The Daily Stoic — Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

This one isn't new to me. I've had this book for about three years now and it basically lives on my desk. It's 366 short meditations pulled from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, one for every day of the year, and it's not the kind of book you sit down and read cover to cover. I pick it up whenever I need a quick reset, flip to a random page, and let whatever it says that day be the thing I chew on.

My favorite line out of it, one I come back to constantly: "we suffer more in imagination than in reality." Anyone who runs their own business knows exactly what that means. The stress of a client not responding, the imagined worst case of a shoot day going sideways, the spiral before a hard conversation, it's almost always worse in my head than it ever turns out to be in real life. This year especially, with juggling retainer clients, new pitches, and the day to day chaos of running a production business solo, that quote has talked me off the ledge more times than I can count.

The Alter Ego Effect — Todd Herman

This book is about the idea that we all have a version of ourselves we can step into when we need to perform at our best, a "heroic self" separate from our everyday, doubt-filled self. Athletes, performers, and high performers use this all the time, whether they call it that or not.

I related to this more than I expected. On set, especially on a big production day with a client watching every move, there's a version of me that has to show up completely different from how I feel internally that morning. Confident, decisive, calm under pressure, even if I woke up anxious about the schedule or a piece of gear. This book gave me language for something I was already sort of doing instinctively, and it made me more intentional about building that "on set version" of myself instead of just hoping it shows up.

The Magic of Thinking Big — David J. Schwartz, PhD

An older, classic business/self-help book, six million copies sold, and it holds up. The core idea is simple: the size of your success is determined by the size of your thinking, and most people sell themselves short before they even try. It covers confidence, how to talk yourself out of excuses, and how to actually take action instead of overthinking.

This one hit at a good time, right as I was negotiating a couple of bigger retainer conversations this year. It's easy to under-price yourself or under-ask when you're used to thinking small, and this book was a good gut check to actually think about what I'm worth and what I want, instead of just accepting the first number on the table.

Tax-Free Wealth — Tom Wheelwright, CPA

This is the least "fun" book on this list, but maybe the most useful one for where I am in my business right now. It's a straightforward breakdown of how the tax code actually rewards certain behaviors (investing, building, creating jobs) and how to structure your finances to legally keep more of what you make.

As an S-corp with a growing client list, this book gave me a much better vocabulary for conversations with my accountant. I went from nodding along in those meetings to actually asking better questions. Not a glamorous read, but a necessary one.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari

This is the big one, a sweeping look at the entire history of our species, from the cognitive revolution all the way through agriculture, empires, money, and the modern world. It's the kind of book that makes you feel small in a good way. I bought my copy used for seven dollars, and it might be the best seven dollars I've spent all year.

This is exactly the kind of "escape" book I mentioned at the top. It has nothing to do with business or photography, and that's exactly why I loved it. It pulled me completely out of my own head and into thousands of years of human history in a way that made everyday stress feel pretty small by comparison.

The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins

Originally written as a set of letters to his daughter, this book breaks down investing and financial independence in the most no-nonsense way I've ever read. No hype, no gimmicks, just a clear philosophy on saving, investing, and building long-term freedom.

Running my own business means there's no 401k automatically taken out of my check, no employer doing the thinking for me. This book pushed me to actually get more serious about what I'm doing with the money I make, beyond just reinvesting it back into gear and the business.

That's the stack so far. A mix of philosophy, mindset, identity, taxes, history, and money, which honestly feels like a pretty accurate map of what's been on my mind this year. If you've read any of these, or have a recommendation for what should be next on the pile, send it my way. I read slow, but I'm always looking for the next one.