7 books that rewired how I create, sell, and live
Sunday musings: From invisible to five-figure months, these books helped me stop hiding, start building, and serve with clarity.
I grew up hiding in libraries, spending hours between shelves where no one asked me to explain myself.
Books were my refuge long before I had language for queerness, softness, or difference. I was still trying to be an alpha male on the outside, bullying people and getting arrested, but on the inside, I lived in the fiction, philosophy, and science shelves.
Then, somewhere along the way, that part of me disappeared because Netflix replaced novels and doomscrolling replaced silence as my attention span shrank.
I tried to pick it back up with audiobooks, thinking they would help me re-enter the world of books while folding laundry or commuting to work, but it wasn’t the same.
When I finally came back to books, I returned not as a student, but as someone trying to rebuild a life from scratch.
Day Trading Attention by Gary Vee allowed me to start creating before I felt truly ready. I was broke, burnt out, and invisible. But I posted anyway, daily, and without a strategy. I tried everything in that book like a student learning how to walk again, and eventually, it worked.
Then came The Art of Focus by Dan Koe, and I stopped working 12-hour days.
I built my four-hour workday system from scratch using principles in that book. I learned to protect my energy like it was equity. stopped chasing output and started creating leverage. I write to stay sane, not meet deadlines.
Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity helped me replace guilt with joy.
I used to push through burnout, convinced that discipline was the only path to freedom. That book changed everything, and I started choosing frictionless systems instead of brute-force willpower. I began scheduling joy into my calendar as a design principle.
Dan Koe’s Purpose & Profit reframed everything I believed about sales.
I used to think making money meant selling out, and that book reminded me that real creators solve real problems and that marketing, at its best, is service. I stopped shaming myself for building a business and started showing up as a guide, not a performer.
Then I read The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom, and it affirmed the biggest decision I have ever made, to build my business around my daughter, not around investor timelines or growth hacks. Time, health, peace, and presence are the real currencies now, and I protect them ruthlessly.
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi came next and forced me to rewrite everything.
I stopped selling effort and started selling outcomes. I rebuilt my offer stack, redefined value, and priced transformation, not time. Clients stopped asking, “What’s your hourly rate?” and started asking, “When can we start?”
But the most personal book was No More Bosses by Adrian Tan.
It was the first time I saw a story like mine told from Singapore, gritty, imperfect, true. It made me feel less alone and helped me embrace the reality that building a one-person business is about going deep, with clarity, service, and trust.
Books did not build my business, but they rewired everything.
They helped me unlearn the shame of visibility and helped me design systems around my life, not the other way around. They gave me the confidence to stop hiding and the clarity to start building.
See you next Sunday.
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