Tag: Book Reviews

Don’t give up

~ Joshua Best ~ Leave a comment

“Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but please, for God’s sake, don’t sell it cheap.”-Epictetus, Discourses I

When the new year came you made commitments to yourself. How sad would it be if you cannot keep the promises you made to yourself?

When you follow through on your commitments something amazing happens. You begin to build resilience, and that resilience translates into more productive and empowering days.

These days will quickly pass. Before you realize it, you will have either built a future from powerful, life-changing habits, or you will have lost your willpower and be left alone and disappointed for failing to take a stand to be someone better than you were yesterday.

So, be strong. Take a stand, and invest in your future today by always keeping the promises you make to yourself. It’s really a type of self-fulfilling mental hack available to anyone with the patience to use it. It’s the legendary self-fulfilling prophecy in action. Believe in hard work and you will see positive results from your efforts.

When you keep the promises you make to yourself, you also increase your faith in your ability to succeed in the presence of hardship. You will begin to have the courage to seek greater challenges, and you will find that fewer things in life intimidate you.

You will have built a reservoir of trust, and you will now know that when you make a decision in life you will have the follow through needed to accomplish your goals. Faith in that belief is an important source of personal strength.

Remember, you choose to build up or tear down that faith every day based on the decisions you make.

Book Review – The 5 AM Club

~ Joshua Best ~ Leave a comment

⭐️

The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma

“On the day [I finished this titan’s masterpiece] more doves and butterflies took flight over the historic center of [my hometown] than ever before. There was even a double rainbow that extended all the way from [Burger King] to the [Public Library]. You would have been impressed, if you had been there to see it” (Refer to Epilogue for comparison text).

Okay, I’ll leave the narrating to Sharma, but it’s finally time to tell you what I think about Sharma’s 5 AM Club and the book he wrote to describe it.

I was clearly not a fan of the narrative style in this piece. I didn’t see the value in being told when, where, how and what to believe on every step of this journey. I’d rather have been presented with more facts and science (not “magic”) to help me improve the quality of my life. I felt like I was being indoctrinated into a cult of personality at times.

To be fair, the actual ideas, charts and formulas for success that comprise the 5 AM Club are legitimately valid approaches that could help the reader maximize the return on their investment of time for improving the quality of their life. If the storytelling were removed and we were presented quick tips or FAQs in a 15 minute read or video, we may have had a winner. I know I’d be willing to watch the TedTalk.

In the end though, there’s nothing really new here in either the philosophy of the 5 AM Club or the narrative. The storytelling led me down a path of resistance rather than intrigue. Overall, I was disappointed. I felt that a second reading of Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People would better accomplish the same goals presented here, but in a clearer more approachable way.

With enough money, doesn’t everything look and feel like magic? Was it the 5AM Club that made life a dream for the entrepreneur and artist or was it the happenstance meeting with someone who had unlimited resources that opened the door to create a rare but attainable opportunity for these two to thrive?

Maybe I’m just as jaded as the entrepreneur in the beginning of the story. Perhaps, I just need a billionaire to take me under his wing and show me how this “magic” really works. Would seeing the wonders in the world through the lens of the One Percent’s vast estates and wealth have made this journey attainable for me? I don’t know. I don’t know any billionaires to ask.

Anyhoo, as Riley would say, if you’re a billionaire and you think I have it all wrong, I’m willing to open my mind and give you a chance to mentor. Until then, I’d recommend trying something by Stephen Covey or Ryan Holiday for your next read. I think you’ll find a greater return on the investment of your time.

Book Review – A Field Guide to a Happy Life

~ Joshua Best ~ 2 Comments

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living by Massimo Pigliucci

You don’t go around being careless about nails getting into your shoes, and you walk in such a way as not to sprain your ankle. So why are you so careless about your ruling faculty [your mind or thoughts]? Why do you let it be offended and polluted by all sorts of garbage, instead of guarding it against assaults from without, and taking care from within to sharpen it as much as possible?

Massimo Piggliucci, A Field Guide to a Happy Life, Lesson 38

I’ve read several versions of Epictetus’ classic Handbook, and this is the first time I’ve been able to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Coincidentally, I was actually writing my own interpretation of this text to use in my personal meditations when I came across this new edition. Maybe I’m just too lazy, but I found Piggliucci’s version met all of my needs and I ended up setting aside my little project. But I digress, the point is that before I found this version, I was stumbling over archaic translations or struggling with cultural bias from millennia ago. This book was the solution to those problems.

For the first time I found myself reading not just a new translation but an exciting interpretation of the Enchiridion. For those readers familiar with virtue ethics, you aren’t going to find anything truly new here. The lessons are timeliness. The principles unchanging, however, it’s still an excellent reminder of how perception frames everything in this life.

At the end of the day, I think this one is a keeper. After a long day of work when I find myself a little overwhelmed with my day, a quick glance at a couple of pages reminds to focus on what I can control. I let go of pretty much everything weighing on my shoulders. After all, most of our pain and frustration are the result of wanting something that’s beyond our control. Once we understand that trap, we can avoid the headaches and disappointment we experience when things don’t go our way.

If you’re looking for an introduction to Stoicism or maybe just some Reason and Common Sense, here’s an excellent choice whether you’re gifting it to friends or adding it to your own collection. It’s light, fun and practical. So pick this one up at your local bookstore and tell me what you think.