It gives me immense satisfaction choosing to wake up at 5am despite my feelings of whimpering and lethargy pleading for a sleep in. After all, it is Saturday (this was originally planned for Saturday, alas, it is now Sunday and I feel editing this out would be disingenuous to loyal [and new] readers. Wink).
Punch those feelings in the gut and take charge!
Today I want to share with you a few of the books I am currently reading as well as an audiobook I’m listening to. I mentioned my 5am start because today was especially inspirational and instructional. I checked my emails late last night to find my bonus credit from Audible had arrived. I scanned a few of the options available to me. There are always so many great books to choose from, especially when you start seeking new ones and not just waiting for friend’s recommendations. The diversity and sheer number of options can be paralysing (paralysis through analysis – it’s a thing), so I stuck to what was on the first page. I narrowed it down to two options: Atomic Habits by James Clear and Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. I’ve had Atomic Habits on my reading list since early December and I know that I will love sinking my teeth into it, but I recently came across the unwavering mental toughness of David Goggins. I had seen him speak on a motivational video on Youtube and he is absolutely worth listening to but I didn’t really know his story.
Let me put it simply. Goggin’s childhood (and well into high school) was as fucked up as you can imagine. Now, I’ve taught kids who have drug addicted mothers and imprisoned fathers, but this is one hundred times worse. Bad things compounded upon other bad things. He somehow (that’s the crux of the book) transformed himself. More specifically, he shaped his mind to allow himself to flourish into a man that in his late teens, read at a third grade level to becoming the only man who was a US Army Ranger, US Navy SEAL AND US Air Force Tactical Air Control Party member. Until recently, he also held the record for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours.
David Goggins speaks with conviction about what it takes to change one’s life path, despite the immense hardship and setbacks he has faced. This isn’t just a “motivational” or “I believe in you” speech, it is a call for you to reject the laissez faire approach to your own mind and take back control.
Reading one book at a time seemed normal to me.
I used to think that it was best to focus my attention on one book at a time until it was done. Sure that is fine if your only goal is to read one book. Why not set your goals higher. Right now, I’ve got about five books on the go which is probably about my limit. The reason why I’m reading so many is that they’re all about different things. When you go to work, it’s unlikely you will do a single activity all day. As a teacher, we have lessons on history, maths, literacy, art and so on. The kids don’t learn one thing at a time for the entire day. And once your schooling is over, people get busy! You won’t always have someone next to you in person giving you advice. You need to accept that be willing to devour those books, the contents of which the (often esteemed) authors deemed was worthy of sharing.
I want to stress the title of this article, Every Book You Don’t Read Cannot Help You. Without further ado, here are the books I am currently well into, have touched on or very close to starting.
Books I have read recently.
Unshakeable by Tony Robbins and Peter Mallouk.
I bought this book on a whim at my local Big W department store looking for something new. I was listening to Tony during my morning walks. He is a very accomplished man and well worth listening to. He isn’t into big noting himself and has a very firm grasp on the important things in life. I learned from Tony that it is absolutely OK to want a lot of money. If you work hard and ask for it, you deserve it. The underlying message is that giving lots of it away will bring you more joy than spending it on life’s frivolities. There’s a lot more to it. Check it out. There is often a theme of these wealthy individuals – they love giving away money.
Smarter Faster Better; The Secrets of Being Productive by Charles Duhigg.
I love this book! It is divided into eight chapters that discuss the elements that will transform the way you structure your life, look at problems and open your mind to insanely wild possibilities. Charles spent countless hours hunting down successful people from school teachers, airline pilots, auto factory workers and even the creators of Saturday Night Live to strip down what they are doing right. The best part is that Charles applied the lessons he talks about to the creation of the book itself and has an appendix in the back about how to use the ideas (which could be another book if fleshed out accordingly).
Books I am currently reading.
Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly.
I really want to complete this book within the next week or so! I’ve read this book once before, but after meeting Matt in my hometown at an author talk and buying his latest book The Three Secret Cities, I decided to re-read all of the books leading into it (four books in total). I’m also using Matt’s writing as a personal tool for my own lessons as a writer. The best writers read. The most successful people read. I want to be both, so I’m using every page to entertain AND teach me what Best Sellers look like. If Matt can do it, so can I.
My Life and Work: An Autobiography of Henry Ford by Henry Ford.
That’s the actual title. A lot has been said and written about Henry Ford, but this book is right out of the horse’s mouth. It appears that a lot of the book is about productivity and financial matters in business, which is an excellent resource for entrepreneurs but so much more can also be gleaned from chapters such as “Why Be Poor”. Ford thought deeply about matters of personal finance and the application of one’s own wealth. It seemed to me that he was absolutely against waste, misuse of both resources and one’s own talent and believed that poverty was essentially a misalignment of resources (between industry and agriculture). I think Ford might agree with me in saying that the poor allocation of one’s own industrious resources is also likely to lead to poverty. This book is worth a deep exploration.
Never Too Late: 10 Tips to change the course of your life by Lowell Sheppard.
Never Too Late tracks the fictional story of a man named Jud living in Britain who embarks upon a journey spurred by letters left to him after the death of his father. Each chapter follows the next letter opened by Jud as he travels the world on a small sum left by his late father. Sheppard adds his commentary through his own experiences at the end of each chapter as his tips. It took me a moment to see that this was to be the structure of the entire book, but I have come to really enjoy the zig zagging between Jud and Lowell’s stories. I loved spotting Lowell mention yet another book on my list of books to read at the end of the chapter titled, Love. That book’s title is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore.
During my university years, I took a subject called Geographies of Development (or something like that) and we studied just one book. It wasn’t a thick textbook. It was a book by the same author of Seven Cheap Things – Raj Patel. This earlier book, one he had written alone, was titled Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System. We studied a chapter each week and discussed the contents during our weekly tutorial. The final exam required us to discuss the history of food production across the world over time. We were to draw on examples such as the development of the “Piggly Wiggly system” which was America’s very first introduction to the process of serving oneself at the grocery store (now, think about that for a moment) all the way to the vast and very hidden world of the soy bean. I understand I’ve taken an enormous tangent and maybe this is a clue that this book is also a must read, but there’s a reason for this deviation.
When I had heard Raj had written another book, my eyes lit up. I felt a great sense of relief knowing such a well-informed author was going to share more of what he had gleaned from copious academic articles, history books and shining revelations that were once bound up and concealed but have now come to light courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act.
Seven Cheap Things argues that humanity as we currently wave the exhilarating ride of capitalist adventure will be remembered in geology as a distinct layer of chicken bones. The innocent, brutalised Gallus gallus domesticus has been transformed by a process known as Taylorism, whereby production efficiency is maximised by eliminating any recognition of even the most basic rights of the animal thereby treating it not dissimilarly to a coal mining or logging operation. The result is that sixty billion of these creature's bones now pile up in landfills adjacent to human settlements every single year. Aside from that stark reality, the authors examine how nature, money, work, care, food, energy and lives have been cheapened and in doing so, have transformed the state of the planet. The authors argue that humanity will be remembered as a geological stratum labelled the human Capitalocene.
While I am really looking forward the rest of the book, the introduction is forty-three pages long. To give you some perspective, the first chapter is less than half that and the entire book is just over two hundred pages. Plough through, I say!
Books that are next in line.
While I have an ever increasing list of books that I want to read over the ever-diminishing days, one must take action.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
This book is reasonably short at just over one hundred and eighty pages and it’s a scary book. Yay. If you’re not into darkness and suspense, give this a miss. However, any writer looking to see the how an accomplished wordsmith can wrench control of the reader’s imagination should make time to study it and make use of the techniques. I can’t wait to get into it!
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
Malcolm speaks about the success of Fleetwood Mac. Not an overnight sensation, but a decade in the making. The point is, choose a path and DON'T GIVE UP.
This book is another example of books I am seeking to discover how I can take myself from human to super-human. A “Me 2.0”, if you will. Since early December of 2018, I have been obsessing over taking greater control of myself and my life’s trajectory. This is another book I hope gives me exactly those insights I need to give me an edge over my old self, to kick bad habits and to transform my thought processes. Gladwell isn’t just a mediocre guy who’s studied the best of them, he is one of the best. One of my aspirations is to get my work published in The New Yorker. He’s been a staff writer for them since 1996. This is another book I can’t wait to get my hands on. It was written in 2008. Don’t let another year go by without reading and applying Gladwell’s insights.
Those were the books. Now embrace the conclusion.
It’s now time for me to check off some short term goals I’ve been working hard on for the last month - Four competition entries I’ve been writing. I am coming [are we ever there?] to the realisation that I am going to fail. A lot. A recently acquired mentor of mine, Neil Gaiman explained that a writer must spew forth a million words onto the page before the good stuff starts flowing. My interpretation of this message is that no matter what profession you undertake, you have to be consistently trying to improve. Keep making shots. Who cares if it hits the ring and bounces off? Michael Jordan missed thousands of shots, yet he is revered as one of the best basketballers of all time. It is simply because he made the choice to make another attempt. Again and again.
Today, you will take another shot. The result of the shot is unimportant. The importance lies in the fact that it is one of many contributions to your overall success.
The outer goal you reach, your jump to the stratosphere - becoming a qualified lawyer, police commissioner, school principal or comic book artist is actually entirely hidden from public view. Even your closest relatives and friends may not see your accomplishment. They will only ever see the manifestations of the goal, the outer skin. It’s like looking at a person and seeing their outer features – face, skin, height and weight and the uniform they wear. You cannot see the cellular activity, all the metabolic processes like the rush of adrenaline when you prepare for your first skydive or the fibrous growths of neurons reaching out to touch each other as you learn a new skill or absorb new information. The development of your mind goes one step further. No microscope or MRI will ever see that. This is isolation. Solitude. You’re against yourself, here. You’ve got to look into the mirror and make that choice to step up. Develop your drive. Learn from others. You can strip away the uniform, medals, money and all the accomplishments. They’ve got the mindset and self-discipline to get all that stuff again. The lasting asset is the transformation of the mind – self-belief and self-discipline.
Winners occupy this place. They made the hard choices. The best part is that they want you to join their club. Reach down, dig deep and know you’re capable of it.
To Your Success,
Nick.
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