Five years from now, the person you will become depends on the people you meet and the books you read.
According to the Pew Research center, more than a third of young men have not read any book, in whole or in part, via any medium (electronic, audio or paper) in the past year.
The average book takes about 5 hours to read. To read one book a month, that means you’d have to devote only ten minutes each day to reading. Or multitask by listening to audiobooks in the shower or on the way to work. We aren’t talking home dentistry here, people.
I like to think I’m getting a little bit better as a human being every year I walk this earth. As I think about the influences that have shaped me in the past, I’m drawn to a collection of books that don’t exactly fall into the category of self-help, but they changed me just the same. I am a better man today because of the books on this list, and if you want to be better too, I highly recommend them.
I am not including the Bible in this list because it does not fit the title of this article. But it goes without saying that if you want to be a better person at the end of the year than you were at the beginning, read the Bible every day. It’s a living, breathing document, and as such is the only book ever produced that you can never truly finish reading. It speaks to me, whatever my situation, every time I pick it up.
The following books made me a better man as well, sometimes to my complete surprise.
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand — This massive 800-page tome was an accomplishment just to finish. And while I don’t subscribe to all of Rand’s objectivist philosophy, there are some real nuggets in this book that have stuck with me. Her voluminous thoughts on the meaning of life, the role of politics, the duty of man and the nobility of work have strongly impacted me since I read it almost 20 years ago.
A Helmet For My Pillow by Robert Leckie — War matures a man. The real-life combat I’ve faced has undoubtedly shaped me, but it’s a crucible I cannot recommend. But with this book, Leckie pulls the reader so deeply into the realities of war that I believe you will come out of it a more seasoned, mature person, wiser to the fact that evil does exist in this world. You’ll be more aware of the incredible bubble in which most Americans exist. Add to that the fact that the book contains some of the most eloquent and well-written prose I’ve ever laid eyes on, and you’ll wish Leckie had done much more writing in his lifetime.
The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz — If you ever thought you had a difficult life, after reading this book you will be ashamed you ever thought you had something to complain about. Not only is this one of the most epic adventure stories I’ve ever picked up, but it also taught me something about the power of the human will to keep pushing, and the incredible ability of the human body to withstand the most grueling conditions imaginable. It is a book that sticks with me, one I think about often whenever life gets difficult.
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper — This is the only overt self-help book on the list, but it packs such a powerful punch I had to include it. Piper’s theme that a man should never actually retire — that if I woke up this morning then I have something important to accomplish — has truly shaped the man who I am today. His chapter about “entertaining ourselves to death” was a major catalyst in my giving up television and other passive activity and those decisions have made my life a thousand times better.
Dominion by Randy Alcorn — All of Randy Alcorn’s writing is powerful, but this second of his Ollie Chandler novels had a profound impact on how I understand race relations in the United States. After finishing the book I would never be able to look at a black man the same way for the rest of my life. Alcorn is so skillful at describing black culture and experience that many people simply can’t believe he is white. Through reading this book I gained a much deeper understanding of the importance of research and accuracy in my writing as well.
Mover of Men and Mountains by R.G. LeTourneau — This autobiography of the man who invented most of the machines that made America what it is today is one of the most compelling books I’ve ever read. There is a reason it’s been around for decades. LeTourneau failed over and over again, starting his last business after the age of 40. He started it on his knees, promising God to give not ten percent, but 90 percent of his earnings away. He kept that promise and still died a billionaire. This is an incredible story of grit, hard work, and hustle that every young man should read.
I think every book is a classic in one sense or another. Unfortunately, so few young people read at all anymore. But this presents an opportunity for the guy who wants to outperform his peers. Reading a book a month will put you so far ahead of your competition you will likely never want for a way to put a roof over your head or provide for your family. Couched in those terms, ten minutes a day seems like a pretty high-yield investment.
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Join Chuck Holton and the Hot Zone crew tomorrow, December 20th at 12PM for a special live call!
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Breaking news this Saturday: three Americans are dead in Syria tonight, three more are wounded, and the attack—described by U.S. Central Command as an ambush carried out by a lone ISIS gunman—has once again dragged the Syrian war back into the American consciousness for a few brief hours, which is usually all the time the public gives it before the news cycle moves on and the families are left to carry the weight alone.
CENTCOM says two of the dead were U.S. service members and one was an American civilian contractor, and that the attacker was engaged and killed as well, with names being withheld until next of kin are notified, which is the right thing to do; but even with those official facts in hand, I want to slow the pace down a little bit and do what I always try to do here—put this in context—because in a place like Syria, the story you get in the headline is almost never the story that explains why this happened.
I’m not interested in reporting tragedy like it’s a scoreboard, and I’m not interested in repeating a paragraph of breaking news without the background that makes it intelligible; I spent eight years in the military, and I’ve spent more than twenty years following the U.S. military across the globe—Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria included, with more than a dozen trips into Afghanistan, roughly fifteen into Iraq, and seven or so into Syria—so when Americans die in a place most people couldn’t find on a map, I feel a responsibility to show you what the map actually means.
The reported location of the attack is Palmyra—Palmira on some maps—an ancient city in central Syria that sits on the edge of a brutal expanse of desert, the kind of wide open, sun-blasted country where outsiders assume nothing lives and nothing happens, when in reality it’s exactly the kind of terrain insurgents love because “nothing” is a perfect disguise, a perfect place to move, cache weapons, blend into small villages, disappear into wadis, and wait for opportunities.
Palmyra also sits inside territory controlled by Syria’s new administration under Ahmed al-Sharaa, and if that name makes you pause, it should, because this is where Syrian politics gets complicated in the way only Syria can do: al-Sharaa rose through jihadist ranks, he has a history tied to insurgent warfare against Americans in Iraq, he was captured and held for years, and he later returned to Syria and consolidated power with strong Turkish backing—so when you hear phrases like “new Syrian administration” or “transitional government,” don’t imagine a Western-style democracy that suddenly appeared out of the sand; imagine a patchwork of militias, alliances of convenience, old enemies wearing new uniforms, and a leadership class that wants international legitimacy while carrying a past that cannot be scrubbed clean with a new suit and a new flag.
Now layer on top of that the reality that ISIS is not gone from Syria, not even close.
U.S. estimates have long suggested there are still roughly 2,000 to 3,000 ISIS fighters operating in and around the central Syrian desert, and there are far more than that if you include facilitators, family networks, financiers, and the enormous number of ISIS-linked detainees and relatives held in camps and makeshift prisons; and while that fight has mostly slipped out of the American public’s view, it continues quietly, relentlessly, week after week, because the moment pressure is relieved in a place like this, the violence doesn’t fade—it regroups.
The United States currently has about 900 troops in Syria, a number that matters because it tells you how thin the margin is between “containment” and “collapse,” especially when the enemy has deep local roots and decades of practice living off the land and off the grievances of the people around them; and those American troops are there for one primary purpose: to keep a lid on ISIS so we don’t wake up one day to another wave of mass executions, terror-state governance, and regional destabilization that forces the world back into a far more expensive war.
That’s the mission, and it’s not abstract; when ISIS surged the last time, the human cost was staggering, and it wasn’t paid by politicians or pundits—it was paid by Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters, civilians, and yes, Americans too—and the reason our presence in Syria still functions as a deterrent is that in a powder keg region, a small, capable American footprint has a way of discouraging ambitious actors from taking the final step that turns instability into open war.
But here is the part that doesn’t get said out loud very often: the mission in Syria is increasingly tangled up in partnerships that are, at best, uneasy and, at worst, morally and strategically risky.
I’m coming to you today from Panama, where I’ve been digging into a story that’s far bigger than most people realize. It involves a shadowy network of ships—1,423 of them at last count—that roam the world’s oceans moving sanctioned oil for regimes like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Some call it the dark fleet, others the ghost fleet, but whatever the name, it’s become a lifeline for the world’s worst dictators.
Out of those 1,423 vessels, roughly 920 are sanctioned themselves. These aren’t just ships doing business in a gray area—they are part of a global ecosystem of deception, fraud, and corruption that props up authoritarian governments and undermines the international rules that keep maritime trade safe. They spoof GPS signals, turn off their transponders, swap oil with “cleaner” tankers in the dead of night, operate under shell-company ownership, and sail uninsured—floating environmental disasters just waiting to happen.
And for years, not much was done about it. But that may be changing.
Just days ago, the United States seized a massive VLCC tanker—the Skipper—carrying 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan crude bound for Cuba. It’s a move that seems small on its own, but it hints at something larger: Washington may finally be realizing that targeting the dark fleet isn’t just desirable—it’s strategically powerful.
That raises a fascinating question: What would happen if the U.S. and its allies cracked down hard on these ghost ships—everywhere, all at once? Could it reshape global power? Could it even topple Maduro?
Let’s dig into that.
These ghost ships function by exploiting cracks in the global maritime system. They manipulate AIS beacons, swap oil mid-ocean, hide ownership behind layers of shell companies, fly false flags, and operate without legitimate insurance. The UN’s maritime regulator has warned that these rusted, poorly maintained hulks are ticking time bombs—and we’ve already seen “Ukrainian sanctions” in action when Ukrainian sea drones blew up several shadow-fleet tankers in the Black Sea.
Imagine what happens if one of these decrepit tankers explodes in a global choke point like the Strait of Hormuz. You’d see a shock to oil markets overnight.
And yet, that’s the system that keeps Venezuela, Iran, and Russia afloat.
The seizure of the Skipper wasn’t random. It’s part of a broader pressure campaign—one that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly supported. He said plainly that going after these vessels is a direct way to choke off the revenue Maduro depends on to stay in power.
Pompeo also noted something key: Maduro’s regime probably has “weeks, not months” of financial runway without this illicit revenue stream. And Cuba—already experiencing rolling blackouts—relies on Venezuela for about a quarter of its total energy supply. This single tanker seizure hurts Havana even more than Caracas.
But perhaps the most important variable is geography. Satellite data reveals dozens of sanctioned tankers parked just off Venezuela’s northern coast. In theory, if the U.S. waits for them to exit Venezuela’s 200-mile EEZ, it could legally seize many of them—especially the stateless ones.
Imagine the U.S. grabbing one tanker per day.
The ripple effects would be enormous.
