ATG 256: The 4 Books That Changed My Year  ## Metadata - Author: [[All It Takes Is A Goal]] - Full Title: ATG 256: The 4 Books That Changed My Year - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/9bed497a-3ef9-40d5-a6ee-6a0cf6f36961 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Read Less To Retain More** - Reduce book quantity to improve retention and depth of learning. - Read fewer books more intentionally to get more value from each one. Transcript: Jon Acuff I'm your host, John Acuff, and today I'm going to tell you the four best books I read in 2025. Last year, I read more than 100 books. I talked about that in the last episode of this podcast. I read 100 books. I was very excited about that. But I realized I wasn't getting much out of the books because I was flying through them. So this year, 2025, I reduced my list to about 25 books. And again, I explained why I did that in the last episode. So if you haven't listened to that one, we'll link it in the show notes as always. You can check out that episode. It's also for me, 2025 was a book writing year, which means I'm focused on that. I'm reading research and sections of books, but often not whole books as I figure out my own. ([Time 0:02:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5bcd99fc-7376-47ef-a825-67c5c12bb686)) - **Michael Ovitz And The Rise Of CAA** - Jon credits Who Is Michael Ovitz? as his top business read for storytelling and industry insight. - The book traces the rise of CAA and its cutthroat agency culture with vivid stories. Transcript: Jon Acuff And the title is, Who is Michael Ovitz? By Michael Ovitz. So autobiography, obviously. And shout out to my brother, Will Acuff. I have three siblings. I have a brother in East Nashville, kind of like he's like the cool one in Middle Tennessee. He lives in like the city. I live out in the suburbs in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. Then I have another brother in Charlottesville. And then I have a sister in Chapel Hill. And Will, my next in kin, gives the best book recommendations. He always has a really good book recommendation. And sometimes they're self-help, sometimes they're business, sometimes they're like Lord of the Rings-ish. He's good for those too. But we talk a couple times a week, often while we're running. We are both runners. I'll probably finish at around 650 miles this year. He'll finish at like 1300 miles. So he gets after it. And one day on a run, he said, Hey, you, you got to check out this book. Who is Michael Ovitz? And so I took a listen. Now, if you don't know who Michael Ovitz is, he co-founded CAA, one of the most successful talent agencies in the history of mankind. So he left William Morris with some buddies. He kind of had a small group of people. They linked arms. They started their own talent agency in LA. And ([Time 0:03:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/239154c1-7f01-41f6-974b-63c8bf6d2f32)) - **Autobiographies Are Subjective Narratives** - Autobiographies and documentaries carry an inherent bias and present a subjective version of events. - Read them critically, recognizing they often serve to justify the author's perspective. Transcript: Jon Acuff And what you have to remember is that autobiographies and documentaries have like an element of propaganda in them. It's so fascinating when you learn this, like, oh, okay. Like, yeah, documentaries have a side they're telling. There's a bit of propaganda in that, like, it's not neutral. If you watch a documentary, the person had a point and then tried to prove that point over and over and over again. So you do have to read the book with that sense. Like he's telling his version of the story. It's his version of the story, how things happened, but he does cover some of the regret he has because his reputation was pretty cutthroat. He was very much, if you kind of went against us, we would go scorched earth. There's a lot of that. And you can feel that tension in here where he goes, man, looking back on it, I wish I hadn't pushed that hard. Man, looking back on it, I wish I haven't gone that violently at this business. Man, looking back on it, I wish I had been more patient or I wish I had been more aware of what my employees felt about me. Because there's a lot of stories like that. ([Time 0:06:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/49c853a3-2442-40f4-bafe-68fd69032333)) - **Use The Ten-Minute Meeting Trick** - Ask for just ten minutes when seeking time with high-level people and visibly limit the meeting. - Most people extend the conversation, turning ten minutes into much longer, productive meetings. Transcript: Jon Acuff Like one of my favorite tricks he does is when he was trying to get in touch with somebody who was levels above him. So somebody who was way more successful, maybe it was a big producer, maybe it was somebody in tech. He would say, Hey, can I just get 10 minutes with you? He would find somebody who knew that person. So it'd get kind of a personal vetting going. And he'd say, can I just get 10 minutes? He would sit down in their office. He would go to them, sit down in their office, take off his watch, put it in front of them. And at the end of the 10 minutes, he would stand up to leave. And he said, 99% of the time, the person wanted to keep going. And he said it would turn into an hour long conversations or two hour long conversations. ([Time 0:07:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b89e68a-0e47-456d-8a3d-a1227d88a614)) - **Balance Memoirs With Oral Histories** - Pair an autobiography with an oral history to get multiple perspectives on the same events. - Use Powerhouse to see CAA through many voices and balance Ovitz's version. Transcript: Jon Acuff And if you enjoy this one, check out Powerhouse by James Andrew Miller. What's interesting about Powerhouse is that it tells the full story of CAA from all the employees and everybody who's involved. It's an oral history. I don't know if you've ever read or listened to a book like that. I love oral histories because it's just quotes from people that were part of it. So that one offers kind of a different perspective too of what was it really like to be around Michael Ovitz? ([Time 0:08:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/43b9ef11-44f3-4833-b429-25cf624782ae)) - **Grant Snyder’s Illustrated Mindset Vignettes** - Jon has collaborated with illustrator Grant Snyder and admires his blend of orthodontics and art. - Thinking About Thinking uses single-page illustrated vignettes to explore mindset and overthinking. Transcript: Jon Acuff My second one is Thinking About Thinking, Impossible Thoughts and Complicated Feelings by snyder grant snyder is one of my favorite illustrators i've uh kind of circled him for years I first bumped into him on instagram and loved his work so much as an illustrator that we collaborated on a poster we did for the release of my book finish we actually did two posters, one About finishing, one about perfection. So I wrote the ideas and he illustrated them and created these beautiful posters. And I think I'm going to have him on this podcast at some point. We've talked about it. Seems like a fascinating guy. And one of the things I love about Grant's approach is he's also an orthodontist. And I love that. I love somebody who does two completely opposite things. I mean, on the one hand, he's an orthodontist and he has to be detailed and he has to be scientific and he has to run a business and he has all these skills that being an orthodontist requires. And then on the other hand, he's an illustrator and he creates these beautiful pictures of what it's like to be overthinking or what it's like to get stuck in your worry or what it's like To feel hope. And so it's just a really interesting mix. And so his book, his new book, he's got tons of books and I recommend them all, but his new book, Thinking About Thinking, really explores that. It really explores the concept of mindset. And as somebody who wrote a book about mindset called Soundtracks, I found it really helpful, really interesting and really unusual in the best possible ways. Now the book, it's kind of hard to do this book justice because it's illustrated. So I feel a bit like they used to joke that you could do any magic trick you wanted to on the radio because nobody could see it and see if it worked. It feels a little like I'm describing a picture with my words on a audio medium. But man, beautiful book full of usually single page or maybe single spread ideas about mindset. So if you're looking for ([Time 0:09:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e4132181-d85f-4b0b-a9e5-50c7b08a250e)) - **Eldredge Expanded His Faith View** - Experience Jesus, Really was Jon's favorite faith book this year and challenged his usual views. - John Eldredge pushed him beyond his standard understanding toward a more charismatic perspective. Transcript: Jon Acuff I'm a Christian, and this is my favorite faith book I read this year. Again, I try to read a variety of books, like this book's going to feed my brain. This one's going to feed my heart. This one's going to feed my health. And this was my favorite faith book of the year. I've been doing the YouVersion app. So I was really focused on the Bible this year, as far as reading goes from a faith perspective. But I did manage to finish a few faith-based books, and this was my favorite one. And I like this one because it pulled me from behind my standard understanding of like charismatic beliefs. Like I grew up in a pretty traditional faith experience, and John Eldridge is definitely more on the edge, in my opinion, on like charismatic. And so if you grew up around the church, you kind of understand what I'm talking about. But I would say that he's much more like exploring kind of the charismatic ([Time 0:11:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/47903f9b-cde1-40e2-848d-250953a5b49b)) - **Prefer Authors Who Practice Their Message** - Learn from authors who live what they teach by observing their lifestyles. - Value authors who model presence and outdoor life, not just those who lecture nonstop. Transcript: Jon Acuff But I like his approach to life. And I like that he lives what he teaches. So he talks about the outdoors a lot. He talks about presence a lot. And he lives that way. And I know that because we have the same agent. He and I share the same letter agent. So we always talk about sometimes when they're trying to get him, like get in touch with him, he's on like a two week elk hunt in Colorado. And I love that. I love that he writes about that side of his heart and that side of his life. And then he's actually living it too, because there's guys like that, that have had the level of success he's had that never turn it off. ([Time 0:12:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/007224f7-ab02-422d-ac53-b144dfaf79f1)) - **A Poet’s Guide To Reclaiming Wildness** - Courting The Wild Twin is a strange but powerful poetic fable about reclaiming your banished wild self. - The book frames the wild part as a twin in the forest that you must court back to be whole. Transcript: Jon Acuff Courting the Wild Twin. Man, oh man, you haven't read this book. I know you haven't read this book. It is an unusual book, and not a lot of people have read it. And it's by Martin Shaw. And Martin Shaw is brilliant. Now, I will say up front, let me just be very, very up front. This one is weird. It's weird. You know, if I ever had the opportunity to have him on my podcast, I'd say like, this is kind of a weird book. And I think he'd go, it is weird. If you read it and later you tell me, hey, John, I read that book courting the wild twin by Martin Shaw. It was weird. I will say to you, I know, I know, I know it was weird. I said, that was how I started the description. It's essentially a poet, Martin Shaw, I think he's British writing about what it takes to bring that wild part of you back into the fold. So that wild part of you that you need when you feel stuck, that you need when you catch yourself playing it too safe, that you need when you kind of start living a boring life. Now, the idea, the book that the idea is kind of based on is a fable that there's a wild part of you that's been banished into the forest. So a wild twin, and you have to court it. You have to convince it. You have to talk it back into the castle because you're meant to be a whole person. So you're courting that wild side of you. And man, maybe it's because I'm turning 50 in a couple of weeks. Like maybe that's part of why this book appealed to me right now. I don't know if like as a 22 year old, it would have hit as hard. That's possible. But man, this made a lot of sense to me. This idea of what does it look like to court the wild twin? ([Time 0:14:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/daffa84c-3531-44f6-83e7-1dce28cdc483)) - **Where To Start With Jon Acuff’s Books** - Start with Soundtracks if you're new to Jon Acuff's work and pre-order Procrastination Proof. - These books cover mindset and beating procrastination as entry points to his ideas. Transcript: Jon Acuff Now, if you want to know which books of mine I'd recommend you read, I always say start with soundtracks or pre-order procrastination proof. Soundtracks is about mindset and get this procrastination proof. That one's about becoming procrastination proof. And you can pre-order that one today. We'll have both of the links in the show notes for those as well. ([Time 0:18:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6e533cfb-aa51-42b6-adcb-e96075951df6))