THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 3 minutes

If you were forwarded this email from a friend and want to subscribe, go here.

Books I’m Rereading

I read a lot of books.

I’ve always loved reading, and while my volume has ebbed and flowed throughout my life, reading has been a constant habit and comfort since I can remember.

I rarely repeat books, however.

I don’t have an actual count, but I’d guess I’ve reread less than 20 books in my life.

I never thought much of this until I recently started hearing from people I respect, that they read just a few books in a year, but repeat them often. This is a much different way of consuming books than the way I’ve historically operated.

My way involves a constant stream of information coming at you, and before you get a chance to make any of it’s teachings permanent - you’re onto the next opus from the next smart author.

The new way involves taking in less information, but taking the time to really ingest the information you’re consuming, putting the recommendations and teachings into actual practice, and repeating the consumption of information so you can go deeper and deeper.

I indirectly benefitted from this style earlier this year when I re-read the assigned readings during EOS® implementation as part of my preparation as a new implementer.

Most notably, I reread two of Patrick Lencione’s books - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Four Obsessions of the Exceptional Executive.

It had been almost 10 years since reading these for the first time, but the stories and material were extremely familiar this time around. Since I generally knew the stories, I was able to pull more nuggets of wisdom that I’d never heard before, and my understanding of the lessons in each book were deeper than the first time around.

Having this positive experience, along with consistently hearing from smarter people than me that less books with a deeper understanding of them is the way to go, I’ve started down a path of more repetition of books I want to learn more from - and implement their teachings better.

To do this I’m going to create a simple process that’s easy to follow, and tweak from there. It involves:

1. Reviewing the books I’ve read in the past year

2. Selecting the three that I liked the most or feel I want to implement the content the most

3. Reread those books at least 2 times in the quarter

These books will very likely all be non-fiction, and since I listen to most non-fiction books, and read pages of most fictions, it will be easier for me to repeat these since I’m listening.

In fact I got through one of my three, Essentialism, in just 3 days this week while reading another book at nightime.

So without further ado, here’s a (hopefully exhaustive) list of books I’ve read in the past 12-18 months:

Non-fiction:

• Traction - Gino Wickman

• Dare to Lead - Brene Brown

• The Molecule of More - Daniel Lieberman

• Daring Greatly - Brene Brown

• The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

• The Tao of Seneca (Only about 30% of chapters read)

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Eric Jorgenson

• 10x is Better than 2X - Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy

• The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier

• Storyworthy - Matthew Dicks

• Die with Zero - Bill Perkins

• Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself - Joe Dispenza

• The Way of the Superior Man - David Deida

• Buy then Build - Walker Deibel

• Outlive - Peter Attila

• The Dichotomy of Leadership - Leif Babin & Jocko Wilink

• Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss

• The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive - Patrick Lencione

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencione

• When Good Men get Angry - Bill Perkins

• Deep Work - Cal Newport

• Get a Grip - Mike Paton & Gino Wickman

• Pick up the Phone and Sell - Alex Goldfayn

• The Untethered Soul - Michael Singer

• How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis

• Shine - Gino Wickman and Rob Dube

• Do Hard Things - Steve Magness

• Essentialism - Greg McKeown

• Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

• The Story of Lululemon - Chip Wilson

• Never Finished - David Goggins

Fiction:

• The Cold Millions - Jess Walter

• Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr

• American Gods - Neil Gaiman

• Stories of Your Life - Ted Chiang

It’s been a solid year of great books. Here are the three I’m planning on rereading this quarter, and why:

• Essentialism

• Deep Work

• The War of Art

These three are pretty simple choices for me - they directly relate to areas I’m struggling with in my work and lifestyle to get to the next level.

Put simply - I’m struggling to create deep focused time to study my craft and write/create content.

I’m making great progress, but I need to create some new habits to make the progress I’ve made continue on so I can level-up in a few areas, as opposed to continuing to struggle with the same things week after week.

So the plan is simple - repeat each of these three books twice this quarter, and put in some work to implement some of their tools.

I’ll report back how it went when the quarter is over, and also report whether I plan on repeating the exercise.

Talk to you next week,

Mike

Thanks for reading The Lifestyle Entrepreneur

Do you like reading my newsletter? If so, would you please forward this to one friend who would also enjoy it? It would mean a lot to me :