In this episode, Shawn Rider discusses his educational focus for 2025, emphasizing targeted reading. Shawn plans to concentrate on three daily readers: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday for mental discipline, a leadership daily reader by John Maxwell for leadership insights, and a faith-based daily reader from the Bible for spiritual growth. He highlights the importance of not overwhelming oneself with excessive reading but instead implementing acquired knowledge. Shawn shares his personal experiences and encourages setting practical reading goals.
In this solo episode, Shawn Rider shares his reading strategy for 2025, focusing on three daily readers: 'The Daily Stoic' by Ryan Holiday, John Maxwell's leadership lessons, and a faith-based Bible daily reader. Shawn discusses the importance of focused education, the diminishing returns of excessive reading, and how these chosen books align with his personal and professional goals. He emphasizes the value of implementing learned knowledge over merely accumulating it.
00:00 Introduction and Purpose
00:20 The Importance of Education
00:51 Balancing Education and Action
01:29 Commitment to Three Books in 2025
01:51 Daily Stoic: Understanding Control
02:11 John Maxwell's Leadership Lessons
03:10 Faith-Based Daily Reader
05:03 Final Thoughts on Reading and Implementation
06:26 Conclusion and Encouragement
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[00:00:00] What's up the Tactical Empire? This is Sean Rider riding solo today. I wanted to come at you today, take a little bit of time, not too much time to talk to you about what I'm focusing on in 2025 in regards to, uh, for lack of a better term, HEAP education, right? Uh, There's no shortage of information out there and there's really no excuse for people not to educate themselves.
YouTube videos are free, books are cheap, so if you can't afford to be in groups or have a one on one, two on one mentor like Jeff and I, uh, you should be consuming educational content to move you forward, uh, educationally, mentally, physically. psychologically, whatever it may be, uh, in the areas of your life that you want to improve on, whether it's YouTube videos or books.
But I will say that, you know, uh, there may be a diminishing return to how much you should [00:01:00] educate yourself this year, how much you should be watching, how much you should be reading. And I know this firsthand because in my twenties, I consumed a lot and I needed that, right? Cause I was, you know, ignorant.
I was inexperienced. I was uneducated. And then I got a mentor and I am far from knowing everything I need to know, obviously. And of course, but I am pretty dialed in with what I want and the main strategies on how I'm going to get there. And so what I'm talking about today is what I've committed to in regards to the books I'm going to read in 2025.
And it may be coming as a surprise to some of you. I have decided that I'm going to focus on three books, and all three of them are daily readers, meaning they are 365 days worth of passages in three different areas. Okay, so, uh, in no particular order, uh, the first daily reader is going to be the Daily Stoic.
I've talked about it enough on [00:02:00] podcast episodes, uh, this has helped me tremendously, uh, understanding what is in my control and what is out of my control. So, I'm going to continue to read. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. A few months back, I came across a book when me, my wife, and my kids went to Books A Million and I definitely needed it at the time and certainly need it going into this year.
And it is a 365 days daily reader of John Maxwell's leadership lessons. And it's a collection of his thoughts and quotes from his leadership books. And he's one of the greatest thought leaders, uh, in this generation or throughout the last 40 years. I really like his books. So this being, uh, an aggregated book of some of his best content.
I've really enjoyed it. I have not read, I've not read the whole thing. I started reading it as a book so I could catch up because I bought it so late in the season, in the year, last year. Uh, so I'm still on like, I have [00:03:00] two more months to go, but I am reading the current day in the current morning. So I start by reading the Daily Stoic and then I move on to John Maxwell's, uh, Leadership Daily Reader.
And then last weekend, me and my. Wife and kids, we went, uh, to, uh, a national park in West Virginia, beautiful winter wonderland, snow, ice, waterfalls, uh, to do some sledding. And in the lodge, uh, it's really interesting how these things, uh, get put on shelves when we need to see them. I, I thought a couple of weeks ago that I have the daily stoic, I have the leadership book, uh, but I want to go deeper in my faith.
Uh, for myself, for my marriage and for my leadership as a dad to my kids. And, uh, so I was thinking about getting a faith based, uh, Bible based daily reader. And I haven't looked into any, but at this lodge, they had a 365, uh, days of passages from the Bible for men [00:04:00] in particular. And so I opened it up, I flipped through it and read a couple of the days and they resonated with me.
So I bought the book. All of those books, you buy them used or used or new, uh, will cost you less than 15 each. Okay. So for 45, I now have three books that I'm going to read all year long. I won't go as far as to say I won't read it. Another book per se. I do have books that I like to reread. The Company of One being one of them.
The Wealthy Gardener being another. But I will not read them cover to cover. I don't foresee myself reading any brand new books, uh, this year. Uh, I think these three encapsulate them. Bye. The three areas that I want to improve upon. I always want to improve myself mentally and what is in and out of my control through stoicism.
I definitely want to improve my leadership for the Tablet Empire and Metabolic Winchester. And I definitely want to improve my, my faith and my knowledge in the faith and how the Bible correlates to my [00:05:00] life. So there's really no reason for me to pick up other books. Um, I see my friends, uh, that are, uh, strong in book reading.
Uh, that used to be me as well. I've said in my presentations to the men in the inner circle, I was that dad that would be reading a book while his newborn baby was crawling on the floor. And I thought it was cool to do that. I was wrong. Um, that was, you know, a form of escapism masquerading as education.
Um, and so I don't shy away from reading, but I, I know what I want to do. Uh, And I see my friends, they keep picking up more books on wealth. They keep picking up more books on finances and money. And, uh, you know, if that's you, that's cool. But I have my plan, right? I spend less than we make. I plow that money through the seven levels of financial freedom into higher cash value life insurance.
And then I leverage life insurance policies and lines of credit to buy cash flowing assets. Um, I don't need to read about the stock market or anything else. I have [00:06:00] partners that are knowledgeable in, uh, the real estate game. So I don't need to read 20 books on real estate this year. Uh, I don't need to read, uh, more books on stoicism.
The daily still covers everything I want it to cover. Uh, I don't need to read more books on leadership. John Maxwell's daily reader will cover that for me. And uh, you know, uh, I now have the third edition, which is the men's faith based Bible daily reader. So just letting you guys know, like. You don't have to put that pressure on yourself to read two books a month for the whole year.
I see people posting about that. And again, if that's you, cool. That used to be me. That is not me anymore. At some point, you have to put the books down and implement what it is that you have read. That's actually a Stoic quote. Is like stop collecting books on the shelf that collect dust. You will not go back to them and read them I don't think the stoic meant that literally because again, I just mentioned I go back and read books But at some point you have to go do the thing that it is that you've been reading about And of course [00:07:00] education is huge.
I value education, but I think we can Stack the books so high that they become the obstacle and remember the obstacle is the way so I'm going to move the books out of the way and move forward. Those are my three for the year. I hope this short episode helps somebody set parameters on how much they're going to be reading in 2025.