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Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Seventy-One

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David Goggin’s new book Never Finished is a real bookish weapon! His mindset is outstanding and his ability to withstand pain is unmatched. If you read his first book, “Can’t Hurt Me,” you will have a good sense of what this new book is about, but it surprised me a bit.

Goggins tells how he took endurance and the never give up mindset to a new level. I can’t imagine anyone who would not be inspired by this man’s ability to keep going.

Your Past

Goggins had a horrible childhood, but he eventually overcame that to become a Navy SEAL and then later an endurance athlete. He asks others with difficult pasts to step up, He asks, “How long will you allow your past to hold you back before you finally take control of your future?”

Many of us have faced difficult times. Goggins says, “It is so easy to get lost in the fog of life. Tragedy hunts us all, and any event that causes suffering will linger longer than it should if you let it. Because our sad stories enable us to grade ourselves on a forgiving curve. They give us latitude and justification to stay lazy, weak-minded m******s, and the longer it takes for us to process thsa pan, the harder it is to reclaim our lives.” Now that’s a wake up cal some of us need!

Step Up – The Clock is Ticking

We only have so much time. As Goggin’s says, “…there is a drop-dead time on everything we do in life. All our dreams and visions come with expiration dates etched in invisible ink.”

Some of us are reminded of our death all the time after we get to a certain age. It is popular these days to tell young people to remind themselves to create urgency. Older people are reminded wether they want to be or not. Goggins has been reminded a lot. Once he had to have his heart shocked back to working order. There is a picture of him lying in a hospital bed waiting for the paddles.

Journaling

In my book “Attacking Adversity,” journaling is one of the key strategies I recommend. It helped get me through a very tough time. Goggins says there is another level to journaling. He recommends you make audio recordings and then listen back. He says they have a “more profound effect on the mind.” It is something I may try.

He is not saying to just record your daily thoughts, but rather your deepest trauma. Canyou imagine that? Goggins claims thst, “With each subsequent listen, you will claim more sindmoer power and gain enough transformational energy to change your life.”

Our Mental Lab

Goggins says we all have a Mental Lab where we can recreate ourselves. He says, “If you don’t feel like you are good enough, if your life lacks meaning and time feels like it’s slipping through your fingers, there is only one option. Recreate yourself in your own Mental Lab. Somewhere you can be alone with your thoughts and wrestle with the substance of what and who you wasn’t to be in your one short life earth.” David crested “Goggins.”

He describes a race called the Moab 240. Yes that is a 240 mile race. Then he also discusses the Leadville Trail 100 which has an elevation gain of 15,000 feet or more. That caught my attention since typically I hike 6-10K and it wipes me out.

Get the Book

There is so much on mindset in this book I could never do it justice here, but get it and read the whole thing. You will be glad you did.

You will also read about all the injuries David suffered and how he bounced back. Those stories by themselves are worth the read.

Bookish Weapon Number Sixty-Six

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Boyd Varty has written a book everyone should read for these reasons, 1) It’s discusses lions 2) It’s very short and 3) it will help you find your “track.” ons

Of course I guess I am assuming you are interested in lions, you want save time and your looking for your “track.”

Your Track

So what is your track? According to Varty it is from a life perspective the path to your purpose and it can be the track you are following to find a lion. A Rhino taught him something from the path he walked. That you need to “find the thing that is so engaging that it makes you forget yourself.”

Varty converts the lessons he has learned tracking animals into life lessons that all of us can use.

The Lions

What I found to be the most interesting thing in the whole book was what the author tells us about lions. For instance, did you know that a full grown make lion can get up to 400 pounds? You knew that? But did you know that same 400 pound lion can run 109 years (longer than a football field) in 4 seconds? I didn’t either!

What else? Did you know that other cats like the Jaguar or Leopard do not want to fight because it is too easy for them to get a fatal wound. However, the make lion, because he has the mane protecting his neck is much more aggressive! Yeah, I didn’t know that either.

The Journey

When you are tracking a lion the track can take a lot of turns. You can even lose it says the author. Then you use instinct to find it again. Your fate and the animals seem to be intertwined. This is like life he says.

He reflects on this by saying, “I thought of all the people I had met who wanted a full vision for a new life and then to move from where they were straight into it. I thought of all the people who had told me that when they knew exactly what they wanted to do, they would leave the soul-destroying thing that they were currently involved with. Obsessed with perfection and doing it right, we want to go straight to the “lion.” We don’t realize the significance of the path of first tracks and how to be invested in a discovery rather than an outcome.”

Renias

Renias is a friend of Varty. His ancestors tracked lions for food and he has taught Varty and others the skill. (They don’t track them for food or to kill them. They find them so tourists can see them). Renias is an “interesting” man. For example, he considers treadmills ridiculous!

That’s not all. He doesn’t think time is money, doesn’t talk politics, “when it’s time to work, he works. When it’s time to rest, he rests.” Varty says, “the aboriginals used to say of modern life, “It’s three days deep.” In three days in wilderness, you learn what’s important and your mind changes. Your way of being shifts.”

Stories

Even if you do not read this book, please listen to some of Varty’s stories. He is an excellent story teller who knows how to make the sounds of the jungle. You think you’re right there!

I do hope you read the book. It’s short like I said and packed with interesting information.

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-Eight

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James Altucher is one of my favorite authors. he wrote “Choose Yourself,” which was fantastic. If I have not reviewed that book I will. “Skip The Line,” is equally good.

Altucher has lost money and made money as he always reminds readers. We can learn from his mistakes and he is not shy about discussing what he has done wrong in the past.

The 10,000 Experiments Rule

You all have heard or read that you need to spend 10,000 hours doing something to become the best at it or master it. James says you should do 10,000 experiments. He says before you know something is a good idea you need to run an experiment. Enough ideas and enough experiments and some things are going to work.

Plus James points out that experiments, like his idea for a “Going Steady” app can be easy to set up and do, there is little downside, there’s huge potential upside, it’s never been done before, and you are learning something new. So he says, “There are only two possible results: you either learn something…or the experiment succeeds. There is no failure. He goes on to talk about Galileo’s famous experiment that changed the world.

Then he says that “Conducting 10,000 experiments, or even far fewer, can lead to great knowledge and great success, and it’s the quickest way to skip the line to the top of a profession with as little downside as possible.”

Building Microskills

Altucher talks a lot abut micro skills. It is all one word in his book. It is one of the tools he says you need to get the idea of doing 10,000 experiments going. Most of the book is about these tools. He says you need to stand out. To be the only one like you. To build your unique perspective ad you need these tools to do that.

An example of micro skills is writing. It isn’t jut one skill. You need to be able to tell a story, understand language play, character development, etc. You get the idea.

Who Are You? Why Are You? Why Now?

This is a chapter in the book that I really liked. One of the things he says is that we all will have more than one purpose in our lifetimes and that “obsession is the first clue toward finding your purpose.” He says to look on your phone and see what pictures you’re taking. I take pictures of mountain scenery! Hmm…

He advises to find out what you are scared of because “fear is a compass.” And he goes on, “Without that fear, you know that you are just repeating what others have done before you. That’s why instinctively, you know it’s safe.” That’s good advice!

Learn Idea Calculus

Again, that is the title of a chapter. James is very big on ideas. He recommends writing down 10 ideas a day, every day. So idea calculus includes idea subtraction, idea multiplication, idea division, idea sex (yes, it is very powerful) and idea subsets. This last one is breaking down ideas into parts within parts.

He says, “Many people don’t understand that execution is a spectrum. You can be bad or good. The way you get good at execution is to having good execution ideas. The way to get good at execution ideas is to exercise your idea muscle. When you have an idea there are many possible ways to execute on that idea. It’s like opening a mystical third eye: you can see all the possible futures and choose the bet one. And how do you know which one I best? You guessed it: by experimenting.”

There is so much more in this book! Please read it. You will be glad you did.

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-One

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My father was a serial entrepreneur. He owned at least six businesses that I know about during his lifetime. This is the ultimate entrepreneur’s book. “Built to Serve,” by Evan Carmichael is for those that want to find their purpose and become the leader they were born to be according to the subtitle. I would say that it delvers.

If you want to have your own business and use the Internet (especially Youtube) to generate business Evan is your guy.

Purpose

Before you can serve anyone you need to know your purpose. Evan presents you with excellent questions to ask yourself. He says your purpose is your “source of power.” He takes you through a process to discover your purpose.

You discover the who, the why and the how. First is your who. Who are you? Then you discover your why. Why do you want to do this? Finally, how are you gong to do it.

Your Who

Evan says that your “Who” is the starting point for everything. You start by figuring out what makes you happy. He gives you an excellent exercise for discovering this but he has also written another book called “Your One Word,” that he says will help even more.

In Built to Serve he presents you with five questions to help you discover your who.

Who was your favorite teacher growing up?
What is your favorite movie of all time?
What do you love most about how your parents raised you?
Which successful person do you look up to and why?
What lessons do you want your kids to have?

So once you have discovered your who and your core value, what then?

Your Why

Your why equals your purpose. It comes from your pain. I thought this was very enlightening. He says the way you turn the pain into something good “…is to turn that negative situation into a life-changing gift for yourself and others, to live a service life instead of a surface life, to give yourself a powerful reason to wake up in the morning and work on building something better for yourself and the people around you.” He says, “Your job is to face the pain, eat it, grow from it, and then create positivity and oxygen for others around you.”

Here is the difficulty which he attempts to answer and that is if you are still moored in the pain and have not yet overcome it then what good are you to someone else? He says, …”just the fact that you’re out there trying is an inspiration to others, and you also know more than you did when you started.”

Your How

You need to know how you saved yourself. Now if you haven’t done that then get busy. So you ask yourself, when did you decide something had to change? What is the first thing you did to start the change? Then How did you sustain the momentum? That is your recipe for success he says.

Your how is your passion. It is the work that you love. Evan says when you combine your Who with your Why with doing the work you love it is a hone run.

So don’t delay go get this book. It is one of the few books I have read that really could change your life if you are the right kind of person. Even if you don’t want to start a company it has some great insights about life in general. If fact, I would suggest you get it and read it twice.

Go Hiking and Get Your Life Back

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So you ask me, “How does that work?” Well, if you have been reading these odes to the mountains you will understand that is the easiest task. All it takes is a few hikes and your life changes.

How does it change? First, you go hiking. Before you went hiking you were so distracted by emails, Instagram, Tik Tok, and even Microsoft teams that you had lost your life. It had disappeared into the electronic Matrix. Once you get on the trails things settle down.

The Matrix

You might think that when you are looking at your phone instead of looking at the person across from you that you have your life firmly in hand. Or you are supposed to be exercising but you are sitting on a bench at the gym staring at your phone.

Your mind is in a Matrix composed of all the lures of the electronic universe. You have to escape it to see it for what it is, an addiction so heinous that it will grind you up and spit you out into a pile of wasted lives.

Busyness

Oh, you say that you have your phone under control and you are in charge of it. But you are going from one meeting to another, rushing from one office to another, catching a plane, a lunch date, or grabbing a bite on the run. You have lost your life in the busyness of it.

How long has it been since you had time, even ten minutes to sit and think? A long time I imagine.

The Solution

The best solution is to go hiking! Put your phone in your pack and only take it out to take a picture when you get to the top of a mountain. If you need to take a picture before you reach the top then you still need to keep it in your pack. Make it hard to get at.

Then you hiking, with trees surrounding you and the odor of pine needles or will strawberries wafting up to you. The breeze is on your face. You relax as you push yourself forward. You become one with nature. You get your life back.

A Little More

Maybe a quote from one of Eldredge’s other books, Epic. He says, “We have grown dull towards this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is a fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all?” “Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, clouds have made a rainbow in a circle around the sun…”

Go hiking, experience it all (maybe not Elephants), and get your life back!

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty

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There are lots of books that urge you to put the phone down and get off of social media. Eldridge does that in this book, but it is much more than that. Eldredge writes for Christians or those that are intrigued by Christianity, However, there are ideas in this book for everyone.

Distraction is the currency of this time. Focus or relaxation is hard to come in today’s world. It takes conscious effort. John Eldredge helps us in his book, “Get Your Life Back.”

Questions

Eldredge asks us to score our soul by answering the following questions:

Are you happy most of the time?
How often do you feel lighthearted?
Are you excited about your future?
Do you feel deeply loved?
When was the last time you felt carefree?

All good questions. If you did nothing but sit down and answer these you would get a lot out of the book.

One Minute Pause

In this book, Eldredge introduces the One Minute Pause. He has an App that gives you a choice of one, five, or ten minutes to pause. He suggests you do it twice a day. I use the ten-minute version once a day myself and love it.

He says, “The one minute pause can be used in many ways: for prayer or silence, to find your heart again, or to enjoy a moment of beauty.” Think about this. Taking one, five, or ten minutes once or twice a day to calm yourself can make a huge difference in your life.

Detachment

You have probably at least read about detachment. Buddhist Monks discuss the importance of detachment, but I was a little surprised that a Christian writer would tout its benefits. However, Eldredge adds a qualifier. He calls it “Benevolent Detachment.” The benevolent part means kindness he says. So we detach from what is burdening us without being unkind to others. So no “cynicism or resignation.” As Eldredge says, it is “something done in love.”

Eldredge goes on to discuss how God calls us to a carefree life. He sites a book I have reviewed here called, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” in which the author makes the case that you “can’t care about everything all the time.”

Drinking Beauty

This is the title of one of his chapters. I love it because he talks about nature. Eldredge is a fisherman and a game hunter who does a lot of hiking and climbing too I believe. Nature offers beauty to everyone.

St Augustine described it as “a plank in the waves of the sea.” “Beauty rescues,” says Eldredge. I was so happy to read this because it validates what I knew to be true by spending so much time hiking myself.

As usual, there is so much more in the book. A chapter on being kind to yourself and a chapter on spending time outdoors! So buy it! Read it!!