-minute rules and all kinds of great things.

From the sake of productivity, if you care about productivity at all, you have to care at least somewhat about the Getting Things Done framework or at least understand why people like me love it so much.

For book number six, this is one I actually don't have the physical copy of.

I listened to this book as an audio book a couple of times in the last probably two or three years.

It is called Do the Hard Things First by Scott Allen.

This book can push your buttons more than most will.

I say that because of what I mentioned earlier, which is that we don't tend to want to do things that are difficult.

We tend to want to do things that are easy or just simply avoid the hard things as long as we possibly can because it is potentially painful.

There's a sacrifice required in doing something difficult.

Our natural tendency is to avoid those types of tasks.

This book challenges that mentality.

It challenges us in a way that frankly most books just don't.

I love what Scott has done here because he's asking the question, "If I were to prioritize my tasks for the day in a way that was the most logical for me achieving the things that matter most," in other words, guaranteeing success by the end of the day.

Tonight, your head's going on the pillow and you want to be confident that today was successful.

How can you guarantee that feeling?

How can you wake up tomorrow morning and know that that day is going to go well?

The answer is going to be based primarily on the order of events.

It's going to be based on what you choose to do first thing in the day versus what you just kind of lag on until later.

The 5 a.m. miracle concept is this concept.

Do the hard things first challenges you to do something difficult right away versus my 5 a.m. miracle concept, which is to wake up and do something transformative, do something that's empowering, that's energizing.

You could do the same thing though.

You could choose 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, choose a difficult task to do right away, and then the rest of your day is that much better.

This is also Brian Tracy's concept of eat the frog.

It's the same ideas, all repackaged in different ways.

But what I love most about Scott's book is that he's really arguing that the difficult thing is the solution.

It is the power you seek.

It is the obstacles the way, once again, by doing that difficult thing and doing it first, you have just opened an entire kind of Pandora's box of opportunity for you because the rest of the day is not going to be as difficult.

The rest of your tasks will seem easy by default, and then all of a sudden, you're just flying through your list.

Things are getting done with more efficiency.

There's more success, and those big annoying projects have been in the back of your mind forever.

Well, now they're just done.

They're out the door because you did them.

And so the stress you may feel from that, the procrastination techniques you may have employed to not do them, those are gone now because you're going to do the thing.

It's going to get done, and you're going to feel great when you do it.

A long time ago, I heard this kind of a quotation and a common mantra around writers, and it was that writers feel the best when they have written.

In other words, they are the kinds of people who are writers, they want to write, and yet they don't.

I've written multiple books.

I know what it feels like to have a task in front of you and to identify as someone who does something.

Yes, I'm a writer.

I'm an author.

Here I am.

But when it comes time to do the work, when it comes time to sit down and do it, you don't.

You find every excuse not to.

Okay, let's move on now to number five, which is actually two different books that both – I chose these books because they really hit on this concept that I discuss here on this podcast all the time that I love probably more than most things, which is focus.

I discuss focus blocks of time all the time, and both of these books allow you to optimize a focus block of time in such profound ways.

The first one is called Deep Work by Cal Newport, and the second is Indistractable by Nir Eyal.

I interviewed Nir on the show a few years ago.

Cal is someone who I have not interviewed yet and probably should, but both of these books are phenomenal.

Both of them hit at the idea that we as people and as workers and as achievers, we seek distraction by default.

We avoid the deep focused work that we know is the most profound.

In order for us to truly get the most value from our time, to get the most quality and most quantity from the work that we're doing, we need focus.

We need deep focused time.

We need to be able to have a distraction-free environment, a singular task to work on, and then to give our entirety of ourselves, our focus, everything about us to that one task.

When that happens, that's where the quality shows up.

That's where the quantity is there.

We have the opportunity to do such better work and more impact over time from our work if we allow ourselves to go deep.

If instead of trying to do a thousand things in a day, we try to do just one, maybe two if we have free time, but just do one meaningful thing.

Imagine the power there.

Imagine the power of doing one meaningful task a day and have that thing be something where you can go deep, where you can think through the difficult parts of it, where you can really bring out the most value.

There is such a profound distinction between the kinds of people who go through life with their hair on fire versus those who go through life with a calm demeanor.

The kinds of people who just know they've got their stuff together.

They've got their checklist.

They've got their systems.

But more than that, they know what matters and they're going to give their all to those very few things that mean the most to them.

That's where impact comes from.

That's where significance comes from.

That's where transformation shows up or massive achievement shows up.

It comes from those moments when we allow ourselves to be truly focused, block those distractions and go deep on something that really matters to us and our mission.

Whatever you are trying to do, whatever you're striving for, I would challenge you to ask the question, how could I reshape my calendar, reshape my time, my default behaviors, my habits to align to this idea that I do value deep work and I want to be able to give my all to one specific thing without distraction, without the fear that you're wasting time, without this back of your mind pinging you that there should be 500 other things to get to later.

We want to clear all that out and just say, no, no, no.

Most of that stuff is meaningless.

Most of that stuff could disappear forever and it would be way better for us if that were true.

And then all that remains are a couple of things and those couple of things matter a lot and then you give your whole self to those and all of a sudden life is a lot more simplistic.

You can align minimalism to that same kind of strategy that we're trying to really whittle this down to just a couple of things and kick butt in those areas.

That's the intention.

So once again, Deep Work by Cal Newport and Indistractable by Nir Eyal.

Number four, I have two more books for you.

You love it.

This top 10 list has way more than 10 books.

Yeah, it's great.

All right.

Number four are two books, both by Steven Pressfield.

Steven Pressfield is known for a lot of things in the world of fiction, but he also has some phenomenal nonfiction works that I think personally are his best works.

Maybe because I just love nonfiction more than fiction, but regardless, these two books can change your life, both turning pro and do the work.

There's also a third book called The War of Art that plays with these, but for the sake of argument here on high achievements and productivity, these first two are profound.

Turning pro, which teaches you how to make that transformation from an amateur to a professional and to do so in a way that is a distinct decision.

It's not something that just kind of happens accidentally over time.

It's a choice that you make.

You literally have yesterday, you were an amateur.

Today you are a pro and the choice that you made to make that shift will transform your life forever.

And Steven challenges you.

Once again, that we used to challenge a lot.

These books are challenging.

They're asking more of you.

And in this book, Steven is challenging you to make that choice, to recognize if you've been an amateur and specific areas of your life.

And to ask the question, do you want to stay there or not?

Do you want to continue to be the amateur or do you want to go pro?

Because if you do, when you make that choice, there's a new path to go down.

Yes, it involves more challenges.

Yes, it involves more difficulty, but of course it involves bigger rewards and more fulfillment and those goals you want to achieve.

Well, that's where they are.

It's in the world of those who have turned pro.

The second book, do the work allows you to then take that professional mentality and actually execute on these visions you have.

So do the work.

It basically boils down to Steven's perspective as a writer.

Once again, who had these massive challenges of, well, if I wanted to write today, how can I do that?

How can I guarantee that I got my 500 words in today or a thousand words or four hours of writing, whatever the case may be?

Well, for Steven, the answer was sit your butt in the chair and write.

That's it.

Sit your butt in the chair and write.

And whatever it is you're striving to do, whatever it is you've been procrastinating on, whatever it is you have been trying to figure out when the time might be right for you to take that next step, to make that big leap.

Steven is basically saying the time is right now, literally right now, do the work, sit your butt in the chair and go, because if that's what it takes, that's what's required.

And then once you've put in that work for the day, you know, your three, four hours are up, whatever the timeframe happens to be, then you're done.

Day's over.

You did the hard work first.

You made it happen.

You're good.

And I just love this simplicity of this because when you really boil down, whatever it is you're doing, whether it's training for a marathon, building a business, raising a family, doing the work is so simplistic and specific and obvious when you ask the question, what is that thing that I need to do?

And how could I guarantee it happens?

You do it.

That's how you guarantee it.

You just do it.

You execute on the vision.

And if you're confused about what it means to do the work, then the work is to define what the work is.

And then the second you know what it is, you do it.

It's just, it is that simple yet always so difficult in practice.

So turning pro and do the work by Steven Pressfield.

Awesome books.

All right.

We're down to our final three books here.

Number three is Effortless by Greg McKeown.

This is a phenomenal book.

If you just heard all the things that I just said about hard work and thought, Jeff, I don't want to do hard work.

That sounds hard.

Why would I want to do that?

Well, Greg McKeown is offering us a path forward, a path where it's not hard, a path where the difficult work isn't actually difficult.

It's actually effortless.

Now, of course, in practice, hard work still has to happen.

But what Greg is arguing here is that there are so many ways for us to take things that are difficult and make them easy.

Take something that's complicated and make it simple.

Take something that is a gargantuan, overwhelming, exhausting idea and make it a very simple, straightforward, tangible next action.

If you're able to do that, you can take the next step.

You can move forward.

You can do something that's relatively so easy you can't imagine not doing it.

You can reduce the friction, improve your efficiency, really flow smoothly from one thing to the next to the next.

If you're able to do that in a way that makes your daily flow more effortless, well, then you're more likely to continue that lifestyle, build in those types of habits and see more success with less stress.

The biggest benefit that I see from making things effortless is not avoiding hard work.

It is reducing stress.

This is a topic that I don't discuss enough on this podcast, but it is one that needs so much attention.

The world of high achievers, yes, it's a world of grand achievement.

That's the point.

It's also the number one location for stress, overwhelm, and burnout.

Our greatest skill set as high achievers, our greatest talents and abilities all come with a double-edged sword.

They all have this big asterisk that says, "I may be doing awesome things, but my methodology to achieve them comes with it a consequence, a trade-off."

Generally speaking, for most high achievers, that trade-off is our mental health.

If you don't prioritize free time, if you don't take breaks on purpose, if you don't make difficult things easier, you are climbing a difficult mountain for no reason.

You're putting yourself through the ringer just to burn yourself out.

My challenge to you personally isn't to read effortless.

My challenge to you is to ask the question, "How do you feel today?

How do you feel on most days?"

Because the answer to those questions really needs to align to, "I am moving in a direction of feeling less stressed.

I am moving in a direction of feeling more empowered by the work that I do."

You're not going to feel energized and empowered and excited and enthusiastic if you're burned out.

You're not going to feel awesome if you feel terrible.

It's so obvious.

And yet, we put ourselves through these high-stress environments without the payoff we want.

We're burning ourselves out for what?

Asking these questions will lead to new answers.

And so, yes, take this book seriously.

Make difficult things easy.

But also, take your sanity seriously.

Lower the bar if that's what it takes.

Be a high achiever, but be a smart achiever.

And the smart achiever takes care of themselves.

That's the message.

That's the lesson to be learned.

And it's a powerful one.

Number two, of course, this one has two books as well.

Number two is also a book by Greg McKeown.

It's actually his first book, Essentialism, as well as a book that I have mentioned probably more than most on this podcast, The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papazan.

I have actually interviewed Jay Papazan talking about The One Thing, and I interviewed Greg McKeown talking about both of his other books as well.

These books are a game changer if your question is, "What matters today?

Where does my time go today?"

Greg McKeown's take on it is to become an essentialist, someone who does the essential things and nothing else.

Versus Gary Keller and Jay Papazan are asking the question with The One Thing, "If there was only one thing to do, what would it be?"

If there was just the most simplistic of to-do lists, which literally has one thing on it, what would that list include?

When you're able to ask and answer those types of questions, once again, you will whittle down the chaos of your daily life into something that is so obvious and direct and simple that it doesn't require a lot of stress.

It doesn't require a lot of chaos.

In fact, it just requires you to acknowledge reality.

Yes, here is the one or two things that need my attention, so I'm going to go do those things and I'm going to ignore the rest of my world to the best of my ability until those couple of things are done.

And then once they are, I'm good.

I'll have more flexibility, more free time, more of an ability to tackle my life because I have directly addressed what matters the most.

And I am constantly challenged with these concepts.

When I say constantly, I literally mean every single day.

I need reminders to get back to what matters on a daily basis.

I have a task list.

I said earlier, I use Nozbe for my task manager.

Every single morning I pull up Nozbe, I look at my list for the day, I pull up my calendar, I look at it as well, and almost a guarantee my first feeling is, "Oh boy, I have a lot to do today."

Just instantly this feeling of, "Wow, this is a tall order of tasks.

This is going to be a long and difficult day because I always, by default, overschedule my life."

And I think the lesson to be pulled from these books more than anything is we have to underplan.

We have got to do less.

We have got to break our lives down to the few things that mean something and have the guts to say no to everything else, to truly be able to have no be our default answer to new questions and new requests.

And that is such a difficult transition to make if you are the kind of person who always says yes.

If you're the kind of person who has big dreams and big goals and you want to do all the things like I do, you can't.

It's just not going to happen.

And in order for us to have any kind of sanity and any kind of achievement, it will not come from being a do it all kind of guy.

That was my lifestyle for such a long time.

And my default habitual response to life is to keep saying yes.

So I have to hold myself back all the time.

I have to be able to acknowledge, "Wait a minute.

My task list today is too long.

Something's got to go."

And not just something, a lot of somethings.

And as soon as that happens and my list is then easy, if that's even possible to get to, all of a sudden I'm excited again.

I'm energized again.

I'm just pumped to go do the things I know matter today.

And the rest I'm just not going to touch.

It is a shift.

It is one that I am always challenged to be making, but one that is necessary.

So if you're there, if you know that feeling of, "Man, this to-do list is too long.

This calendar is too messy.

My life is kind of running away from me and it's just not working," become an essentialist.

Try the one thing and give your life to those few things.

Okay.

Now that we've covered so many books, more than the top nine, we actually have quite a few more than that, we are down to the final number one book for not just productivity, not just high achievers, but I would say the number one book for people who are dreamers.

This is a book that changed my life probably more than any other about 15 years ago.

And the book is called Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes.

Dean has been on this podcast.

He actually wrote a really nice testimonial for my last book.

He is a phenomenal guy.

But more than that, he is the kind of guy and his books are the types of books that just ask us to dream.

They ask us to imagine what if.

If I were to be able to climb the tallest mountain, run the longest marathon, build the biggest business, have the greatest impact, if I was able to do the most grand of things, what would that be?

What could that look like?

How could I begin that process of pursuing that massive, not just fantasy, but real goal?

This book is not about running.

Yes, of course, Dean Karnazes has run probably more than most people on planet earth.

The book is called Ultramarathon Man for a reason.

What I pull from this book is not an inspiring book to go run more, even though I love to run.

What I pull from this is the inspiration to dream bigger and to believe in your dreams, to believe in the identity of yourself as the kind of person who can have bigger dreams and at least achieve part of it.

Even the attempt at a big goal is something that most people will shy away from.

They'll be too scared to start.

They will sound too scary, too daunting, too big, and so they do nothing.

The false premise of the all or nothing fallacy is just so infuriating to me because we have so much potential to do so many grand things, and yet when we see big dreams and we shy away from them, we are diminishing our own potential.

We are screwing ourselves.

It's painful to watch.

It's painful to experience.

And I say this from personal experience.

This has been my story in a lot of ways.

I have so many big goals that I have refused to start.

And so I am challenged to dream bigger.

I am challenged to do more.

And a book like this, it's impossible not to feel like I need to get up and go.

I need to go do something now.

Let's make that happen.

So yes, read this book.

Have that willingness to push yourself.

This will change your life.

Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes.

Okay, so that's the top 10 list.

I covered probably 15 books there, but I would love to hear from you.

What books have I missed?

Which books in the worlds of productivity, high achievements have inspired you, have transformed your life?

You can email me those answers, jeff@jeffsanders.com, and I will look into those books and I'll probably do an episode of this podcast talking about them in the near future.

I love this kind of stuff.

I'm telling you, I started the episode by saying that books have changed my life more than most things.

That is undeniably true, right?

You can hear how excited I am about these concepts and these books because they're so powerful.

Books change the way we think.

They change our vision for the future.

They cause us to do different things and literally get different and better results.

So if you want to change your life, read books like these and others, and allow these books to get into your psyche, allow them to change you, be open and willing to change and adapt and grow.

And I say that as a guy who's about to turn 40 years old, I'm entering into this whole new arena of probably being the old man in the group.

And yet I am more open to the idea of change than I have been in a long time.

I am more aware that I need to change now and in the future more than ever.

And these books, yes, they will challenge you.

Yes, they will allow you to grow, but they also keep you nimble.

They keep you young.

They keep you inspired.

They keep you dreaming.

And so if you want to be that kind of person, read these books and let them transform your life.

And for the action step this week, pick just one book on the list.

I know that's hard to do.

Pick just one book and start reading it.

My personal favorite way to read a productivity book is a printed version with a highlighter, a pen and paper.

I know that's old school, but the goal here is to find and take action on the best advice from the book and allow that to be a tangible, real experience.

So read slowly, take really good notes and let the book guide you into a new arena of productivity and of course, high achievement.

Now of course, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle community by getting the premium ad free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

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