While most chase clicks and trends, Chris “Bulldog” Collins has built a career on clarity, discipline, and results. A leadership strategist, bestselling author, and founder of Syndicate X Library, he’s proof that substance still matters. He places his bets on imagination, meaningful dialogue, and the kind of silence only a great book can hold. As a writer, curator, host, and collector, he has transformed his Los Angeles-based Syndicate X Library into a sanctuary where literature is lived.
Part rare book vault, part creative salon, the private library houses first editions from Slim Aarons, a one-of-a-kind English-language Duchamp archive, and literary treasures gifted by friends like Matt Damon. But its true value is in the world Collins has built around them. Between pages and stories, he hosts intimate dinners, creative gatherings, and his podcast/video series Books That Changed My Life, where printed words become emotional confessionals for guests like Kelsey Grammer, Jenna Johnson, and E.A. Hanks.
Collins’ journey as a reader began amid personal collapse. Broke, disillusioned, and stuck in Portland, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie found its way to him, and something clicked. As he says, “When you need something, the master appears.” He read it on a public bench, tears streaming down his face, realizing he had just uncovered a secret code to understand others and himself.
Books became the blueprint for his transformation. His favorites aren’t manuals of certainty but provocations for the soul: “For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking for the Black Cat that Isn’t There” by Anthony Huberman, “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief” by Jordan B. Peterson, and “Sing Backwards and Weep” by Mark Lanegan. Collins seeks out the complex, the ambiguous, and the human.
“(...) you can’t change what’s in a book. I can change what’s in a PDF or a Kindle, but can’t in a print version. And with the way things are going, I much prefer something that can’t be changed or manipulated,” he says. In this digital era of endless edits and invisible storage, paper is a survivor, a tactile, tangible act of intellectual resistance.
Collins writes, designs, and publishes with the same care he’d give to curating an art exhibit. His most recent book, I Am Leader, was conceived as a tool for personal transformation and serves as a manifesto of Collins’ philosophy. “I was trying to create a book for outcome, so I was using the design of the book as part of the experience that leads to some sort of transformation and realization in the reader. I’m really happy with how that worked and how it communicates with people in a different way that isn’t just a traditional book,” he said.
Collins transformed his love for books into a platform that is less a library and more a refuge, where identity is questioned, rebuilt, and even tattooed. More than 10 of his guests have arrived with books inked onto their skin. What Chris “Bulldog” Collins is building isn’t a personal brand. What he’s holding up—gently, defiantly—are the relics for a generation still hungry for something real amid the noise of notifications and screens.
Follow Chris ‘Bulldog’ Collins Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
.png)
