Legacy by Dave Ramsey – I haven’t come across many books that talk about how to integrate spirituality and personal finances, but I really enjoyed this one. Ramsey is a Christian and mostly comes at it from that point of view, but I got a few interesting takeaways and some additional books to read.
What I liked best was a Jewish Sabbath ritual (Havdalah) where someone pours wine into a cup until it overflows into the saucer below.
The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield – Truly fascinating book and worth the reread. So often I’m about to do something worthwhile or difficult, but I end up doing something trivial and insignificant. I don’t know what causes this. Is it just my brain trying to save energy? Is there truly a chaotic, anti-creative force in the universe? Whatever is actually happening, Pressfield’s concept of “Resistance” rings true, and I notice it a lot more often in my day to day life having read this book.
The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch – I’ve reread this annually for about 4 years now. It helps me reset and reflect on what is actually important and effective. Huge fan. Plus, I think it’s one of the few business books that has a lot of wisdom for one of my biggest life questions, “What’s the right balance between work and non-work activities?”
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre – Fascinating book about a real espionage story during the Cold War.
The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks (gets to the core of a lot of self-limiting behaviors. I read through it once pretty quickly, and am going back through to take notes and journal on the thought-provoking questions presented). [update: second read through is well worth it]
The Genius Zone by Gay Hendricks – also very good. Lot of techniques and exercises for getting into a better relationship with yourself and your creativity.
The nugget of an affirmation I found in this one goes like, “I, Nicholas, commit to ending negative thinking and liberating my true creativity.”
Conscious Luck by Gay Hendricks and Carol Kline – I think this book is really good for developing the feeling that life is happening for you, rather than to you. Luck, to me, is a state of mind where you can notice (and act on) opportunities. If you are enmeshed in negative, victimized thinking you will mostly spend your attention on everything that is disagreeable to you. You will ruminate on unpleasant interactions where you may have been slighted. You will worry about potential disasters in the future. And you will have used up all your energy and attention to do so. Moreover, you may have actively sought out further evidence for your “unlucky” status. Rather than skate past negativity, you instead become embattled in it. You create conflict. Letting go of negative thinking, however, allows you to be truly present in the moment, and notice opportunities as they arise. In fact, it seems probable to me that you will actively attract more opportunities over time. Positive people like positive people, and negative people like negative people. If you are connected with “lucky” people who are always noticing opportunities and taking action on them, doesn’t that bode well for you to do the same?
There is also a chapter on shame which I found very interesting. Shame is a deep-rooted belief that you don’t deserve for anything good to happen to you. It’s a very unlucky state of mind. I would need to reread the chapter to get it all exactly right, but the gist is that your sense of shame is currently using up a lot of bandwidth in your nervous system that could otherwise be allocated to happiness and luck.
Here’s the big affirmation I try to keep in mind from this book. “I, Nicholas, commit to being a lucky person, now and forever.” Notice that it doesn’t say, “I, Nicholas am a lucky person.” The problem with that phrasing is that as soon as something unlucky happens, my belief will falter and that statement will feel hollow and stupid. Commitment, however, can be renewed no matter what. Treating luck as a learnable skill is a short-cut to positive thinking.
One more thought. Thinking of yourself as a lucky person introduces a very helpful pattern in your life. When something happens, whatever happens, you get to say, “How lucky!” or “Lucky me!” This keeps you in a good frame of mind. Suppose traffic is slowing down your commute and you’ll be late to meet your friend. Sure, your immediate goal is delayed, but how do you know that life isn’t setting you up for something even better? When you say, “How lucky,” your eyes open to what’s going on around you. What’s the reason this is lucky? Am I to meet someone new? Am I to have an interesting insight that I wouldn’t have had otherwise? Perhaps sitting in traffic is just what I need to do right now. What can I learn? All these thoughts expand your world, and maybe lead to some personal growth. Imagine what happens for you if you are always growing like that. Doesn’t life begin to unfold in some new and mysterious ways? Aren’t you becoming a more authentic version of yourself? By contrast, imagine trying to believe that you are unlucky, that you are destined to fight with life tooth and nail over every little thing. That anything good coming into your life is unusual, suspicious, and unnatural. What do you do with opportunities then? What do you make of the small blessings sprinkled throughout your day? You trample them! The only reward is that you get to keep thinking, “whatever I have accomplished, I earned. I wasn’t lucky. In fact, I overcame tremendous bad luck to get here.” You are allowing your ego to run rampant. You get to be the king or queen of your own little kingdom. But it is a sad, small kingdom indeed.
The Bhagavad Gita – Like most spiritual texts, this gets things balanced out really well. I especially liked that it emphasized imperfect, but authentic action.
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis –
The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung –
Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey – Kind of a typical Dave Ramsey book. “Legacy” had a lot more useful content for me personally.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by Lindsay Gibson
Self Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by Lindsay Gibson
Recovery by Russell Brand
How Will You Measure Your Life, by Clayton Christensen
Notes from the Underground, by Fyoder Dostoyevsky
Breathing Under Water, by Father Richard Rohr
Caffeine, by Michael Pollan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling, performed by Jim Dale
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling, performed by Jim Dale
The Good Karma Divorce:
Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends
Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self Discovery