The 5 Books That Changed My Life

I think every blogger has a list of their 5 favorite books, or the books that changed their life. So let's be a follower and do that too! Yay!

Let's dive right in:

5.) Mastery by George Leonard
Throughout my life I've met some pretty goal driven people. Some of them were normal and others were hyper-obsessed with achieving their goals. Either way, there was always a sense of repulsion from those people who poured their whole lives into something and pretty much gave up almost everything else as the price.

I want to be successful in reaching all my goals but still live a well-rounded and satisfying life. With that being said, this book helped me see how there is an alternative to losing your life to a goal.

In his book Mastery, George Leonard approaches the subject through his main frame of reference: the practice of aikido. A very specific martial art practice, aikido is truly a skill or "goal" that one can only be successful through many hours of practice. In other words, it's more than a notch on the belt.

Anyhow, he paints the art of mastery (whether it be a golf swing, writing, owning a business, etc.) as something that is process-oriented and less goal oriented. In other words, the pleasure must be derived from the "practice" of the golf swing, not from the result of shooting a low score or winning a tournament. It's all about the process.

And if you even want to go deeper than that, it is about finding the enjoyment of life itself through process. Goals are nothing more than points on a map that you are trying to reach. The reason we set goals and try to master a certain skill is not to enhance ourselves (although self-enhancement is pretty sweet in my opinion), it is all about learning about yourself. You learn how to handle situations and how you react to certain events.

To anyone who has trouble setting and reaching goals or is curious for a different look into the area of mastery, read this book. It's a short and easy read and the benefits are numerous.

4.) Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
This book has somewhat of a cult-like following.

Before I had ever read it, I would have friends coming up to me and saying "Do you know how much corn is in our diets? Do you know how cows stand in their own excrement for a majority of their life?", which always made me roll my eyes a bit. Of course I didn't know that. But what does that even matter?

After all, I think most of us understand that the process of our food going from raw product to our plate is probably not the most pleasant of ideas, so nothing would really surprise us. But the actual message in this book is a great deal different than "some chickens have to die so we can eat them". It's about something else.

To understand how we feed 300 million American people, you have to understand the economics of food. It seems as if it works quite well. You can hop over to your local grocery store and pick up tomatoes, apples, avocados, asparagus and beyond. You can be miles away from bodies of water and pick up some salmon filets. This would stagger our ancestors over a hundred years ago.

So with all that in mind, the curtain is pulled back on our industrial food system. The myriad of anecdotes and details describing where food actually comes from will blow your mind. It is not unsettling to know that a majority of food you find in the grocery store has some derivative of corn in it, I find it more troubling that there are people who have gone through great length to keep it under the general public's radar.

Really, I could go on and on about this book but it changed my outlook on what I put into my body. I didn't turn vegetarian (although I did try it for about a month for fun) and I don't eat only organic foods, but I have a clearer picture about what I put into my body. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

3.) Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
I actually finished this book just recently. And wow, it never occured to me that this book could be so captivating.

In short, Game Change is about the 2008 presidential primaries and election. Now I'm totally a political junkie, so any type of book like is something I can dive into. So for anyone who is hesitant to jump into a political book, there is definitely something in there for you as well.

You see, the book is about so much. To me, it's revealing about the presidential political process and how hubris can hurt you tremendously. Dealing with problems and accepting the situation in front of you are big themes of this book.

Just the pure human drama (or soap opera) is pretty captivating and intensely fascinating. It is entertaining and informative all that same time. I highly recommend this to everybody, no matter what side of the political fence they happen to lean. Or if you don't lean on any fence at all.

Make sense?

2.) The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand
What can I say about the Fountain Head?

It's hard to describe in words. Seriously.

Most people's notion of Ayn Rand is a libertarian celebrity, who's political views are famous and very unique. And so when I mention this book, the tendency is to think it is a political book. Which it is not.

I originally read this book on the advice of one of my favorite self-improvement authors, with the idea that the book would enhance me in some way. I spent nearly 2 months reading this 700 page brick, grueling through a lot of big words and rather boring dialogue.

But delving deeper and deeper into the book, I realized there was so much more to this book. Like watching a painter paint a picture on a huge canvas, the beginning can seem arbitrary and meaningless. But as the picture begins to form, the beauty and meaning reveals itself.

The summary of this book is pointless. My short (and completely incomplete) summary of the book is as follows: A man (Howard Roark) loves creation through architecture. He does not let the world stop him from doing what he loves.

It sounds like a feel good story (a guy goes against the grain and triumphs over adversity....yay!), but that is inaccurate. It's about having your own standards and living your life in alignment with them.

I'm resisting every urge to over-hype this book but the truth is this book changed my life and it could do the same for you. Don't let the 700 pages intimidate you.

1.) The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Hmm, now how to talk about Eckhart Tolle.

To a certain degree, I don't like sharing the fact that I've read his books or even enjoy discussing the content of his books. Most of it is because spirituality and religion is such a crude joke for most people that a reasonable and rational discussion of such things leave me feeling discouraged. But the fact is I am not religious but "spiritual" if defining it makes you happy.

***By the way, these books are not "religious" in the sense that there are principles or tenets to follow. It is more philosophical about life. To be honest, I don't even know how to describe it that well. The point is: anyone can read it and gain some insight into life.***

So with that in mind, the books The Power of Now and A New Earth are both the highest on my list because I officially became a subscriber to the eastern philosophical ideas of "being present" aka "living in the moment". Sounds a little silly but it makes sense.

You see one of the leading causes of depression and anxiety is that little voice in the head that won't shut off. When you are "present" you are outside of your head, and the little voice doesn't follow the endless thought loops that drag you into your head.

Get it?

Probably not. So go read the book!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to share any books/comments/thoughts in the comment section.

The Power of Reading

For some reason, I had a hard time deciding the title of this post. "The Power of Reading" sounds way too serious, although very accurate. So we're keeping it as the title, sound good?

It has been just about 2 years since I decided that reading was going to be high on my priority list. It's funny because it took about a year and a half before it became a big habit. And now I am reading my ass off, bitten by the bug of knowledge. It is awesome.

Like many of you who might be reading this (all three of my loyal followers), reading was pretty damn boring throughout school. "Assigned reading" was like reading brochures on colostomies. It was avoided like the plague.

Now don't get me wrong, I would love to have read more at the time, but there were more pressing issues. In fact, if there was a way to digest books without spending time reading, I'd have read all the classics. But I'd also like to eat chocolate 24/7 and not be fat. Both are unrealistic.

So reading had been in the back of my mind as "something good to do" but there was never a pressing reason to read more. Would it make me more money? Not immediately. There really aren't any surface benefits from reading. The only real immediate benefit could be that of entertainment. That seems about it.

However, as I forced myself to read, I began to see the bigger picture of why books are pretty much the shit. It's self-enhancement at it's finest.

You see, many great thinkers and artists have put down their thoughts and creation on paper for you to read, sometimes hundreds of years afterwards. And you can interact with these amazing ideas and thoughts. All this for free with a library card.

You have every topic imaginable. If you want to start a business, there are more than enough books for you to spend your time on. You have comedic works of art by authors like David Sedaris and Kurt Vonnegut. Want to cook better? Please. There are more books than you could read in a lifetime.

There's not a shortage of books on any subject really.

And the fact is, you can read them, but if you are anything like me, "reading more" is something you are going to do in the future. You know the future, when you will have time.

Funny how that goes. You don't have enough time for an activity you can do for an hour a day. You can't find time for this simple little thing that could greatly enhance your knowledge, your ability to make more money, your ability to connect with others, your ability to see the depths of life and more.

Look around at some of the most successful people in this world. A good majority of them read a shit ton of books. Now, this totally anecdotal evidence for me but I find it to be true from experience.

So stop reading this blog and go get a book from the library. Don't have a book in mind? Check out Time's list of top 100 books. Go now!

Taking It All In Stride

Balance is certainly one of the main themes in the universe we habitate.

It's all over the place from magnetic polarities, to the process of our body to maintain homeostasis. It's there for a reason. Learn from it.

I recently learned something about myself (shockingly, I know). I take way too much stock in the emotions of the moment. You know what I'm talking about.

It all started two months ago. I was in an awesome place. I was working out a lot, working on my business, having a fun social life and work was great. Thoughts literally ran through my head like "This is awesome. If life continues this way, I'll have the best life ever". I was on cloud 9.

But then stuff happened. My back started to hurt, limiting my exercise. My business wasn't going as planned. My social life and work were lacking. It felt like I was plugging holes up in the titanic because nothing I was trying to do helped. It started to feel bad. Not only did things kind of suck, but I felt I had "lost" this precious sweet zone that I was occupying.

It's funny because when your on top, it's easy to indulge in the moment. You can (and should) look around and feel great that life is working out. But, like a beautiful butterfly that lands in your hand, the moment you try to grasp it as a possession, you have made it an object. Of course with all possesable objects, loss is nearly unavoidable.

And when life is going good, losing it can be extremely traumatic.

So what I have found is nothing special and easily to applie: take it all in stride.

Taking everything in stride means that when things are going great you can appreciate it for what it is. And when things suck, you don't dwell that life is handing you lemons. You don't have to "make lemonade" but you can just remember that a lemon is just a lemon. Nothing more.

You know that life is cyclical and it will get better. If you are of age to read this then you know better. Even the most cynical among us know this. Things are good, then they suck. Then they are good again. Then something happens and it sucks again.

You can find this wisdom in the quote "This too shall pass".

It's not so bad when you look at from this perspective.

So ride it out and appreciate it for what it is. And like I said, just take it all in stride.