Over the past couple weeks, I’ve got into reading.
Now, this is something that as a kid I absolutely hated.
I have read 5 books in total since leaving school….
However, I was listening to Modern Wisdom by Chris Williamson (as I tend to do on my drives) and he was discussing how he read “The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho” and it had a profound impact on his life.
I added it to my ever-growing reading list (I have accumulated a lot of books I’d like to read but never got round to)
When I got to my meeting I was driving to, I tried to buy it, but I got a call so didn’t get chance to finish the purchase…
However, later that day, I was at my Mum’s house and we were sorting out stuff in the house, like childhood things, rubbish, stuff that’s just been collected over the years.
And one of the books was “The Alchemist”… I was thinking this was really spooky.
I took it home and and started reading the next day. Very good!
I actually enjoyed it, I liked spending that time in the morning just reading for an hour.
I’m trying to be more intentional about how I’m spending my time and putting in boundaries for work.
The past 2.5 years of building a business has completely consumed every part of my day, late night sessions, early mornings, travelling all-the-time.
But I want to do more intentional “switch-off” time, as I’ve suffered a lot with burnout over this period too.
In August, my partner and I did no social media too. I found it to be really beneficial and most days I still don’t go on Social media, and I want to be more deliberate about less screen time.
So, I bought a subscription to Audible and downloaded some books to listen to in the car.
I then also bought a Kindle to replace my late-night scrolling and ‘Tik-Tok Time’ with my partner we do with reading.
I guess this is the ‘Hyper-Buying’ cycle people get into with a new hobby or purchase - where they want to get everything and one yes leads to lots of others immediately resulting in plenty of upsell opportunities.
I’m going to be really intentional about the books I read and not focus on finishing, or even reading all of it.
If there are parts I’m interested in, I’ll read, but if I’m getting bored - I’ll move on.
I don’t want to make this a chore, I want it to be something I enjoy and stick to.
So far, The Alchemist, The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins), and The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (Eric Jorgenson) are the books I’ve completed in the past couple weeks (actually finished as well!)
I have 124 books in my Amazon wishlist on my Kindle, so the initial hyper-obsession is definitely in full swing!
The topics I’m interested in are:
Business (obviously)
Self Development / Self Improvement
Economics / Maths
Psychology & Behavioural Science
Biographies
All about trying to learn more about people, the world around me and ways to improve my life
As the theme of this blog is “just write”, maybe my thoughts from some books will feature and reading reviews or mini-reviews will be a pillar of the content… we will have to see.
The second half of my Apprenticeship was greatly improved after reading Prof. Steve Peters Chimp Paradox, which was recommended by my mentor at the time.
It drastically helped me step out my comfort zone, come out of my shell and try to become more confident overall.
My recommendations to you right now would be “The Chimp Paradox” and “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”, there’s plenty of highlights and though provoking content that I’ve taken from these two books right now.
Not sure if this is a diary entry or a blog post, but we are sticking with the theme of making myself uncomfortable
