A Dark Beginning:
Why did I start a book blog?
Simple, I got into a mountain biking accident and separated my shoulder.
Smiling and enjoying the day, an hour or so later things went south.
It was the last bike run of the day and I could see the end of the trail. What I didn’t see, was a ditch that sent me flying only to be brought down by gravity and have my body tumble down the hill. The helmet I was wearing protected my head, but I didn’t have much protection for the rest of my body.
After blacking out for a few seconds, I looked at my arms and legs and noticed only a few small cuts. “Sweet, just a couple of small scratches,” I thought to myself. However, when I walked over to my bike and tried to pick it up, I couldn’t even lift it halfway.
I knew something was off but I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. So, I hobbled down the mountain to the emergency medical room.
The worker there didn’t do much. He put my arm in a makeshift sling and told me to head to the hospital. “This can’t be good,” I remember saying to myself.
A few hours later and some x-rays later, I would learn that I had suffered an acromioclavicular joint separation or AC separation.
(I swear this story is related to starting Alex & Books, just bear with me for a bit longer.)
At the emergency medical room a few minutes after my crash.
This injury proved to be one of the most painful events of my life, both physically and mentally.
Physically, I was temporarily handicapped. I couldn’t put on my socks by myself (try putting on a sock with one hand, it’s harder than it sounds), had major pain anytime I sneezed or moved my arm to put on clothing, and basically needed help with everyday simple tasks.
The real challenge, however, came from the mental pain. I started to feel depressed because I couldn’t do many of the activities that I loved. Basketball, lifting weights, snowboarding, swimming, and practically every other sport were out of the question.
Since I couldn’t do much of what I loved, I spent most of my time at home. For the first couple of weeks, I played a ton of video games, watched movies, and spent hours on Reddit. These activities brought me pleasure, but not fulfillment. After about three weeks of these indulgences, I started to feel empty inside–as if I was wasting my life.
A Passion for Books:
Prior to the biking incident, I rekindled my passion for reading books.
I had always loved reading in elementary and middle school, but the passion almost burned out from a series of bad English teachers in high school, and, let’s be honest here, like most teenage boys, I spent most of my time focusing on sports, video games, and girls.
However, once in college, I came to the realization that every professor taught their respective subject with, you guessed it, a book.
Whether the professor had 5 years of experience in a subject or 25, they still assigned books for students to read. Some professors even assigned their own books as reading material. “Why make students read books?” I thought to myself.
The answer: Books summarize decades of knowledge from one or more experts into a few hundred pages. In other words, someone in the world may have dedicated 30+ years of their life researching a particular domain and becoming an expert in it, and then decided to condense all of the most valuable lessons they’ve learned into a book that is available for anyone to buy and read.
This notion of books containing decades of wisdom from experts sparked my fascination with reading. It didn’t matter what subject I was interested in, be it psychology, entrepreneurship, writing, dating, productivity, etc, there was a book out there written by an expert in that area and I could learn almost everything they knew for about $10 and a few hours of my time.
When I wanted to understand body language, I read What Every BODY Is Saying by Joe Navarro
When I wanted to learn about startups, I read Zero To One by Peter Thiel
When I needed some life advice, I read The Emperor’s Handbook by Marcus Aurelius
This combination of having a ton of free time and a rediscovered passion for books is what finally pushed me to take the leap and do something I had never done before–create a book blog website.
I spent roughly two months learning how to use Squarespace and wrote a few articles for the site. You can read my first three articles here (warning: it isn’t my finest writing):
Launching A&B:
After about three months of work, I officially launched the site on March 13, 2017. I also created a few social media accounts.
Alex & Books website traffic and Instagram account (thank you for your support everyone!).
Since starting Alex & Books, I’ve read 200+ books, written nearly 100 articles, and received over 600K+ page views on the site. I’ve also been fortunate to meet several of my favorite authors along the journey.
Clockwise starting from top right: Ryan Holiday, Jocko Willink, and Simon Sinek.
The Story continues:
This journey is far from over.
Almost three years later, my passion for books is burning brighter than ever before. I have more books in my library that I haven’t read than I do books that I’ve completed. I even sold my Xbox and got rid of my TV to read more books.
Books have changed my life for the better in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined. Who would have thought that some words printed on pieces of paper would make me more productive and less distracted, better at socializing and dating, elevate my communication and writing skills, and give me a more valuable education than any educational institution I attended.
Now, my mission is to share the lessons learned from these incredible books and encourage as many people as I can to read more.
Although I’m not certain where this mission will take me, it’s still only the beginning and I hope you will join me on this journey. Just like many of the great books out there, the best part is often in the middle.
Read on!
Sincerely,
Alex Wieckowski
