Hey guys, Nate here. I'm proud to announce that I'm now the Program Director of Scrawny To Brawny. From now on all of my blogs and articles will be posted on the brand-new Scrawny To Brawny Blog. So if you enjoyed what you read here, please go check it out. (It's awesome, if I say so myself.) I'm keeping the NGE website alive for resource reasons, but will no longer be actively updating it. The best way to get in touch with me is through leaving a comment on the Scrawny To Brawny blog or by posting on the S2B Facebook page. See you guys over at the new blog!
Get Smarter in Two Minutes
That is, obviously, not me
I read one to two books per month, alternating between fiction, business, training, lifestyle, and the occasional biography. And while I love to read fiction all the way through (it's usually required to figure what the hell is going on, you know), I wish more business and lifestyle books would give me a one-page rundown of the main ideas and applicable information they're trying to present in the first few pages.
So that's what I'd like to do for you.
The following three books are great sources of information that I found extremely helpful to my business, lifestyle, and sanity. I'm not going to bother with an introduction or back-story – I'm just going to do a bullet-point list of some of my favorite parts. (I highly suggest buying these, by the way.)
1. The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
- Energy—not time—is the fundamental currency of high performance.
- Think of your work like a sprinter would think of a day of competing: lots of rest intervals between short, intense bursts of work.
- To be "fully engaged" means to be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.
- Creating positive energy rituals—highly specific routines for managing energy—are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance. (Have a work routine, a training routine, a morning routine, a sleep routine, etc.)
2. The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
- Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. Rekindle some old passions, figure out what you want to do on a day-to-day basis and find a way to make it happen.
- There's a big difference between being efficient and being effective. The latter is what we're after.
- Use Parkinson's Law and Pareto's Principle to figure out what's truly important and get your shit done!
3. Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- The Six Principles of making ideas "stick": Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Simple: Find the core of your message and share
Unexpected: Get attention by surprising the audience, keep it by being interesting
Concrete: Help people understand and remember
Credible: Help people believe
Emotional: Make people care
+++++
What books have helped you this year? How could you summarize it in one to two sentences or bullet points? Share the knowledge!
Comments for This Entry
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Nice blog Nate, I really enjoy 4HWW as well. For me, two books that have really helped or interested me this year are...
1) Maximum Strength by Eric Cressey. Incredible book that covers more areas than just giving you a program to follow each day.
-Learn to get stronger.
-Learn about mobility and warming up properly.
2) Starting Strength: A Guide to Coaching Beginners by Mark Rippetoe. Another great book that blew me away with the level of detail Rippetoe goes into about each movement.
- Learn how to properly perform key exercises, which will transfer over to helping coach others.
Can't wait for BFS, hopefully it will make this list! -
Nate, you might want to check out "It's Called Work for a Reason."
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Called-Work-Reason-Success/dp/1592402267
You'll like it. -
1) In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan.
The cover art has seven words that sum up this philosophy - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants - It was a great re-awakening to focus on good, old fashioned f-o-o-d, rather than supplements or shakes.
After reading, I started getting vegetables from a local organic farm and I've had more salads in the past four months than I had all of last year. Plus, I can now cook with Swiss chard and other funky veggies. Seriously, what's that about?
2) Strong Enough? Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe
I love every chance I get to look right into the brain of a fitness professional, especially a guy who's been coaching for three decades.
This book is just what you'd expect from the title - A collection of Mark Rippetoe's thoughts on various strength and fitness topics, gathered from his collective experiences across 30 years of lifting heavy shit and teaching others to lift heavy shit. -
@ Chris C,
That Rippetoe books sounds really good, I'll have to check it out on amazon soon. Thanks for suggestion. -
Interesting post Nate.
I've read 4HWW twice in the past 3months, picked up a hell of a lot more the second time around.
I've just finished Awaken the Giant Within,, Anthony Robbins. That book itself has really hit home, learnt what my true values are etc and seems to make life so much easier after reading.
Going to read his first book, Unlimited Power next.
Keep up the great work.
COMMENT RULES: Critical posts are fine, but if you're rude I'll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your personal name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. But most of all, have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Tim Ferriss for the inspiration.)
Matt Bona 9:44am Oct 23, 2008