We use certain words so often that they stop meaning anything. Worse, we over-explain them until they become vague, bloated, and useless.

Great thinkers tend to do the opposite. They treat language like sculptors, cutting words down to their sharpest edge. Now and then, I’ll come across a profound re-definition by one of these great thinkers, and it’s often more accurate than whatever you’ll find in Webster’s. Here are a few of my favorites:

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I’ve done my fair share of gushing about Jack Reacher—Lee Child’s 6’5”, 250-pound drifter who solves global crises with nothing but a toothbrush in his pocket.

I first came across the series through a 2017 Business Insider article that listed Malcolm Gladwell’s favorite books. Buried between 14 respectable intellectual picks was Personal, a Reacher novel. When The New York Times asked Gladwell to suggest a book to Barack Obama, he said it would obviously be the new Lee Child book.

Little did I know that I was starting on book #19 in the series (I later learned the order in which you read the books makes zero difference. You can literally start from anywhere).

Despite the title, this is not another Reacher novel. Rather, it’s all about Child, where he was, what he was doing, and how life was for him at the time he was writing the Reacher character, between 1997 – 2019. The structure is simple: each year, one chapter, one Reacher book—without any spoilers. I was intrigued to be offered this short piece that pulls the curtain back on the character and the book series Lee Child created.

What I didn’t realize was that Child didn’t even start writing until his 40s, after he was laid off from his TV production job. He wrote the first three books with paper and pencil. You get insights into the creative process, the title debates, the unexpected influences, and all the little real-world anecdotes that helped shape Reacher’s universe. For a longtime fan, it’s a fun scrapbook of sorts, filled with tiny stories behind the big stories.

If you’re not already deep into the Reacher ecosystem, this isn’t going to convert you. It’s more “interesting bonus material” for super fans like myself. I enjoyed flipping through the vignettes and learning where Child was in his life during each book—but it wasn’t nearly as gripping as the novels themselves.

In short: Kinda cool if you love Reacher. Skip if you don’t.

“When everything is urgent, nothing is truly important. Politics becomes theater. Science becomes storytelling. News becomes performance. The result, Postman warned, is a society that forgets how to think in paragraphs, and learns instead to think in scenes.”

I love when others synthesize what they’ve learned and share lists like these—102 Lessons from 102 Books, organized by theme. Here are a few of the insights:

Discovered through Johnny Webber’s blog.

Open, by Andre Agassi, is one of the best autobiographies ever written. I found it fascinating how he was able to maintain such precise control over his game. While most would be quick to credit success to a strict fitness regimen, hours of drills, and structured practice routines, this section from his book is a critical reminder that in the pursuit of excellence, EVERY detail matters.

I understand that watching amateurs play mediocre golf on YouTube probably sounds like a colossal waste of time, or at the very least, a snoozefest. Yet, YouTube Golf has somehow emerged as my favorite guilty pleasure. I consume hours of content, thanks in part to the unique way the game is now being presented to the average golfer.

This year, Barstool put together a golf tournament that was different in every way possible from the typical PGA Tour broadcast. They invited 48 of the biggest personalities in the YouTube Golf space — names like Bob Does Sports, Grant Horvat, Good Good, Rick Shiels, Paige Spirinac, and the Bryan Brothers — to play in a Ryder-Cup style event dubbed ‘The Internet Invitational’ with a cash prize pool of $1.7M, to be split amongst the winners. They released it on YouTube as a six-part series with the 3hr+ episodes dropping over three weeks.

I know what you’re thinking. Why on earth would anyone want to watch over 18 hours of influencers competing with each other? I thought the same thing.

But about 30 minutes into the first episode, I realized what made this event so uniquely gripping. Sure, the personalities are entertaining and the footage is captured flawlessly, but the real difference was the way they were able to portray the drama. It’s a perfect blend of reality TV and competitive sports. When you get the right mixture of characters, incentives, and boatloads of money at stake, the drama becomes irresistible.

And the cinematography is second to none. There are dozens of camera angles, the players (and even the spectators) are miked up, and their ability to split the screen RedZone-style while covering different matches is incredible. They also mixed in the branding content very organically, letting the players be their true selves.

And if you need more grounds for my claim, here’s The Chosen One himself:

Suffer — Boy Golden [Spotify]

Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss the life of Frantz Schmidt, a sixteenth-century executioner in ⁠Nuremberg, Germany⁠. Based on Schmidt's unique journal, the book explores his public role in executing and punishing people, his private struggles with his profession and religious faith, and his attempt to gain honor and avoid the social stigma of being an executioner.  A rare, detailed look into the era's criminal justice, social customs, and even medical practices, challenging the common perception of executioners as monsters. 

📚 Books discussed in this episode:

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