The 150+ Books Stephen King Recommends Reading
At the end of “On Writing” Stephen King lists 150+ books he believes are worth reading.
Check out the list and let me know whether or not you agree with his choices.
I used to think that I read a lot of books; last year I read 35 and this year I’m on track to read 42 books. However, when I read Stephen King’s book “On Writing” I began to think otherwise. In his book, King writes, “I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year.”
Let me repeat that.
He says he’s a SLOW READER, but he still gets through 70-80 BOOKS A YEAR.
At this point, you might be wondering why a best-selling author like King reads so many books. Well, it’s because he believes reading a lot makes you a better writer. King writes that every book has its own lessons, and for writers that don’t have time to read, King says “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time to write” (pg 147).
Read my review of "On Writing" here.
At the end of “On Writing” King lists over a hundred books that are worth reading. It’s a long list, but an interesting one at the same time. So without further ado, here is King’s list of books worth reading:
Abrahams, Peter: A Perfect Crime
Abrahams, Peter: Lights Out
Abrahams, Peter: Pressure Drop
Abrahams, Peter: Revolution #9
Agee, James: A Death in the Family
Bakis, Kirsten: Lives of the Monster Dogs
Barker, Pat: Regeneration
Barker, Pat: The Eye in the Door
Barker, Pat: The Ghost Road
Bausch, Richard: In the Night Season
Blauner, Peter: The Intruder
Bowles, Paul: The Sheltering Sky
Boyle, T. Coraghessan: The Tortilla Curtain
Bryson, Bill: A Walk in the Woods
Buckley, Christopher: Thank You for Smoking
Carver, Raymond: Where I’m Calling From
Chabon, Michael: Werewolves in Their Youth
Chorlton, Windsor: Latitude Zero
Connelly, Michael: The Poet
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
Constantine, K.C.: Family Values
DeLillo, Don: Underworld
DeMille, Nelson: Cathedral
DeMille, Nelson: The Gold Coast
Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
Dobyns, Stephen: Common Carnage
Dobyns, Stephen: The Church of Dead Girls
Doyle, Roddy: The Woman Who Walked into Doors
Elkin, Stanley: The Dick Gibson Show
Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
Garland, Alex: The Beach
George, Elizabeth: Deception on His Mind
Gerritsen, Tess: Gravity
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Gray, Muriel: Furnace
Greene, Graham: A Gun for Sale
Greene, Graham: Our Man in Havana
Halberstam, David: The Fifties
Hamil, Pete: Why Sinatra Matters
Harris, Thomas: Hannibal
Haruf, Kent: Plainsong
Hoeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Hunter, Stephen: Dirty White Boys
Ignatius, David: A Firing Offense
Irving, John: A Widow for One Year
Joyce, Graham: The Tooth Fairy
Judd, Alan: The Devil’s Own Work
Kahn, Roger: Good Enough to Dream
Karr, Mary: The Liar’s Club
Ketchum, Jack: Right to Life
King, Tabitha: Survivor
King, Tabitha: The Sky in the Water
Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
Krakauer, Jon: Into Thin Air
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
Lefkowitz, Bernard: The Ignored
Maclean, Norman: A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Maugham, W. Somerset: The Moon and Sixpence
McCarthy, Cormac: Cities of the Plain
McCarthy, Cormac: The Crossing
McCourt, Frank: Angela’s Ashes
McDermott, Alice: Charming Billy
McDevitt, Jack: Ancient Shores
McEwan, Ian: Enduring Love
McEwan, Ian: The Cement Garden
McMurtry, Larry: Dead Man’s Walk
McMurtry, Larry, and Diana Ossana: Zeke and Ned
Miller, Walter M.: A Canticle for Leibowitz
Oates, Joyce Carol: Zombie
O’Brien, Tim: In the Lake of the Woods
O’Nan, Stewart: The Speed Queen
Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
Patterson, Richard North: No Safe Place
Price, Richard: Freedomland
Proulx, Annie: Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
Quindlen, Anna: One True Thing
Rendell, Ruth: A Sight for Sore Eyes
Robinson, Frank M.: Waiting
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Russo, Richard: Mohawk
Schwartz, John Burnham: Reservation Road
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
Shaw, Irwin: The Young Lions
Slotkin, Richard: The Crater
Smith, Dinitia: The Illusionist
Spencer, Scott: Men in Black
Stegner, Wallace: Joe Hill
Tartt, Donna: The Secret History
Tyler, Anne: A Patchwork Planet
Vonnegut, Kurt: Hocus Pocus
Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
Westlake, Donald E.: The Ax
And if this list of 100 books to read is too short, King added an updated list to his new edition of “On Writing.” So here are 50+ more books that King recommends:
Abrahams, Peter: End of Story
Abrahams, Peter: The Tutor
Adiga, Aravind: The White Tiger
Atkinson, Kate: One Good Turn
Atwood, Margaret: Oryx and Crake
Berlinski, Mischa: Fieldwork
Black, Benjamin: Christine Falls
Blauner, Peter: The Last Good Day
Bolano, Roberto: 2666
Carr, David: The Night of the Gun
Casey, John: Spartina
Chabon, Michael: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Child, Lee: The Jack Reacher novels, starting with Killing Floor
Connelly, Michael: The Narrows
Costello, Mark: Big If
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Danielewski, Mark: House of Leaves
Diaz, Junot: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Dooling, Richard: White Man’s Grave
Downing, David: Zoo Station
Dubus, Andre: The Garden of Last Days
Enger, Leif: Peace Like a River
Exley, Frederick: A Fan’s Notes
Ferris, Joshua: Then We Came to the End
Franzen, Jonathan: Strong Motion
Franzen, Jonathan: The Corrections
Gaiman, Neil: American Gods
Gardiner, Meg: Crosscut
Gardiner, Meg: The Dirty Secret Club
Gay, William: The Long Home
Goddard, Robert: Painting the Darkness
Gruen, Sara: Water for Elephants
Hall, Steven: The Raw Shark Texts
Helprin, Mark: A Soldier of the Great War
Huston, Charlie: The Hank Thompson Trilogy
Johnson, Denis: Tree of Smoke
Keillor, Garrison: Good Poems
Kidd, Sue Monk: The Secret Life of Bees
Klosterman, Chuck: Fargo Rock City
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Le Carre, John: Absolute Friends
Lehane, Dennis: The Given Day
Leonard, Elmore: Up in Honey’s Room
Lethem, Jonathan: The Fortress of Solitude
Lippman, Laura: What the Dead Know
Little, Bentley: Dispatch
Malamud, Bernard: The Fixer
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
McCarthy, Cormac: No Country for Old Man
McEwan, Ian: Atonement
Meek, James: The People’s Act of Love
Niffenegger, Audrey: Her Fearful Symmetry
O’Brian, Patrick: The Aubrey/Maturin Novels
O’Nan, Stewart: The Good Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol: We Were the Mulvaneys
Pelecanos, George: Hard Revolution
Pelecanos, George: The Turnaround
Perrotta, Tom: The Abstinence Teacher
Picoult, Jodi: Nineteen Minutes
Pierre, DBC: Vernon God Little
Proulx, Annie: Fine Just the Way It Is
Robotham, Michael: Shatter
Roth, Philip: American Pastoral
Roth, Philip: The Plot Against America
Rushdie, Salman: Midnight’s Children
Russo, Richard: Bridge of Sighs
Russo, Richard: Empire Falls
Simmons, Dan: Drood
Simmons, Dan: The Terror
Sittenfeld, Curtis: American Wife
Smith, Tom Rob: Child 44
Snyder, Scott: Voodoo Heart
Stephenson, Neal: Quicksilver
Tartt, Donna: The Little Friend
Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace
Wambaugh, Joseph: Hollywood Station
Warren, Robert Penn: All the King’s Men
Waters, Sarah: The Little Stranger
Winegardner, Mark: Crooked River Burning
Winegardner, Mark: The Godfather Returns
Wroblewski, David: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Yates, Richard: Revolutionary Road
I've read about ten books on this list so it looks like I have a lot of reading to do! But let me know how many books on this list you've read and tell me which books on this list you’d recommend reading and which you wouldn’t in the comments below!
*PS: The links on my website are Amazon affiliate links, Amazon pays me a small fee for each item purchased. Important Fact: It doesn't affect the price of your purchase at all, and it helps keep this website up and running ad-free.*
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5 Best Books of 2018 (so far)
Six months into 2018, I’ve read 21 books and written 34 articles.
A lot of the books that I’ve read this year have received 5 out of 5 stars, but a handful of these books really blew my mind and deserve extra recognition for being so awesome.
Summary:
My New Year’s resolution for 2018 was to read and write about a book every week. Six months into 2018, I’ve read 21 books and written 34 articles. A lot of the books that I’ve read this year have received 5 out of 5 stars, but a handful of these books really blew my mind and deserve extra recognition for being so awesome.
I highly recommend taking the time to read these books and absorbing the valuable lessons each one offers. So without delay, here’s a list of the 5 best books I’ve read in 2018 so far (in no particular order):
5) “The ONE Thing” by Keller & Papasan
The title of this book sounds like clickbait, do this one thing to be successful, but this book is actually filled with an immense amount of valuable information.
The book provides advice backed by scientific studies, on how to be more productive and effective. It will teach you how to prioritize tasks, manage time, build good habits, use willpower properly, set goals and more. The book also debunks popular myths such as multitasking being great–which it is not–and that being busy is good–also not true.
The authors also provide readers with additional tools and information at their website here. I highly recommend reading this book if you want to be more productive and efficient in both your professional and personal life.
4) “The Third Door” by Alex Banayan
This book is filled with a lot of great business advice, but it’s also an amazing story. As a college student, the author hacked The Price Is Right and used the prize money to fund his quest to learn from the world's most successful people.
The author takes readers on a journey of how he chased Larry King in a grocery store, waited in a bathroom to talk to Tim Ferriss, used his network to meet with Bill Gates, and dozens more of the world's most successful people.
There’s also a lot of great advice from icons such as how Tim Ferriss cold-emails people, how Jessica Alba stays focused on her business, and how Pitbull believes people should always stay an intern.
The book was released this month and is already a national bestseller. The author has a very Tim Ferriss-like vibe and combines business with life advice. The book is less than 300 pages long and is quite addicting to read. Highly recommend it to college students, entrepreneurs, and people interested in business.
3) “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
After reading this book I recommended it to several people and every one of them has told me the book was incredible. What makes it such a great read is that the book constantly shifts from being absolutely amazing to drastically depressing and is an honest and truthful story.
Why?
The author retells his life at Auschwitz and several other concentration camps and talks about the horrible conditions he and other prisoners had to endure to survive. From working 10+ hours a day of physical labor in freezing temperatures to constantly walking past dead bodies.
At the same time, this book is a story of the human’s determination to live and Frankl teaches readers several important lessons about how humans can be the worst of people and also the nicest of people. The best part is that Frankl was a psychiatrist so he could really analyze both the prisoners and the guards and get to the center of what makes humans ticks and why they do what they do. From his experience, Frankl discovered life lessons that would have been near impossible to find anywhere else.
2) “Extreme Ownership” by Willink & Babin
“Extreme Ownership” was initially released as a leadership and management guide to help corporate leaders, but this book is so much more than that. The lessons learned from this book can be applied to almost every aspect of life.
For example, the title of the book refers to a trait that Willink and Babin believe all great leaders possess–the ability to go above and beyond by taking extreme ownership and responsibility of the situation.
People that take extreme ownership don’t go around blaming others for negative outcomes, they ask themselves what they could have done to prevent things from going bad or think about what they’ll do from now on to prevent the same negative event from happening in the future.
For instance, instead of blaming an employee for always being late with their work, perhaps you should train the employee better. If your wife calls you and says she forgot to pick up the kids from school, don’t yell at her and call her dumb–that doesn’t help anyone nor does it help the situation. Instead, teach your wife how to set reminders on her phone or teach her to write out her schedule the day before so she remembers.
If you’re a manager or leader then this book should be required reading for you. And even if you aren’t, there are a lot of great life lessons people can learn from reading this fantastic book.
If you’re interested in leadership, management, and lessons from war, check out Jocko’s podcast here.
Honorable mentions:
These are books that I’d highly recommend reading when you have some free time. Although they didn’t make it into the top five, these books are still spectacular and you can learn a ton from reading them.
Learn more about the books here:
Get the books here:
1) “12 Rules for Life” by Jordan Peterson
Every now and then you read a book that literally changes your life, for me, this is that book.
It’s hard to start talking about “12 Rules for Life” because so many aspects of this book are incredible. The book pulls interesting lessons from psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. It also talks about how religion, literature, and Disney movies have similar life lessons and how each one can teach people about the proper way to live a good life.
Nothing I write can do the book justice, but I will attempt to convey its main message.
Life is suffering. It is. There’s that old saying that the only thing guaranteed in life is death and taxes, but there will also be a lot of pain and suffering. So what can you do? Why is life worth living?
This leads people to believe in nihilism. People of this mindset believe life is pointless so nothing matters and they might as well commit suicide, take out their anger at the world through murder or other crimes, or just live life with no goal because it doesn’t matter.
Peterson argues that this is a horrible, horrible way of thinking and living life. It is the easy path to self-destruction and atrocities. Just because life is hard, it doesn’t mean we should get rid of it all together.
Instead, since life is hard, let’s try to make ourselves as strong as possible and as competent as possible to deal with the challenges life throws our way.
To do so, Peterson teaches readers how to stand up for themselves, how to take care of themselves and others, and several other lessons that teach people how to be a better person overall. If you want to change your life for the better, read this book.
Peterson also has a YouTube channel where you can watch his college lectures for free. He has over 1.2 million subscribers and also puts his interviews on his channel here.
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"The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell
Pages: 293
For: People that are interested in history, myths, religion, and the structure of stories
Lesson: Learn the meaning behind classic myths and symbols
Summary:
“The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers reveals how the themes and symbols of ancient narratives continue to bring meaning to birth, death, love, and war. From stories of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome to traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, a broad array of themes are considered that together identify the universality of human experience across time and culture.
Based on a six-part PBS television series hosted by Bill Moyers, this classic book is especially compelling because of its engaging question-and-answer format, creating an easy, conversational approach to complicated and esoteric topics.
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was an American Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience.
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and political commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years.
Bill Moyers (left) discusses mythology with Joseph Campbell.
Lessons:
1) Modern People Can Still Learn A Lot From Myths
“The ancient myths were designed to harmonize the mind and the body. The mind can ramble off in strange ways and want things that the body does not want. The myths and rites were means of putting the mind in accord with the body and the way of life in accord with the way that nature dictates.”
In the 21st century where people have virtual reality, autonomous vehicle, and smartphones, myths seem antique and useless, right?
Perhaps not.
Campbell writes that “Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are” (pg 4).
Myths serve an important role in our lives by teaching us two main lessons: how young people should act in the world and how old people should handle death.
Campbell writes that reading myths teach people to turn inward to understand the message of the symbols. He also advises readers to read other people’s myths, and not just their own religion because people tend to interpret their religion in terms of facts–but if they read other myths, they will begin to understand the message in the story.
Campbell also says that myths are bits of information from ancient times, that have helped support human life, build civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, and if you don’t know what the guide-signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself.
It’s important to note that myths are not lies, but rather metaphorical truths. Myths come from realizations of some kind that then find expression in symbolic form.
The sea often represents the unconscious mind. The whale represents the energy of the unconscious which must be controlled. The serpent eating its own tail represents an image of life, one generation must eat the other to survive. The dragon represents one's greatest fear or enemy. The list goes on.
2) The Hero’s Journey AKA The MonoMyth
“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there’s something lacking in the normal experiences available or permitted to the members of his society. This person takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a going and a returning.”
Drawing of the hero's journey (source).
Once a person learns about the structure of the hero’s journey, it starts to appear everywhere. Just look at Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker or Hercules. All three felt as if something was lacking in their lives and then go off on a series of adventures. The hero's all get a mentor: Potter has Dumbledore, Luke has Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Hercules has Phil. Each one dies or gets close to dying, but come out stronger than ever before.
Campbell writes that these stories usually happen to characters that are going through puberty and must make the shift from childhood to adulthood. It is essentially a test to make sure the character returns as a wise and responsible adult.
He adds that “In order to found something new, one has to leave the old and go in quest of the seed idea, a germinal idea that will have the potentiality of bringing forth that new thing” (Pg 167).
Myths about the hero’s journey describe the archetypal adventure–the story of a child becoming an adult or awakening the new world that opens at adolescence–to provide people with a model for handling this development.
At the end of Star Wars, Luke has mastered the Force and is now a Jedi. At the end of Harry Potter, Harry has mastered magic and has become a leader. By the end of Hercules, he has found his true strength and has earned a place among the Gods.
3) Reincarnation As A Metaphor
“[Reincarnation] suggests that you are more than you think you are. There are dimensions of your being and a potential for realization and consciousness that are not included in your concept of yourself. Your life is much deeper and broader than you conceive it to be here.”
Campbell believes that people live in terms of depth and that their life is much deeper than they realize. “What you are living is but a fractional inkling of what is really within you,” he writes.
However, to get to the next level, people often have to die. Think of Harry Potter, when Voldemort ‘kills’ Harry and then Harry comes back stronger than before. Or in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” when Gandalf dies and comes back as Gandalf the White.
However, more often than not, the reincarnation is a metaphorical death.
“You don’t have to die, really, physically. All you have to do is die spiritually and be reborn to a larger way of living” (Pg 141).
Think about your own life.
You had to ‘die’ as a child to become an adult. You had to ‘die’ as a High School student to become a college student. Death can take many different forms, but after each one, the person unlocks a new level of consciousness and becomes better equipped to handle themselves in the world.
Author Joseph Campbell.
Conclusion:
“The Power of Myth” (1988) is an eye-opening book that reveals how the symbols of mythology are all around us in the fabric of our daily lives. Once you read this book, you’ll look at movies, books, and even plays differently, because you’ll be able to understand the deeper meaning in the story and how it relates to classic myths.
That being said, this book is very interesting, but it teaches a very specific topic that not many people may want to learn about. Some people may just want to watch a movie to see some action and don’t really care about the meaning of reincarnation when the main character dies and comes back to life. The book does, however in my opinion, have an awesome cover that looks great in your library.
Overall, if you’re enjoy art, film, or theater, I’d recommend reading this book. It’s less than 300 pages long and the interview style of it makes reading it a breeze. I’m reading “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” next, so in my next article I’ll report back to see which book provides more value.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
- Book: “The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
- Pages: 293
- For: People that are interested in the symbols found in art, literature and films
- Lesson: Learn the meaning behind classic myths and symbols
If you enjoyed "The Power of Myth" you'll likely reading "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. Click here or on the image below to get the book!
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"The Third Door" by Alex Banayan
Pages: 320
For: Entrepreneurs, college students, people who like inspirational stories, Ferriss fans
Lesson: Learn how the world's most successful people launched their careers
Summary:
“The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World's Most Successful People Launched Their Careers” by Alex Banayan, takes readers on an unprecedented adventure as the author travels around to find legendary icons and discover their secrets of how they broke through and launched their careers.
The author takes readers on a journey of how he chased Larry King in a grocery store, waited in a bathroom to talk to Tim Ferriss, used his network to meet with Bill Gates, and dozens more of the world's most successful people.
Banayan’s story begins with hacking The Price Is Right as a college student and using the prize money to fund his quest to learn from the world's most successful people. Since then, Banayan has been named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list and Business Insider's Most Powerful People Under 30.
He is now an acclaimed keynote speaker and has presented the Third Door framework to business conferences and corporate leadership teams around the world, including Apple, Nike, Harvard, and others.
Alex Banayan, author of "The Third Door."
Lessons:
1) The Proper Way Cold Call/Email
“I continued emailing Ferriss’ assistant, hoping to get an answer. Business books claimed persistence is the key to success, so I kept writing email after email, sending a total of thirty-one messages. When brief emails didn’t get a response, I sent a nine-paragraph message...But no matter how thoughtfully I tried to word my messages, they fell flat.”
To seek out advice from Tim Ferriss, Alex Banayan emailed Ferriss’ assistant several times but received no response for weeks. Banayan decided he would try to meet Ferriss in person by attending a conference where Ferriss was scheduled to give a speech.
To get the best chance of speaking with Ferriss in person, Banayan looked for the nearest location near the stage, which unfortunately turned out to be the men’s bathroom. Banayan crouched next to the toilet for thirty minutes until he heard applause. Banayan then opened the bathroom door and saw Tim Ferriss right in front of him.
Banayan told Ferriss about his mission of interviewing successful icons and asking them about their journey and Ferriss said it sounded great and he would get back to him in a few days. However, several weeks passed and Banayan hadn’t received any email from Ferriss.
As mentioned in the quote above, Banayan didn’t give up and sent a total of 31 emails, both short and long emails, but none of it worked. Banayan received an email from one of Ferriss’ assistants saying Tim wouldn’t be doing the interview anytime soon, if at all.
But Banayan still didn’t quit and kept emailing Ferriss and his assistants. Then one day, out of the blue, Banayan got an email saying Ferriss was free to do an interview the next day. Much later in life, Banayan learned he had gotten the interview not because of his persistence, but because become an annoyance to Ferriss.
During the phone interview, Ferriss gave subtle hints to Banayan about the fine line between being persistent and being a hassle. Ferriss advised Banayan to keep emails short, avoid sending six emails a week and to put the question right in the email.
He also said to not use phrases such as “You’ll love this because…” and “Thanks in advance!” because the former is superlative, how could you know what someone loves when you don’t know them, and the latter phrase is annoying and entitled.
Instead, use Ferriss’ cold-emailing template:
“Dear So-and-So,
I know you’re really busy and that you get a lot of emails, so this will only take sixty seconds to read.
[Here is where you say who you are: add one or two lines that establish your credibility.]
[Here is where you ask your very specific question.]
I totally understand if you’re too busy to respond, but even a one- or two-line reply would really make my day.
All the best,
Tim”
2) Focus on Your Path, Not Others
“You’re born into the family you’re born into and you’re born into the circumstances you’re born into. So you just have to take what you can from where you’re at and not compare yourself to other people. You have to look at your path and know that whatever got you there, and where you’re going, is unique to you.”
The quote above comes from Jessica Alba–the actress and businesswoman and who started the Honest Company which was recently valued at $1 billion. Alba emphasizes the importance of focusing on your personal path and not comparing yourself to others.
Alba says that it’s easy to get distracted in life and spent time looking at other people, but doing so will delay your chances of getting to your own finish line. This is also important because not everyone is running the same race.
Alba says that if people could choose, almost everyone would want to be a white male in America born into a family that cares about his education. However, that is simply not the case. Alba says that women have a harder time in running the race to becoming successful, but in the end, having faced more obstacles she believes women become skilled in dealing with unfair situations.
There’s a lot of things in life that one cannot control, but one must still work with what they have to the best of their abilities. Spending time yelling that life is unfair or that the person next to you had an easier road to success is a waste of time and energy because, in the end, those things won’t help you move forward with your own journey.
As a college student, Alex Banayan went on The Price Is Right game show and won the grand prize. He used the money to fund his trip to meet successful people around the world.
3) Always Be An Intern
“Buffett is famous for being a long-term value investor and this story shows he treated his career the same way. He could’ve gotten a high-paying job right out of school and made far more money in the short term. But by offering to work for free under Graham, he set himself up to make much more in the long term. Instead of trying to get paid as much as possible in dollars, Buffett chose to get paid in mentorship, expertise, and connections. ”
Decades before Warren Buffett became the legendary investor whose net worth totaled $83 billion, he was a young MBA student who had just graduated from Columbia University. Instead of pursuing a high-paying corporate job, Buffett offered Benjamin Graham, a Wall Street legend, that he’d work for Graham for free.
Graham said no, and Buffett got a job as a stockbroker elsewhere, but Buffett continued to write letters to Graham. Eventually, Graham said he’d give Buffett a job, and Buffett took his wife and child to New York to start the job without even asking if there was a salary.
As the quote says, Buffett is a master when it comes to long-term value and he knew that working under Graham would provide a lot more value in the long run than working at a high-paying corporate job.
Armando Christian Pérez, better known by his rap name Pitbull, is also a big believer in being an intern. As a young artist, Pitbull sought mentorship from Luther Campbell–a successful rapper and entrepreneur.
Even after winning a Grammy and having a number one record, Pitbull remained an intern. Pitbull tells Banayan that he asked Carlos Slim Jr.–the son of prominent businessmen Carlos Slim whose net worth is $59 billion–if he could intern him.
At first, the businessman thought Pitbull was joking, but Pitbull said he wasn’t kidding and he would do whatever he needed, “I don’t have a problem being down here for a month, getting doughnuts, making coffee, I don’t care,” said Pitbull.
Banayan writes that the goal to continued success is to humble yourself enough to learn, even when you’re at the top of the game. “If you want to continue being Mufasa, at the same time you have to keep being Simba” (Pg 237).
Bonus: Use The Third Door Method
The title of Banayan’s book is a metaphor for achieving success in life or business by taking craving your own path. Banayan says that success is like a nightclub and there are always three ways get inside. The First Door is the main entrance where the vast majority of people wait in line, hoping to get in. Then there’s the Second Door. This is the VIP entrance where billionaires, celebrities and the like slip through.
But there is always the Third Door. Banayan says “It’s the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the dor a hundred times, climb over the dumpster, crack open the window, sneak through the kitchen” and get in whatever way you can.
The Third Door is when people decide to take a different path in life and try multiple methods to get inside. Banayan’s book is filled with people who took the Third Door.
Larry King for example, didn’t go to college or even have a resume, but he knew he wanted to be a radio host. So he literally went to radio stations around Miami and knocked on their doors asking for a job. Eventually, a small station gave offered King a job and he jumped on it.
When Banayan was looking for a advice from a successful entrepreneur, he cold-emailed Elliott Bisnow and Bisnow said to meet him in-person. The only problem was that the meeting date was that to make the meeting, Banayan would miss his accounting final. Banayan decided it was worth the risk and Bisnow eventually became Banayan’s mentor and introduced him to several successful figures.
Banayan also talks about how he got to shadow Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, simply by asking Hsieh at a party. While shadowing Hsieh, one of the employees at Zappos who had worked there for several years told Banayan that he was lucky to have the chance to shadow their CEO. When Banayan asked Hsieh why he doesn’t let Zappos employees shadow him, Hsieh looked blankly and said: “I’d be happy to–but no one ever asks.”
“Everyone has the power to make little choices that can alter their lives forever. You can either choose to follow inertia and continue waiting in line for the First Door, or you can choose to jump out of line, run down the alley, and take the Third Door. We all have that choice.
”
Conclusion:
“The Third Door” (2018) is an absolutely spectacular book. My last post about slave labor camps showed how horrible life and people can be, but this book is the exact opposite. Banayan’s adventure is an incredible story of how he managed to talk and meet with countless successful icons.
To me, this book was like a drug. I stayed up till 2 am reading it the first day, went to sleep, and finished the book that morning. It is filled with a ton of helpful business and life advice, but it’s also a classic hero story of a young kid going on a scary yet rewarding adventure and then returning to share their story with others.
The book is about 300 pages and is densely packed with useful nuggets of valuable information. I’m calling it now, Alex Banayan will likely be the next Tim Ferriss. Now read this book, go out into the world and use the Third Door method!
Rating: 5/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
- Book: “The Third Door" by Alex Banayan
- Pages: 320
- For: Entrepreneurs, college students, people who like inspirational stories, Ferriss fans
- Lesson: Learn how the world's most successful people launched their careers
If you enjoyed "The Third Door" you'll likely also be a fan of "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss. Click here or on the image below to get the book!
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5 Lessons From 3 Books About Slave Labor Camps
Learn 5 life lessons gathered from reading three books about slave labor camps
This article talks about “Man’s Search for Meaning,” “The Gulag Archipelago” and “The Forgotten Highlander”
Summary:
Humans are capable of doing incredible things. They can create new forms of medicine and invent useful tools to make life easier. However, there is also a darker side to people. They are also capable of doing horrible things such acting inhumane and forcing people into slave labor camps.
Having read three books about forced labor camps: “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn and “The Forgotten Highlander” by Alistair Urquhart–I’ve noticed similar themes and lessons among these books.
For those unfamiliar with these books, here is a quick summary:
"Man’s Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl:
Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist during World War II and was sent to four different concentration camps including the infamous Auschwitz. During his time in the camps, he observed prisoners and himself, to reflect on what made some people mentally tough and why some people survived while others died or committed suicide.
In the camps, he was forced to assess whether his own life still had any meaning. Prisoners worked over ten hours a day of physical labor in freezing temperatures with not much more than a shirt, pants, and slippers. Most days they were given only one bowl of soup and a piece of bread.
"The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn:
Solzhenitsyn was a decorated captain in the Soviet Army during World War II, but in 1945, he was sent to prison for criticizing Stalin in private letters. While in prison, he observed the prisoners, guards, and everyone in between to discover how everyone played a role in contributing to the creation of Soviet prison camps.
This book is a non-fictional account about the Soviet forced labor camps that led to the imprisonment, brutalization and very often murder of tens of millions of innocent Soviet citizens by their own Government.
"The Forgotten Highlander" by Alistair Urquhart:
Born in Scotland, Alistair was drafted into the army during WWII and shipped to the British outpost of Singapore. The Japanese soon invaded the colony and the British soldiers became prisoners of war (POWs). As a POW, Alistair was forced into slave labor on the notorious “Death Railway”, working up to 18 hours a day and while being fed only one cup of rice a day.
He worked barefoot with barely any clothes and suffered from malaria, dysentery, and tropical ulcers (Google at your own discretion). He often worked seven days a week from dawn to dusk and experienced several beatings and even a sexual advancement from a guard–that he fought off. Miraculously, Alistair survived 750 days of labor in the jungle.
Here are 5 lessons I’ve learned from reading these books:
5) Humans Can Survive In horrible Conditions
“Like nearly all the camp inmates I was suffering from edema. My legs were so swollen and the skin on them so tightly stretched that I could scarcely bend my knees. I had to leave my shoes unlaced in order to make them fit my swollen feet. There would not have been space for socks even if I had had any. So my partly bare feet were always wet and my shoes always full of snow.”
The quote above comes from Viktor Frankl as he explains life at a Nazi concentration camp. He suffered from edema, which caused his tissues to swell up and made moving around torture. His feet were uncovered as he walked through snow and didn’t have a pair of socks–not that he could wear them anyway because his shoes were already tight due to his swollen feet. With barely any clothes or gear, he and others were still forced to mine the frozen ground for ten or more hours a day.
The only nutrition prisoners were given was a bowl of very watery soup once daily and a small piece of bread. Sometimes they were given special extra allowances consisting of a piece of cheese or a slice of poor quality sausage.
Life wasn’t much better for Alistair Urquhart at the Japanese labor camps. He was given only a cup of rice and water for each meal. From constantly working in the jungle with no shoes, he developed tropical ulcers. There was a doctor in his camp but he didn’t have any medicine so the best advice he gave Urquhart was to put maggots on his foot to eat the dead skin.
As crazy as it sounds, it’s true:
“I left the medical hut, shaking my head, still wondering if I were being had. Letting maggots eat my skin did not sound particularly appetizing but I was willing to try anything. I knew I had to stop the rot that was devouring my legs.””
And the craziest part is it actually worked. However, Urquhart said that even years later he would sometimes get the sensation of maggots eating his skin. An unfortunate side effect, but he did live to be 97 years old.
Alistair Urquhart, author of "The Forgotten Highlander."
4) Survival Requires The Right Mindset
“‘It’s easy for these men to give up and when they lose hope the fight just seeps right out of them. On countless occasions I have seen two men with the same symptoms and same physical state, and one will die and one will make it. I can only put that down to sheer willpower.’”
Urquhart writes that he could tell which men would die by simply looking at their faces. Those with a lost gaze in their eyes didn't last long. It was in that moment that Urquhart made the decision that he would not stop fighting–even if it required him to put maggots on his feet to survive.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn learned a similar lesson.
“And the conclusion is: Survive to reach it! Survive! At any price!... This is the great fork of camp life. From this point the roads go to the right and to the left. One of them will rise and the other will descend. If you go to the right–you lose your life, and if you go to the left–you lose your conscience. ”
Solzhenitsyn notes that prisoners had to make a decision, do whatever it takes to survive or fall short and die. This didn’t mean kill other people to survive, but rather it was a change in mindset.
In his book, Solzhenitsyn writes that prisoners were allowed to take baths–with only cold water–but then had to endure a trip back to camp in subzero temperatures. Yet, none of them got pneumonia, in fact, they didn’t even catch a cold.
However, when one of those prisoners was finally released and he could live in a warm home and take warm baths, he got ill the first month. The mindset of surviving at any price was not there anymore. Changing one's mindset can have an incredible impact on the rest of the body.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of "The Gulag Archipelago."
3) Slave Labor–You Get What You Pay For
“We made constant attempts at sabotage. Men whispered orders to impair the construction of the bridge wherever possible. Some charged with making up concrete mixtures deliberately added too much sand or not enough, which would later have disastrous effects. ”
Evil leaders have been under the assumption that slave labor is a great way to accomplish projects at little to no costs, but this is far from the truth. As Urquhart writes in his book, the prisoners did everything in their power to delay or destroy the project. They even collected termites and white ants and deposited them into the grooves of the logs that were meant to hold up the bridge. As a result, construction projects were often delayed or if it were finished, the quality of the project was extremely poor and didn't last long.
A similar conclusion can be found in the Soviet labor camps.
“All they were on the lookout for was ways to spoil their footgear–and not go out to work; how to wreck a crane, to buckle a wheel, to break a spade, to sink a pail–anything for a pretext to sit down and smoke. ”
Just as in the Japanese camps, workers would constantly find ways to sabotage the project so they didn’t have to work. Solzhenitsyn adds that the material was so poor, people could break bricks with their bare hands.
The prisoners did everything possible to quietly foil the project so that they wouldn’t have to work–after all, they weren’t being paid to work so they didn’t have any incentive to do so.
The prisoners were also constantly stealing project materials. Solzhenitsyn concludes the chapter by writing that the labor camps were not only ineffective, but they ended up costing the country more than if they had simply paid workers a fair wage.
2) Life Is Unfair
- Viktor Frankl worked at a hospital as a psychiatrist, before being arrested and sent to four different concentration camps over the years.
- Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was a decorated captain in the Soviet Army during World War II before he was arrested and sent to a labor camp for criticizing Stalin in private letters.
- Alistair Urquhart was drafted into the army during WWII and shipped to the British outpost of Singapore before he was arrested by the Japanese and sent to one of their labor camps.
None of these men were “evil” or actual criminals. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of them deserved to suffer in the labor camps. None of them should have worked 16 hours a day of physical labor on barely any food or water in horrific conditions.
Life is simply unfair at times. Viktor Frankl does, however, offer a piece of advice should anyone find themselves in a similar situation. He writes that everything can be taken from a person, except their attitude.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way...It is this spiritual freedom–which cannot be taken away–that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”
Viktor Frankl, author of "Man's Search for Meaning."
1) Man is Capable of being a Saint & a Swine
“In the concentration camps...we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself, which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. ”
That is a heavy truth to swallow. Even in the concentration camps, Frankl noticed some prisoners gave their daily piece of bread to prisoners in dire need of nutrition. He also saw other miracles such as a Nazi doctor buying medical supplies with his own money and smuggling it back into camp to help the Jewish prisoners.
Frankl ends the book by saying that man is capable of inventing the gas chambers of Auschwitz, but man is also the same being that entered those gas chambers with the Lord’s prayer on their lips.
Solzhenitsyn came to a similar conclusion in his book.
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either–but right through every human heart–and through all human hearts. ”
Solzhenitsyn spent countless hours thinking in prison–when he wasn’t being forced to work, prisoners sat in their cells and had nothing but their hands and their mind–and came upon the realization that good and evil exists inside every person, but they must make the decision within themselves.
Inside every person is the struggle between good and evil, and although it is impossible to expel evil from the word, the next best thing is to constrict it within each person. That is a responsibility that falls upon each and every one of us.
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"Total Recall" by Arnold Schwarzenegger
Pages: 646
For: People looking for self-improvement tips, people who love true inspiring stories
Lesson: Learn about Schwarzenegger's incredible life journey and how he became successful in three different careers
Summary:
“Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” by Arnold Schwarzenegger is an autobiography that covers Schwarzenegger’s three careers and his personal life through the decades.
Schwarzenegger served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Before that, he had a long career, starring in such films as the Terminator series; Stay Hungry; Twins; Predator; and Junior. His first book, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, was a bestseller when published in 1977 and, along with his Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, has never been out of print since.
The book begins in Austria, where Schwarzenegger was born, and explains why he dreamed of moving to America. By the time he was twenty-one, Schwarzenegger was living in Los Angeles and had been crowned Mr. Universe. Within five years, Schwarzenegger became the greatest bodybuilder in the world and by his thirties, he was a millionaire from his business enterprises in real estate, landscaping, and bodybuilding.
Schwarzenegger then went on to become the world’s biggest movie star, the husband of Maria Shriver of the Kennedy family. After his film career, Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California, the seventh largest economy in the world. He led the state through a budget crisis and natural disasters.
Schwarzenegger raised four fantastic children and in the wake of a scandal he brought upon himself, he tried to keep his family together. This book covers all that and more.
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger poses next to his portrait. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Lessons:
1) Reps, Reps, Reps
“Writing out my goals became second nature, and so did the conviction that there are no shortcuts. It took hundreds and even thousands of repetitions for me to learn to hit a great three-quarter back pose, deliver a punch line, dance the tango in True Lies, paint a beautiful birthday card, and say “I’ll be back” just the right way. ”
Of the main themes in Schwarzenegger’s book is the importance of reps or repetition. No matter what task or career one chooses, to do an excellent job, one must practice, practice, and practice some more.
Whenever Arnold went to the gym, he would write out his workouts for the day and how many reps had to be performed. After completing each exercise, he marked it with an X to show that it was done. At the end of his workout, he would feel a sense of accomplishment because he would look at the chalkboard or his journal and see it filled with X's.
When Arnold was tasked with giving his first address to the United Nations, he wrote down a tally mark for each time he rehearsed the speech. Just for that one speech, he practiced over 50 times. In his book, Arnold writes that “Whether you’re doing a bicep curl in a chilly gym or talking to world leaders, there are no shortcuts–everything is reps, reps, reps” (page 614).
If someone wants to be a good skier, they have to get out on the slopes and practice skiing. If they want to be a good chess player, they have to play thousands of games. The same goes for acting. Arnold writes that just to film one scene, the crew spent half the day rehearsing. Getting better at anything in life requires reps, reps, reps.
It took Arnold hundreds of reps to get the line "I'll be back" just right.
2) Care For The Body And The Mind
“Some of the earliest advice that stuck in my head was Fredi Gerstl channeling Plato. “The Greeks started the Olympics, but they also gave us the great philosophers,” he would say. “You have to build the ultimate physical machine but also the ultimate of the mind.””
Taking care of the body came easy for Schwarzenegger, but he also wanted to train and grow his mind. Arnold writes that he became like a sponge and absorbed everything around him. “The world became my university, I developed such a need to learn and read and take it all in” (page 617).
And the same is true for people in the opposite setting. If a person has a high level of intelligence, it would benefit them to also exercise the body every day. Arnold notes that both Clint Eastwood–the famous actor and director, and Dmitry Medvedev–the former President of Russia, worked out every day.
Even the Pope, specifically John Paul II, was a big believer in training the mind and the body. Arnold writes that the Pope was known to wake up at five in the morning and did "two hundred push-ups and three hundred sit-ups, all before breakfast and before his workday began” (page 618).
The Pope was a skier too, and he was in his sixties. If he can find time to exercise, so can everyone.
Arnold advises readers to train the body and the mind.
3) The Day Has 24 Hours, Use Them All
“I explained how as a student I’d trained five hours a day, gone to acting classes four hours a day, worked in construction several hours a day, and gone to college and done my homework.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a big believer in working hard and spending each hour of the day wisely. While training for bodybuilding competitions, Schwarzenegger worked construction and ran side businesses such as buying real estate and selling fitness handbooks. As an actor, Schwarzenegger took acting and speech classes while continuing his strict workout routine.
This was a man that had an insatiable appetite for success. And once a person reaches a high level of success, they should move on to do it again instead of resting on their laurels.
Schwarzenegger writes that too many accomplished people just coast once they reach a certain level of success. He believes there is always more to be done. As Arnold’s father used to tell him, “Be useful. Do something.”
Schwarzenegger notes that Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, went on to organize the Goodwill Games. Bono, who started out as a musician, founded RED to combat AIDS. Anthony Quinn became a famous movie star but wanted to do more, so he became a painter whose canvases sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's always more that can be done in life.
“You’ll have plenty of time to rest when you’re in the grave. Live a risky life and a spicy life and like Eleanor Roosevelt said, every day do something that scares you. We should all stay hungry.”
Conclusion:
“Total Recall” (2013) is an incredible story about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s life that covers both the struggles and triumphs he faced in bodybuilding, acting and politics. It’s a great American-dream story that shows the true path to becoming successful and what is needed to get there.
Schwarzenegger is an unbelievable person–he achieved success in not just one field, but three. A lot can be learned about his drive and desire to achieve from reading this book. Readers will learn several important lessons such as the need to write down your goals, practice often, be self-disciplined, don’t blame your parents, and train both the mind and body.
And although Schwarzenegger may seem like a machine, he is actually human, and a humble one at that. In the book, he writes about his affair–why he did it and what he learned from his mistake.
Overall, this book gives a fantastic overview of Schwarzenegger’s life: It covers how he was raised, why the wanted to go to America, why he fell in love with bodybuilding, why he wanted to become an actor, and why he went into politics.
Arnold doesn’t hide anything and talks about both the ups and downs during his life journey. He also includes a chapter that highlights his rules for success. And even though he isn’t perfect and had an affair, he is an awesome human being and readers will learn a lot by reading his book.
Now go read this book. Hasta la vista, baby.
Rating: 5/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
- Book: “Total Recall" by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Pages: 646
- For: People looking for self-improvement tips, people who love true inspiring stories
- Lesson: Learn about Schwarzenegger's incredible life journey and how he became successful in three different careers
If you're looking to get in shape or learn about Arnold's diet during his bodybuilding career, I'd recommend reading "The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding."
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting our site or signing up for our monthly newsletter. Thank you!
Reader freebies:
"Wild At Heart" by John Eldredge
Pages: 221
For: Young men, Jordan Peterson fans, Christian men, men that are bored with life
Lesson: Learn about what is needed to grow from a boy to a man and recover your masculine role
Summary:
“Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge is a book aimed to help men rediscover their masculine self with guidance from the Bible. The book also invites women to discover the secret of a man’s soul and to delight in the strength and wildness men were created to offer.
John Eldredge is a bestselling author, a counselor, and a teacher. He is also president of Ransomed Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God’s love, and learn to live in God’s kingdom.
This book is similar to Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life” since both books examine biblical scripture and extract life lessons from the Bible that can be applied to modern-day situations. The book is also similar to “No More Mr. Nice Guy” by Dr. Glover because it encourages men to be good guys instead of nice guys.
Lessons:
1) The 3 Things That Men Desire
“There are three desires I find written so deeply into my heart I know now I can no longer disregard them without losing my soul...I search the pages of literature, I listen carefully to many, many men, and I am convinced these desires are universal, a clue into masculinity itself. They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”
Eldredge writes that the desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue, are the three things that men desire most.
He argues that aggression is part of the masculine design and that men are hardwired for it. In the bible it even says that “the LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name” (Ex. 15:3). Even as kids, boys want to play war and attack something–whether it be another person or an object like a ball.
The desire to battle can also be found in books and movies. In almost every famous film, the main character has to fight something or someone to become a hero (ex. Braveheart, Top Gun, Gladiator).
The desire for an adventure to live is also part of being a hero in one’s own life. “Adventure requires something of us, puts us to the test,” says the author. In every James Bond and Indiana Jones film, the main character goes on an adventure that tests them as a man and makes them stronger afterward. Men are made to go into the unknown and conquer it.
A man’s last desire is to find a beauty to rescue. Romeo has Juliet, King Arthur had Guinevere and Robin Hood had Maid Marian.
Eldredge writes that for a beautiful woman, men will storm the castle, slay the dragon–or in modern times, hit a game-winning shot. “A man wants to be the hero to the beauty. Young men going off to war carry a photo of their sweetheart in their wallet” writes the author. What a man really wants, Eldredge says, is to be a hero to the person he loves.
2) Heal Your Wounds
“There are no formulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process. He is a person and he insists on working personally. For some, it comes in a moment of divine touch. For others, it takes place over time and through the help of another, maybe several others.”
No man will go through life without facing any battles, whether it be physical or spiritual. Often times these battles will result in some kind of wounds. These wounds can take a variety of forms such as anger issues, rejection, breakups, or failure.
Many men carry deep wounds, but no one sees it because the cut is spiritual and men will bury it deep inside and never take it out. However, Eldredge argues that the only way to heal the wound is to take it out, or better yet enter it.
When it comes to healing the wound, Eldredge writes that Christ never used the same method twice. In the bible, he spits on the ground to make mud and heals the person by putting the mud on their eyes, to another person Christ simply speaks and the person is healed, and to another Christ touches him and he is healed. Every man carries a wound that is unique to them and they must find their own way to heal it. Once healed, the man will be stronger than ever before.
3) Stop Sabotaging Yourself
“Sabotage also happens when we give our strength away. Taking a bribe, letting yourself be bought off, accepting flattery in exchange for some sort of loyalty, is sabotage. Refusing to confront an issue because if you keep quiet you’ll get a promotion or be made an elder or keep your job corrupts you down deep.”
Eldredge says that within each person, there is a civil war going on. Just as God fights the devil, man must fight the traitor within them that tells them to do the wrong things. As the quote says, taking a bribe or refusing to confront an issue are forms of sabotage that chip away at a man’s masculinity.
Instead, men should choose to live out their strength and purpose the right decision. Men should not run away from their problems–they should face them head-on. Men do not let people take advantage of them–they stand up for themselves and those that cannot defend themselves.
As mentioned earlier, men have a desire to go to battle. However, some of the toughest battles a man will face, are the battles inside of them. Go to battle with the things that are trying to sabotage your soul and defeat them. That is the role of a masculine man.
Conclusion:
Before reading this book, I had never heard of John Eldredge or any of his other work. However, I decided to take a chance–no risk, no reward I thought. It was a good choice. The book is about 200 pages and is easy to read.
There are plenty of insightful lessons that readers will learn from reading this book, such as the three things men desire, the three things women desire, the role of adventure in life, the role that men and women play in each other’s lives, and what men need to do to feel alive.
If you’re a fan of “12 Rules for Life “ by Peterson or “No More Mr. Nice Guy” by Dr. Glover, I highly recommend reading this book. I would also recommend this book to young adults and men that are of Christian/Catholic faith. Even if you aren’t religious, you can still view the Bible as literature and learn several lessons from Eldredge about the masculinity and the role men play in life.
Rating: 4/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
Book: “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge
Pages: 221
For: Young men, Jordan Peterson fans, Christian men, men that are bored with life
Lesson: Learn what is needed to grow from a boy to a man and recover your masculine role
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting our site or signing up for our monthly newsletter. Thank you!
Reader freebies:
"The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Book: “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
For: People interested in learning about Soviet Russia, psychology of corruption and slave labor camps
Lesson: Learn how a country falls apart when its leaders and citizens become corrupt
Summary:
“The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn is a non-fictional account about the Soviet forced labor camps that led to the imprisonment, brutalization and very often murder of tens of millions of innocent Soviet citizens by their own Government.
Originally released as a three-volume book, but also available in an authorized abridged version, the book won the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book was also called the “Best nonfiction book of the 20th century” by Time.
Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was a decorated captain in the Soviet Army during World War II, but in 1945, he was sent to prison for criticizing Stalin in private letters. While in prison, he observed the prisoners, guards, and everyone in between to discover how everyone played a role in contributing to the creation of Soviet prison camps.
Author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Lessons:
1) Soviet Society Was Built To Fail
“Our decision even ran counter to our material interest: at that time the provincial university we attended could not promise us anything more than the chance to teach in a rural school in a remote area for miserly wages. The NKVD school dangled before us special rations and double or triple pay. ”
The NKVD was a Soviet government agency that was tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. Although Solzhenitsyn and others did their best to refuse to go to NKVD school, this route paid double or triple what would be earned had they went to and graduated from a regular university.
Students were also told that joining the NKVD was an honorable task because it would help fight the struggle against the internal enemy. Stalin, as the leader of Soviet Russia, believed he had many enemies–even in his own country, and wanted all of his enemies to be declared guilty in the court. To incentivize officers to catch more criminal, officers were given pay bonuses, awards and promotions for processing and condemning criminals. On the other hand, officers that had low numbers of convicted criminals were fired.
This set of incentives not only resulted in officers arresting citizens for almost any crime, no matter how little but once arrested, integrators used any method possible to have the person admit they were guilty.
Through interviews with former victims and officers, Solzhenitsyn learned that the NKVD deprived people of sleep and water, undressed them, lied to them, and even tortured them with a machine that squeezed their fingernails until it fell off. And although Stalin had issued no direct instructions to use torture–he wanted his hands to be clean if anything went south–at the same time he had ensured that torture would be used.
2) Arrested For Even The Smallest Mistake
“The children in a collective farm club got out of hand, had a fight, and accidentally knocked some poster or other off the wall with their backs. The two eldest were sentenced...children from the age of twelve on had fill criminal responsibility for all crimes! They also sentenced the parents for having allegedly told them to and sent them to do it. ”
Take a moment and reread that quote. Two children and their parents were sent to jail for accidentally knocking down a poster (of Stalin or Lenin) and were sent to jail.
As mentioned in the previous lesson, because of the incentives given to officers were so strong and those who made little arrests were punished, this created a society where people could get arrested for the smallest infraction.
A deaf carpenter was sentenced to jail for ten years for hanging his jacket on a bust of Lenin. A shepherd was sent to jail for calling his cow a whore. Yes, not at a police officer, but at his own cow and got a prison term for it.
There was also Irina Tuchinskaya who was arrested while leaving a church. She was charged with having “prayed in church for the death of Stalin.” How can anyone hear a silent prayer? Apparently, Soviet officers can. She was sent to jail for 25 years.
However, the people described above were the lucky ones. Many Soviet citizens were executed for their crimes.
Six peasants who had given almost all of their hay to the communist party, had a little hay left that they wanted to give to their cows, were all given the sentence of execution for not handing everything last piece of the crop over.
In another scenario, a hungry fourteen-year-old girl named Lida was walking down the street and picked up a few grains from the dusty road that spilled from a truck. She was sentenced to jail for three years.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn after his release from camp.
3) 10 Factors That Led To A Corrupt Society
According to Solzhenitsyn, there were many things that contributed to the rise of slave-labor camps and a corrupt state, but here are his main ten ideas:
1) Constant Fear: Government officers were constantly arresting and interrogating citizens to rat out their neighbors or anyone that they may believe could be an enemy of the state. This led to a state of constant fear where even innocent people could be arrested.
2) Servitude: Citizens of Soviet Russia couldn’t simply pack up their bags and leave this crazy state because houses couldn’t be sold, exchanged or rented. Property belonged to the state, not the individual. In addition, the majority of the population had little savings with most of their tied to their property.
3) Secrecy and Mistrust: Since people couldn’t leave Soviet Russia, they had to be as secretive as possible because they did not want to be arrested and didn’t know who was an informant and who was a friend. To the Soviet citizen, being secretive was necessary to their survival.
4) Universal Ignorance: Since the Soviet people didn’t trust one another, no one spoke to anyone and no one talked about the millions of arrests that were being made in the country. And since no one talked, the only new information came from government officials who rarely spoke the truth.
5) Squealing: To arrest more people, Security officers constantly recruited city dwellers to become informers. Solzhenitsyn estimates that out of every four to five city dwellers, there would almost be one who had received a proposal to become an informer.
A map of Russia that shows the location of slave-labor camps throughout the country.
6) Betrayal as a Form of Existence: Living in a state of constant fear (both literally and figuratively) the least dangerous form of existence, says Solzhenitsyn, was constant betrayal. If Alek’s factory co-worker, a man who had worked with him for 20 years was convicted of being an enemy of the state, the next person Officers would be investigate was Alek. Anyone who had a friendship with an enemy would also be an enemy of the state. Thus, the only way to survive would be to betray your friends and tell the government what they wanted to hear.
7) Corruption: Living in a state of constant fear, where one has to betray their friends to survive, the country swelled up with corruption. Solzhenitsyn estimates that ⅓ of all convictions came from people that weren’t willing, to tell the truth, and instead lied as witnesses.
8) The Lie as a Form of Existence: Not only did adults have to lie to survive, but so did children. Parents had to decide whether to teach children the truth, which would put them at risk of being arrested or teach them to lie as a child, which would increase their chances of surviving but would produce future generations of corrupt citizens.
9) Cruelty: In a society built on lies, corruption, and betrayal, there was only room for cruelty. Solzhenitsyn writes that kindness, mercy, and pity were all ridiculed in the Soviet state.
10) Slave Psychology: Solzhenitsyn says that in several parts of the country, there were sculptures of guards with a police dog straining forward in order to sink its teeth into someone. People become so accustomed to this new corrupt state, they did not shudder at the sight of these statues. Setting dogs onto people became the norm, even on the country’s own citizens. The people of Soviet Russia were no longer free citizens, but rather, they became slaves in their own country.
Conclusion:
“The Gulag Archipelago” is a horrible book. Not horrible as in poorly written or unbelievably boring, but horrible as in, “I can’t believe this book is nonfiction and these horrible events actually happened in life.”
It took me roughly two months to finish this book because at times I had to put this book down either to completely absorb the atrocities that happened or to wonder in disbelief just how evil humans could be.
That said, this is a book I think everyone should read.
Why?
Because if I had to summarize the book in one sentence it is that, society becomes corrupt from individuals becoming corrupt and not standing up for what’s right. This is a lesson everyone should know and remember. Viktor Frankl learned a similar lesson from his experience in the Holocaust camps when he said, man is both the person that invented the gas chambers and the person that entered them.
Society is made up of individuals, and as individuals, it is our duty to uphold positive values (trust, honor, freedom) that will move society upwards and avoid negative values (betrayal, lying, ignorance).
Rating: 5/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
Book: “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Pages: 528
For: People interested in learning about Soviet Russia, psychology of corruption and slave labor camps
Lesson: Learn how a country falls apart when its leaders and citizens become corrupt
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"Negotiation Genius" by Malhotra & Bazerman
Book: “Negotiation Genius” by Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman
For: People who work in sales, deals, or similar business fields
Lesson: Learn the essential strategies needed to become a negotiation expert
Summary:
“Negotiation Genius” (2007) was written by Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman–two leaders in executive education at Harvard Business School that have a proven track record in the field of negotiation.
Whether you’re a beginner or experienced salesperson, this book will dramatically improve your negotiating skills. The book draws on decades of behavioral research plus the experience of thousands of business clients. The authors take the mystery out of preparing for and executing negotiations—whether they involve multimillion-dollar deals or improving your next salary offer.
“Negotiation Genius” provides readers with detailed strategies that work in the real world even when the other side is hostile, unethical, or more powerful. When you finish it, you will already have an action plan for your next negotiation. You will know what to do and why. You will also begin building your own reputation as a negotiation genius.
Authors Max Bazerman (left) & Deepak Malhotra (right).
Lessons:
1) Always Know Your BATNA
“You need to assess your BATNA, or best alternative to negotiated agreement–the course of action you will pursue if and when the current negotiation ends in an impasse. Without a clear understanding of your BATNA, it is impossible to know when to accept a final offer and when to walk away in order to pursue other options. ”
Determine your BATNA is the first step in any negotiation because you have to ask yourself, what will do you if the current negotiation ends in no deal? Your BATNA is the reality you will face if you reach no deal in the current negotiation.
For example, let’s imagine you are selling a large piece of land. If the new owner keeps it residential, the property will be worth around $36-44 million, but if the land is turned into a commercial business, it will be worth between $40-48 million.
You receive one offer from a buyer for $42 million that says he will make residential buildings on the property. The other buyer says he doesn’t yet know whether he will make it residential or commercial and would like to negotiate a price.
In this scenario, your BATNA is $42 million. If the second buyer offers anything lower than 42m, you simply walk away. If the buyer matches the offer, you still have the option of walking away.
Since the property has the potential to be worth between $40-48 million, this becomes your ZOPA–zone of possible agreement. If you’re able to negotiate a price in the ZOPA that is higher than your BATNA, such as $44 million, you should take it, if not you’re free to walk away.
2) Don’t just ask what–ask why
“Negotiators tend to spend most of their own speaking time telling others what they themselves want or need. Unfortunately, this approach–find out what each side wants–often derails negotiations. The reason: too much focus on what people want distracts your attention from discovering why they want it.”
The authors point out a common mistake made by negotiators–asking what but not asking why. It may sound reasonable to listen to the other side to find out what they want, but that is only part of the battle.
Sometimes in a negotiation, there is no room for compromise on what they want, but a clear solution can emerge when the focus is shifted to why they want it.
Deepak tells a story of his wife trying to hail a cab on a cold winter Boston night. It was rush hour and dozens of cabs were all occupied. When she spotted an empty cab, she ran after it but there was a problem. The cab didn’t have his “for hire” light on. Deepak’s wife asked for a ride anyway, as expected, the cab driver said no.
However, Deepak’s wife asked the cab driver why he would not take her. The driver explained that his shift was over and he was heading home. Deepak’s wife asked which direction the cab driver was heading home, and it turned out his destinations was only a few blocks away from hers. She jumped in the cab and the driver drove off. The driver made a few extra bucks while Deepak’s wife got her ride home, a win for both sides.
Remember to ask why people want something, and not just what.
3) Make Multiple Offers Simultaneously
“Making multiple offers simultaneously is a great tactic for other reasons as well. Not only does it allow you to discover the interests of reticent negotiators, but it also allows you to anchor more strongly and to simultaneously come across as flexible.
”
This is a tactic not many negotiators may know about, but it an extremely useful strategy. Giving multiple offers gives you the chance to make two offers that you like, and it gives more options to the other side.
It will also show you what aspect of the deal the other side is more focused on–this goes back to what they want and why. The book uses the example of giving a real estate broker two contracts to sell a home. The broker can either choose: 2.5% commission and have 3 months to sell the house or 3.5% commission and have two months to sell the house.
This also works great with siblings when splitting up chores. For example, I’ll ask my sister if she wants to vacuum the house or Swiffer the floors, and I’ll do the other task. This method is a lot better than just saying vacuum the house and I’ll Swiffer because it comes across as more flexible to the other person and makes it seem as they have more freedom in the decision.
Conclusion:
“Negotiation Genius” is an absolutely spectacular book. As a graduate business student, I have read several books about sales and closing deals, but nothing comes close to this book. It is shorter and easier to understand than any textbook on the subject, and cheaper too.
Even if you aren’t a business student, there is a ton that can be learned from this book since negotiation plays an aspect in multiple areas of one's life. A person can negotiate the price of fruit at the market, the salary at a new job, or the apartment chores with their roommate.
The book also covers key lessons such as negotiation from a position of weakness, ethical dilemmas in negotiating, and negotiating with an irrational person.
The book is about 350 pages long, but the authors use a lot of interesting real-world examples that keep readers engaged chapter after chapter.
Rating: 5/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
- Book: “Negotiation Genius” by Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman
- Pages: 343
- For: People who work in sales, deals, or similar business fields
- Lesson: Learn the essential strategies needed to become a negotiation expert
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"On Writing" by Stephen King
Book: “On Writing” by Stephen King
For: Aspiring writers who want to improve their writing and learn about King’s career
Lesson: Learn the fundamentals of writing from legendary writer Stephen King
Summary:
“On Writing” by Stephen King is part memoir and part master class. For those unfamiliar with King, he is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers.
This book details King’s writing career and covers everything from his childhood to selling Carrie. The book is also filled with writing lessons and teaches the importance of narration, dialogue, and description. King even writes about finding an agent and ways to get work published. It’s an immensely helpful and illuminating book to any aspiring writer.
Author Stephen King working on his craft.
Lessons:
1) Good Writers Are Avid Reader
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year.”
Reading a lot will make you a better writer, this is a common theme among successful writers (see Hemingway’s list of recommended books here). King writes that he reads 70-80 books a year, that a bit more than one book a week–and that is the speed of a “slow reader.” I read 35 books last year, so I guess I read at a half-King pace.
Anyhow, King writes that every book has its own lessons, and quite often, bad books have more to teach than the good ones. By reading bad prose, one learns more clearly what not to write. King goes as so far to say that “Reading bad prose...is worth a semester at a good writing school, even with the superstar guest lecturers thrown in” (pg 146).
Good writing, on the other hand, teaches style, narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and more. And for writers that don’t have time to read, King writes “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time to write” (pg 147).
2) Practice, Practice, Practice
“It was all going to be rehearsal. That’s no good. If there’s no joy in it, it’s just no good. It’s best to go on to some other area, where the deposits of talent may be richer and the fun quotient higher. ”
In this paragraph, King is talking about his son Owen who wanted to learn how to play the saxophone. King bought Owen a saxophone for Christmas and hired a local musician to teach Owen the basics. It turns out, Owen only practiced when the instructor came around and didn’t play the saxophone during his own free time. King noticed this and asked Owen if he wanted to stop taking lessons and Owen agreed.
King applies the same attitude towards writing. Those who want to become writers should view writing not as a chore, but rather as a joyful activity that they don’t want to stop doing.
King advocates for a strong reading and writing program of “four to six hours a day, every day” (pg 150). Personally, King considers the morning to be his prime writing time and writes every day including Christmas, the Fourth of July, and his birthday.
King advises writers to find a humble space free of distractions such as telephones, TV, or video games. For young writers, it’s best to eliminate every possible distraction. As writers become more advanced, they can alter the way they work, King, for instance, listens to hard-rock music like Guns N Roses and Metallica while writing. And once you find your writing space, it’s time to close the door and get to work.
3) Symbolism Is Like Digging Up A Fossil
“If you can go along with the concept of the story as a pre-existing thing, a fossil in the ground, then symbolism must also be pre-existing, right? Just another bone in your new discovery That’s if it’s there. If it isn’t, so what? You’ve still got the story itself, don’t you?”
When King first wrote Carrie, he noticed there was plenty of blood in the story, but never once stopped to think that the blood was created with an intentional symbolic meaning.
However, while working on the second draft of the story, King started to play around with the idea, image, and emotional connotations of blood. Blood played a role in all three crucial points in Carrie and used the symbolic meaning of blood to enhance the story.
But as with all things in this world, writers should be careful not to use it too much. Rather, symbolism is like digging for a fossil. If you dig around but don’t find anything, move on. If you dig around and do find part of a fossil, it’s best to keep digging until the fossil has been uncovered.
Conclusion:
If you’re looking to learn about Stephen King’s writing career and a few writing lessons along the way, “On Writing” is a fantastic book. However, if you’re looking for just a book about sharpening your craft, you may want to pass on this book if you’re an intermediate or advanced writer.
The book is a little less than 300 pages long, but if you take out the memoir section, it’s roughly 100 pages that focus on writing skills. It would also been great to have clear-cut lessons and tips for readers and the end of each chapter.
With that said, respect must be paid to the king, he is a spectacular writer. The book flows unbelievably well and is easy to read and understand. If you’re an aspiring writer or just starting out, definitely read this book.
Rating: 4/5 stars
If you’re interested in reading the book, click here or on the image below!
- Book: “On Writing” by Stephen King
- Pages: 288
- For: Aspiring writers who want to learn about King’s career and improve their own writing
- Lesson: Learn writing secrets from legendary writer Stephen King
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