Alright, just to be transparent, I don’t actually mean — don’t read. I love to read! But my point more or less is you don’t need ANOTHER book to get started, as the title says. The reason I say this is because I’m a part of a lot of self-help/self-development communities and all we talk about are books. Typical day goes, “Have you read 4 Hour Work Week? I love where he says this…”, “What about Rich Dad Poor Dad? He’s so inspiring…”, “You mean to say you haven’t read ReWork?” All of which are amazing books by the way! I highly recommend them, but here’s where I get to my point…
We are all looking to fill a gap and many times we are trying to gain the perfect amount of knowledge before we pull the trigger. I have read countless books that talk about somebodies experience and how they became successful. We try to implement their experience into our lives and replicate their success. Then another book comes along and we read that, and once again we’re enthralled and inspired by this person’s success, so we try to replicate their life once again. The cycle goes on and on. But let’s take a step back and get a birds eye view. The common denominator is that EACH AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCE IS DIFFERENT. So what does that tell you? It should tell you that you need to put down your book (or stop reading this post) and pave your own path.
I realize that was probably a tad blunt. So let me soften the blow. Each of these books have excellent takeaways. These self-development books are an excellent source of knowledge. There are so many things to harvest from the words on each page but if you’re just looking for your next “fix”, then you are just trying to fill a hole I want to call “Inability to Execute”.
So here’s what I want you to take away from this post. YOU ALREADY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET STARTED. These books are intended to be sources of inspiration, but they will not put legs on your ideas and make them run. If you are not executing your ideas while reading these books, then you have become no more than a fountain that cyclically sprays water and recycles it never allowing your water to touch anyone or make an impact — you’re keeping it to yourself. Yes, they are beautiful to look at, but that’s just it, they’re only beautiful.
So the next question might be, well if I’m not a fountain, than what should I be? Be a stream — a stream that turns into a river and eventually dumps into a massive wealth of opportunity. Read books along the way, take notes and experience life as you travel the stream but touch the world around you as your progress to your goals. At the end of our life, it’s all about memories and experiences. So don’t worry about failing, because that’s the stream of life. You’ll run into hindrances like rocks and fallen down trees — but if you’re flexible you’ll filter through the cracks and tiny gaps and come out purer on the other side.
If you’re still with me, great! I hope this post inspires you to put legs to your ideas and start running with them. You don’t need another book to get started, you just need to trust that you already have the right tools in the shed and get to work.
So now that I’ve accomplished this post, I think I’ll reward myself and continue to read “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. See what I did there? Have a good week everyone!
Recent Comments