Category: Excellence

The Deep Dive

When it comes to learning something, or building a habit, starting small and just being consistent with it is a great way to go.

Just the other day I read about someone building the habit of exercise by starting so small their first step was to just put out workout clothes…not even put them on. The latter was the second step.

That’s all well and good. Certainly, a time and a place for that.

Then there is also the Deep Dive.

deep dive

This is a similar tool, but one on the opposite side of the spectrum. And one that has served me very well over time.

The Deep Dive is when you dive deeply into some subject, topic or practice. The deep dive could be a day, a weekend, a week, a month. Hell, it could even be a theme for a whole year. It takes many forms, so I’ll give you a few different examples.

As I discuss in The Money System that Never Fails, it was a deep dive in reading somewhere between 20 and 30 money books that things turned around for me financially, and I got off the constant struggle treadmill. Mind you, this wasn’t just study, but also involved building a Wealth Plan and starting with immediate action. Read a bit more about that story in the Introduction here.

Over the course of writing my upcoming book Powered By Nature I did a deep dive on various books about health, nature and connection to it. This was described in the posts about the 72 books I read last year.

Just recently, I signed up for Perry Marshall’s New Renaissance membership. He has a monthly newsletter of which the back copies are available. In the six weeks since I signed up I have read four years of this material. Why? Because the business (and life) wisdom is deep there. Not only that, but I just saw Perry at a one day event in San Francisco and will be attending a 3-day event of his in a couple months.

A weekend seminar or conference can certainly be a deep dive. I could count on probably one hundred pairs of hands how many of those I have attended as well as put on.

Back when I was conducting NLP trainings my partner and I would choose a specific topic, such as the Milton Model or Reframing or Sleight of Mouth. For the month or two leading up to that workshop it was reading and practicing, followed by teaching. Then onto the next topic. In this manner, especially because we had to teach it, our skills grew tremendously.

Thinking ahead there are some things I would like to do a deep dive on at some point.

So far, my piano practicing has been the little bits of practice here and there. It’s slowly moving me along. AND I know a deep dive could take me much further.

Ultimately, I think the combination of the tortoise and the hare approach, the small consistent practice and the deep dive, leads to the best results.

What area of your life could use a deep dive?

Reading Plan Final Analysis

At last, the final part of the 72 books in 2017 analysis. Spent more time on this than I initially planned, but I learned some things along the way…and I hope you did too.

In the previous articles – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – I mentioned each category of books. And there are different ways I can categorize besides topic. This article looks at this list in a few different ways.

Re-Reading Books

Another category I can look at is which books did I read, that this wasn’t the first time reading.

If a book is really good, you can’t possibly get everything out of it, in one read.

The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner

It was necessary for me to read this book for the second time, in help with writing the chapter on heart intelligence and perception for my book, Powered By Nature. This book is not an easy read, but is very dense in both some of the science, and the meaning behind it.

I believe this book would change most people’s view of nature if they read it, as it’ll open you to a new way of seeing the world that is downplayed, or said not to exist, in the standard Western viewpoint.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

I think this was my third read of Essentialism. It’s a pretty quick read with an important topic, especially in this day and age. It’s all about getting down to what is essential in business, in life, in everything you do. There is a good chance I’ll be reading it again in 2018, as each time I do I feel like it helps me to strip away another layer of un-essential things.

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish

This book is a roadmap to running a successful business. It is dense with specific things to do, recommended resources and examples. This was my second time reading through it and I’ll definitely be reading it again this year.

Basically, we’re using it as our bible for growing Lost Empire Herbs and have been since I started using it. It was also great to hear a fellow business owner I know that had just sold his business for 9 figures that he also used this as his main roadmap.

If you’re aiming to build beyond a small business this can be a great help. (But it is not good for lifestyle type businesses…just too much that wouldn’t be relevant.)

Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson

This was my second read through. I was looking for just a refresher around money and liked this book the first time through. I figured I had grown since several years ago when I read it, so it would reveal something new to me.

The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing

I hadn’t actually read this translation before, but I had read a different version of the Tao Te Ching. I was beginning my day with a passage every day, which is not a bad when to start the day.

The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

A quick read, but full of wisdom. Although it is mostly about fighting, of which Musashi was one of the greatest ever, the principles apply to many other areas of life. But you’ll have to do some work in translating it to those areas.

Reading Multiple Books by an Author

Comparing how many authors I’ve read multiple books versus a single book I come up with the following for authors I’ve read two or more books from:

Dan Simmons
Richard Louv
Stephen Harrod Buhner
Rupert Sheldrake
Yuval Noah Harari
Perry Marshall
Douglas Adams
Steven Kotler
Tim Ferriss
Michael A. Singer
Russell Brunson
Les McKeown
Nora Gedgaudas
Dave Asprey
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Napoleon Hill
Michael Masterson

That’s 17 authors out of 63 or about 25%. (I counted two or more authors for one book as one author.)

Some of them were first time and multiple books this year (Louv, Harari, McKeown). Others I had read before and read new or different books this year.

Late in 2016 I remember going back to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. That’s when I thought, why haven’t I read everything this guy put out. So I did. If you like and author, and gain from their material, why just read one book?

Authors I Have Met

It was interesting to look at how many of these authors I have met.

Meeting Dave Asprey at a Conference

Kevin Feinstein
John Perkins
Tim Ferriss
Rick Smith
Dave Asprey
Bryan Franklin
Michael Ellsberg
Richard Branson
Charlie Engle
Russell Brunson
Dr. Mercola

Looking over the list all of them were at various events, from small foraging classes with Kevin Feinstein, to traveling to the Amazon and Guatemala with John Perkins. Most of the others were at various conferences and were mostly brief meetings, like a hello and a handshake.

On that note I have also seen Greg McKeown and Verne Harnish speak at events but didn’t have a chance to meet them.

And while I’ve never met with Elliot Hulse in person, I have spoken with him for an interview.

Reading Plans for 2018

I hope you enjoyed this five-part breakdown. It was interesting for me to do as spending this much time analyzing what I read revealed a few ideas to me that I otherwise would not have had.

Here are some of my plans for what I’ll be reading throughout 2018.

More fiction. I’ve got no plans to stop or slow non-fiction, but aiming for a stronger fiction:non-fiction ratio than 5/72 this year.
More diverse reading covering a wider-range of topics.
More biographies.
More re-reading. I like new books as I get the joy of learning something new, but with all that I have read I have a really good idea of which books are worth re-reading. So, probably more than 6 re-reads in the next year.
Since in previous years I had read sooooo much on the topic, recently I’ve got away from reading much about strength and fitness. In 2018 I’ll bring it back in.
And since I’m having a baby, while I’ll shoot for 72 books or more, I fully recognize that I may not have as much reading time as I did in 2017. So I will be gentle with myself if my list next year is only half as big.
On that note I plan to be reading a few books about parenting too.

Jim Kwik, the memory expert, has said that “Readers are Leaders.” I fully embrace that statement. I feel like the reason I have been successful in many areas of life is because of my constant learning. Not only that, but I enjoy reading. When joy and learning go together big things can happen.

What about you? What are your reading plans for 2018?

How to Read 72 Books Per Year

Before we dive into the final bunch of books I read in 2017, I received this question from James that I’d like to cover:

“How did you manage to read that many books in one year and able to soak them all in?”

This is an excellent question, with multiple aspects to it.

First of all, reading is a habit for me. There are times when I get away from it, but I regularly read each day.

Secondly, I read quickly. I covered speedreading as one of the tools I use to learn fast here.

As for my process, after I finish working for the day, I like to relax by reading. Although I’m underlining books, and sometimes taking notes, it’s much more passive than active to me, hence I find it a relaxing activity.

At any time I am typically reading 5-8 books, usually on different topics (like one business book, one health book, one fiction book, etc.). What I like to do, though this doesn’t happen every day, is to read one chapter of each. This keeps my interest up when otherwise just reading through one book, if it’s not exciting, might be a drag.

That being said, when I do find those fascinating books I do have times where I set aside all other books and purely focus on one.

On Sundays, which right now is usually my only day I take completely off of work, I spend more time reading than usual. I often aim to finish at least one book each week and would take the time on a Sunday to finish off one of my 5 to 8 I am reading.

As mentioned, I underline and take notes while reading. This helps to “soak it in.” And if I want more soaking I will review all my underlines and notes after finishing the book, and then something like a week to a month later. (This helps lock it in…which to be honest I don’t do as much as I’d like.)

As I said, reading is a habit for me. And it’s been a habit since back in high school. I’ve never stopped reading (as so many people do) so I’ve continually gotten better at doing it, by actually working to refine my process.

Guess what? Writing about it here has strengthened my process even more!

This is the last post covering the breakdown, by subject matter, of the 72 books I read last year. Previous articles here – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3.

Books about Writing

Writing Books

Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner
Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri

As I worked on my biggest book project ever, Powered By Nature, I felt like I was fully stepping into being an author. Yes, I had written books before, but I felt this was more as an info-publisher, for business, rather than as a real author. Everything I had done up to this point was self-published, with the exception of Mental Muscle, published by Dragondoor.

So, as I stepped more into being an author, I wanted to learn more about writing. As mentioned, I love Buhner’s work, reading three of his books this year. Rather than health and nature, in Ensouling Language he takes the same depth to the topic of writing.

All of the other three books I read about in Tools of Titans, recommended by one or more people. Very different, but each is good in its own way.

I thought Daily Rituals was fascinating as it looked at the creative habits of writers, artists and more of many famous people from history up to the present. Very interesting to see the differences, and also to help pin-point what works well for yourself.

Ancient Wisdom Books

The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perry Marshall (author of Evolution 2.0 which I read this year) makes the point of reading books made before the printing press was invented. In order for those works to be preserved manual copying needed to be done. Lao Tzu and Musashi fit this. Goethe does not, though his writings certainly are older than every other book I read so I added it to this category.

Biography Books

Books Biography

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
Running Man by Charlie Engle

These books could have been added to other categories, such as business for Chouinard and Branson. Then self-help or business for Singer, as there are elements of both. Plus, I did put his other book The Untethered Soul in the former category.

Running Man, I’m not sure where I would put. There’s a fitness element, but largely that is not what the book is about. I met Charlie at an even and actually just interviewed him to dive deeper into Mental Toughness, which a man who ran across the Sahara desert certainly has! That will be released soon at Legendary Strength.

So, in this and the previous article I’ve covered each of these categories and the books in it.

Fiction (5 books)
Nature (9 books)
Shamanism (2 books)
Science/History (10 books)
Self-Help (8 books)
Business (13 books)
Health (9 books)
Biography (4 books)
Ancient Wisdom (3 books)
Writing (4 books)
Finances (5 books)

There is one last article to come, which will share a couple other ways I looked at these books, and my reading plans for 2018.

Health, Nature, Shamanism and Science Books

This is the ongoing analysis of the books I read over 2017. This title might seem like an odd grouping to most people, but there is actually a strong thread throughout.

First, if you missed the previous posts here they are:

Now, more on that strong thread…

A lot of what I read this year was to aid in the writing of my own book, still in the works, Powered By Nature. In the following lists, every italicized book title was quoted, referenced or otherwise utilized for this purpose. As you can see, across the four sections it’s most of them.

And really many of them could have been put in the other categories. You’ll see I actually did put Sheldrake into two different categories. Most of the nature books were heavy on science, and about the health impact of nature, which is the primary goal of my book too.

Nature Books

The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
Vitamin N by Richard Louv
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
Survival Handbook by Peter Darman

Buhner is one of my favorite authors. That’s also why I read his book about writing too. More on that later.

I won’t go into the amazing details of all these books. You’ll have to wait for Powered By Nature for that (or read all of these).

But I will mention The Bay Area Forager. Actually before I read this book I did a foraging class with Kevin Feinstein. That class, then using this book for more and as a resource guide, helped me up my foraging game in 2017, which should grow even stronger next year. I’m doing this as a way of building a closer connection to real food and where it comes from, especially in the wild.

Shamanism Books

Books Shamanic

Psychonavigation by John Perkins
Illumination by Alberto Villoldo

Seeing as I’ve traveled to both the Amazon jungle and Guatemala with him, I’ve read over half of John Perkins’ books. Very entertaining author with subjects that are important to me.

Science/History Books

Science Books

The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

One of the hardest chapters for me to write in Powered By Nature is the one about The Fall of Nature/The Rise of Scientism. It was Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set Free that opened my eyes to this idea, which I read the previous year. (The synopsis is materialism as a philosophy has a strangle hold on science and the worldview of many things and is not actually scientific in it’s approach.)

While Sapiens and Homo Deus are conventional science, everything else listed here is not. They either detail the problems of science, alternative (but superior and actually fitting the evidence better) theories, or both.

Evolution 2.0 looks at the whole idea of Darwinism vs. Creationism as a false divide, and what the evidence is actually showing.

Trust, Us We’re Experts is about how industries can muddy the scientific waters, and have done so over and over. Everyone knows that Big Tobacco did this. Few people realize how pervasive it has been in the past, and still is today.

Rigor Mortis covers the difficulties of scientific experiments, even when it is not purposefully mislead. From the conventional side of things, it still shows the major flaws in what we call science.

The Fourth Phase of Water shows just how wrong the conventional understanding of water is. Water! If we don’t have the most common and foundational molecule right, how much can we trust more advanced things?

Nor is it just science, but other fields like archaeology too, as covered in Magicians of the Gods, which shows a preponderance of evidence for rewriting human history from what we’re all taught as the mainstream view.

I am thoroughly enjoying this topic. The more I dig in the more I see how flawed so much that we accept without question is. Since we live in the “scientific age,” I feel this is must-have knowledge to be able to successfully navigate the world. I plan to write more about this topic in the future.

Health Books

Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
Head Strong by Dave Asprey
Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Once again, plenty of science in pretty much all these books. And the crossover between health and nature books is fairly arbitrary.

You’ll notice that a lot of them lean towards the high fat diet or ketosis. That’s something I’ve been exploring and is trendy now, so new books on the topic have been coming out and I’ve been reading them.

But these aren’t all diet books. Some are about things likes light and how it affects you, and movement.

There is one more post about the categories in books, then a final post covering a different way of look at the complete list, as well as thoughts on my reading for 2018.

Business, Financial and Self-Help Books

In the previous post, I listed out the 72 books that I read in 2017. In this post, I continue my analysis of them. I won’t address every book, more the groups of them, with some call-outs to the most impactful.

(That being said, if you have questions about any one, feel free to ask in the comments below.)

My biggest category was business…

13 Business Books

The Great Disruption by Rick Smith with Mitch Free
Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff and J.J. Sutherland
Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Predictable Success by Les McKeown
No by Jim Camp
The Synergist by Les McKeown
Key Performance Metrics by Bernard Marr

Business is a broad category, and these books run the gamut.

Predictable Success as the most impactful as it changed how I look at business, as well as giving a big picture gameplan that has already turned out useful. I wrote about Predictable Success in this previous post.

Though not on the same level, The Synergist, his follow-up title was also good.

Who by Smart and Street was another impactful read. This details an extensive hiring system, proven to work great, that we have starting using as best as we could at Lost Empire Herbs.

Another favorite was Hacking Marketing. This came right after Scrum and is about that same topic. However reading the former was more applicable to me, using it inside marketing team, rather than in software development, where it was created. This is still an aspirational read as we haven’t quite got there, but the idea of it excites me.

No by Jim Camp was another great one. Famous email marketer Ben Settle kept talking about it and I see why. I haven’t studied negotiation much at all. But I applied just a few principles from this book and landed a high-dollar client without really even trying, by going for the no.

5 Financial Books

In the past, as I detail in the introduction for my money system book, I’ve read a lot about the topic. Now, not so much. Most of these occurred after I had purchased a home and wanted to expand in some new areas.

Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion by Napoleon Hill
The Sale of a Lifetime by Harry S. Dent Jr.
The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg
Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark

Of these, The Last Safe Investment was the most different. Really the concepts transcend age, but especially for any young person looking for an alternative path the the classic college route, this would be a great read. This book challenges conventional wisdom, which makes it great (since so much convention is wrong).

8 Self-Help Books

Self Help Books

The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
The Book of Joy by Douglas Adams, Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

Looking at it again, I lumped all these into self-help when it really covers a wide variety of things.

Tools of Titans covers lots of major topics so I just lumped it in here. As that is a collection of wisdom from many people, distilled down, I found a lot of useful bits in there.

My favorite of this group was The Great Work of Your Life. This was recommended over and over by Yanik Silver. (Actually half of these books came from him and other Mavericks!) This book is great for you finding more of your purpose or calling in life. I will likely re-read this one over time as there are lots of great stories and ideas in it.

More next time…

I Read 72 Books in 2017

I’ve always been a reader (at least since I learned how).

If you like learning things, I think there is hardly a better way then to get someone’s distilled wisdom in a book. Being an author, I’m biased. But I think it was my love for reading that turned me onto writing in the first place.

My books. Pain in the ass to move, but great for learning.

Based on hearing some people talk about how many books they read in a year, I decided to actually keep track over 2017.

In the end I read 72 books!

This is cover to cover and this is actual reading. (For audio I tend to do podcasts, rather than audio books. Just a personal preference.)

I did not count any books that I only read part of.

I also did not count my own book, Powered By Nature, that I read countless times as I was writing and editing it either.

If you look through the list, you’ll see a fairly wide variety of topics, but certain focal points as well. In this and the following posts, I’m going to dive into my own analysis of this list.

The 72 Books I Read in 2017

This list is in chronological order of when I finished the books.

01 The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
02 The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
03 Psychonavigation by John Perkins
04 The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
05 The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
06 Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion by Napoleon Hill
07 Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner
08 Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
09 The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
10 The Great Disruption by Rick Smith with Mitch Free
11 The Book of Joy by Douglas Adams, Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
12 King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
13 The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
14 Illumination by Alberto Villoldo
15 Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree
16 The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
17 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff and J.J. Sutherland
18 How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
19 Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
20 Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
21 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
22 The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing
23 Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
24 Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
25 Ilium by Dan Simmons
26 The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
27 The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
28 Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
29 What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
30 Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
31 Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
32 Vitamin N by Richard Louv
33 The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
34 Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
35 Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
36 Head Strong by Dave Asprey
37 Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
38 Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
39 Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
40 Essentialism by Greg McKeown
41 The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
42 The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
43 Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
44 Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
45 Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
46 Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
47 The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
48 Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
49 In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
50 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
51 The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
52 Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
53 Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola
54 The Sale of a Lifetime by Harry S. Dent Jr.
55 The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
56 Olympos by Dan Simmons
57 Predictable Success by Les McKeown
58 No by Jim Camp
59 The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
60 The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg
61 The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
62 Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
63 Running Man by Charlie Engle
64 The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
65 The Synergist by Les McKeown
66 The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
67 Key Performance Metrics by Bernard Marr
68 Survival Handbook by Peter Darman
69 Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark
70 Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
71 Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
72 Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

In breaking down these into categories I come up first with the following:

Fiction (5 books)
Non-Fiction (67 books)

The five fiction books are:

The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Olympos by Dan Simmons

You’ll notice Dan Simmons features prominently on this list. These are 3 of his science fiction books (The Rise of Endymion being the final book of 4 in the Hyperion series). The Ilium and Olympos being a two part series. Amazing writer! I was recommended his work last year and glad I read it. Will probably read more from him in 2018.

I kept hearing about The Alchemist so I finally got it and read it. It’s a good parable. Didn’t do a whole lot for me.

The Man in High Castle was probably the only book I read on Kindle this year. I liked the movies based on Dick’s work, but this was my first time reading him.

Overall, I feel this is too little on the fiction side. In the coming year I’ll aim to increase the ratio somewhat.

In the next post, I’ll be going over the non-fiction breakdowns.

Nature (9 books)
Shamanism (2 books)
Science/History (10 books)
Self-Help (8 books)
Business (13 books)
Health (9 books)
Biography (4 books)
Ancient Wisdom (3 books)
Writing (4 books)
Finances (5 books)

How many books did you read this year? Answer in the comments below…

Learning a New Skill

I’m currently learning a new skill, specifically practicing the piano.

Piano

For a long time, I’ve wished I had a musical skill, I just haven’t really pursued it before. This is my efforts to become a full-fledged renaissance man. Wikipedia states:

“When someone is called a ‘Renaissance man’ today, it is meant that, rather than simply having broad interests or superficial knowledge in several fields, the individual possesses a more profound knowledge and a proficiency, or even an expertise, in at least some of those fields. Some dictionaries use the term “Renaissance man” to describe someone with many interests or talents, while others give a meaning restricted to the Renaissance and more closely related to Renaissance ideals.”

As far as I’m concerned, some musical skill is necessary to achieve that ideal. After all, Leonardo da Vinci, the prototypical polymath, did have musical skill.

Besides I know myself, and I know that my auditory sense, and all that pertains to that, is the weakest of my senses. Learning music would be a helpful correction.

Recently, my grandparents-in-law offered me their old stand-up piano and I took them up on their offer. I’m not sure what the reason, but I felt that the piano was a suitable musical instrument for me.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the piano mover’s brought it over to my new home. The next day I got started.

As I did in working towards an artistic skill (specifically drawing), I went to the great teacher of today…Youtube.

Valhalla Drawing — My favorite drawing of one of my cats, Valhalla, after a couple months of practice.

I typed in something along the lines of “beginner’s piano lessons” and found what looked like a good starting place.

But then advertising got me! The pre-roll ad on this video, was an ad for an online piano course on Udemy.

I clicked over and liked what I saw. I shelled out the $29 for the 10-hour video course. After all, it had 4.7 stars with 9418 ratings, so the proof, in addition to the offer, was strong.

(I’ll keep in mind the targeting to the offer, as I plan to start doing Youtube advertising for my businesses soon!)

Although Youtube is a great place to start, there are downsides. Learning from my experience in drawing, Youtube got me going, but it wasn’t very structured. Some channels had a few tutorials in a series, but nothing was very long, nor detailed. I think part of what may have led me to ceasing practicing drawing as much was the lack of structure.

Now, as of writing this, I’m 38 lessons into the course…of 362.

And I’m having a great time. I’m not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I can play a few simple songs. The other night I played a simple tune while my nieces danced around to it.

We’re often told about the 10,000 hour rule. If you want to become an expert in something it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours of practice to do so. But this is expert level. Even world-class in many fields.

What most people aren’t aware of is the 10 hour rule.

To get okay at something it takes about 10 hours.

There is a huge difference in those numbers. Think about it this way. Most people across the world have never played the piano. They’ve just never tried. So with just a tiny bit of practice, you would be capable of doing more than those that have never done any.

Actually I don’t even know if I’ve totaled 10 hours of practice yet! Probably close to that number. But I’ve already been playing for others.

I wrote about this in my book, Practicing Strength and Movement. Although that is about applying the skills of practice to strength and movement as the title says, so much of that material applies to any skill in general.

If you practice at practicing things, you can gain any skill much faster. That’s why I talk about practicing as a meta-skill. It can be applied to any individual thing you desire.

Habits are another meta-skill worth cultivating that I’ve written about before. (And have a draft of habits book sitting on my desktop too. Need to finish that up.)

What’s more is as I’m progressing, because the skill is being built quickly as with every lesson I learn something new, I’m having lots of fun.

I appreciate how quickly I can start to get into the flow of playing some simple chords and rhythms.

When I first started, I was writing it on my to-do list as something I wanted to get done. Now, I’ve quickly developed the habit. Further, because I enjoy it, it doesn’t take any motivation to do so. I’m finding myself playing a few times throughout the day, and the amount of time I practice increasing. It probably won’t be long til I’ve logged my first 100 hours of practice.

Maybe at that point, I’ll share some of my playing with you.

So many people get trapped into the thinking of “talent” or “old dogs can’t learn new tricks.” These are both damning mindsets that will keep you from experiencing new things or ever accomplishing anything worthwhile.

What new skill would you like to learn?

The Secret to Winning

“The secret to winning the game is staying in the game long enough to win the game.”
-Dr. Glenn Livingston

I came across this quote somewhere the other day, and liked it so much I had to write it down.

I liked it so much because it is so true.

With life, and achieving anything in it, you need to take a long term perspective. A year…years…a decade…multiple decades.

Something I’ve heard, and know to be true from personal experience, is that humans tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, but underestimate what they can do in three years.

(A lot of people tend to set yearly goals, but how many set three year goals? I wonder if that has anything to do with it.)

The fact is that most people quit too early. And in some cases too early may be after three or five years!

I’ve seen this happen in my fitness life. I was weak starting out. It pissed me off to see people that didn’t workout able to do things I had to bust my ass for six months to accomplish. But I continued working out. They didn’t.

I look back ten years and I’m amazed at all I’ve done. Holy shit! I am actually quite strong and do some amazing things. When did that happen? There was no magical flip of the switch, just consistency over a long time frame.

I have made just about every mistake you could possibly make when it comes to business. I cringe to think about some of what occurred in my early days…or even just last year. But the one mistake I did not make, the one that made all the difference, was that I kept going.

I’ve stayed in the business game almost a decade now, and it’s really starting to pay off.

It’s kind of aggravating thinking “Why did it take so long?” Well, I had a whole lot to learn over that time.

As long as you keep going, and you learn along the way, in the end you will be successful.

As coaching legend Vince Lombardi once stated after a loss, “We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”

In sports you have a finite time to win. While the time may vary, that’s part of the rules in pretty much every single sport there is.

In life, there is also a time limit…but this is far, far, far longer than any sport.

The more you can wrap your head around being persistent, being patient, and thinking for the long-term, the better off you’ll be no matter the endeavor.