“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

Before the 24th of June, I couldn't find any consistency with reading. The last 10-12 weeks have been amazing! I have learned so many incredible things. I am now on 19 books for the year, targetting 50 by the end! That beats last years total of only 1! What would Grant Cardone be saying? I'm not going to lie... I have had two weeks off! I will be back very soon for more.

THE BOOK LIST:

1) Screw it, Let's do it- Richard Branson

2) Big Sam- My Autobiography

3) Thor Heyerdahl- Kon-Tiki

4) Instant Confidence- Paul McKenna

5)Amish Society- John A. Hostetler

BOOK REVIEWS...

Screw it, Let's do it- Richard Branson

I read the whole book. It’s one of the Quick Reads you can buy!

Page 17- Have Fun- Someone asked me if I had named Virgin after the Virgin Islands. The answer was no. We had named the company Virgin because we were virgins in business. But I had never been to The Virgin Islands. And they sounded like the perfect romantic place for Joan and me.

Page 37- Be Bold- One thing I always try to do is to keep my word. I set my goals and stick to them. Success is more than luck. You have to believe in yourself and make it happen. That way others will also believe in you.

Page 63- Standing On Your Own Two Feet- In a way, regrets are like wanting the peach you have thrown away. It’s gone, but you are fully remorse. You wish you hadn’t thrown it away. You want it back. I believe the one thing that helps you capture the moment is to have no regrets. Regrets weigh you down. They hold you back in the past when you should move on.

Big Sam- My Autobiography

Decided to read this book for pure pleasure. I picked out 6 chapters!

Page 107- Madness at Meadow Lane-You have to change your entire way of thinking when you move from a player to manager- it’s a big transition. As a player you are selfish, only interested in your own needs; as a manager you have to put everyone else ahead of yourself and your family. Managing players is the easiest part, managing the owners, the fans and the press is not so straight forward. Keeping everyone happy is impossible and you have to get used to that.

Page 115- Madness at Meadow Lane- Success breeds discontent though, because everybody wants rewarding, including me, and we are dealing with a chairman with extremely long pockets and very short arms. 

Thor Heyerdahl- Kon-Tiki

I read the whole of this book.

Page 82- Across the Pacific- The sea had clearly become calmer. Stiff and sore, with skinned palms and sleepy eyes, we were not worth a row of beans. Better to save our strengths in case the weather should call us out to a worse passage of arms. One could never know. So we furled the sail and rolled it round the bamboo yard. The Kon-Tiki lay sideways onto the seas and took them like a cork. Everything on board was lashed fast, and all six of us crawled into the little bamboo chain, huddled together, and slept like mummies in a sardine tin.

Page 156- Across the Pacific- We calculated that in an ordinary calm sea, where there were usually seven seconds between the highest waves, we took in about two hundred tons of water astern in twenty four hours But we hardly noticed it because it just flowed in quietly round the bare legs of the steering watch and as quietly disappeared again between the logs. But in a heavy storm more than ten thousand tons of water poured on board astern in the course of twenty four hours, seeing that loads varying from a few gallons to two or three cubic yards, and occasionally much more, flowed on board every five seconds. It sometimes broke on board with a deafening thunderclap, so that the helmsman stood in the water up to his waist and felt as if he were forcing his way against the current in a swift river. The raft seemed to stand trembling for a moment, but then the cruel load that weighed her down astern disappeared overboard again in great cascades.

Instant Confidence- Paul McKenna

I read 3/4 of this book.

Page 91- You can really do anything- Whenever I want to learn and understand how someone does what they do, I begin by watching examples of the person I want to model doing whatever it is that I want to learn. I then practise ‘stepping in’ to their physiology and using my body in the same way that they use theirs until new behaviours feel natural to me.

By copying the physiology of someone who is truly confident, you will begin to develop the same confident mindsets. Remember the mind and body are intimately linked, so if you operate your body the same way as someone else you will start to have the same kinds of thoughts.

Page 99- The 5 minute day confidence workout

 2. Laugh for twenty minutes every day

Laughter, even if initially it is forced and artificial, has been proven to lift our spirits and improve our overall mood and well-being. As with physical exercise, it produces endorphins to make the body feel good. Even just smiling releases serotonin (a happy neurotransmitter) into the bloodstream and acts as a powerful anti-depressant.

Page 127- Getting the action habit- When you take action every day towards what you want, it gets easier and easier to take the next action the next day. This is because like anything else you do repeatedly, taking action becomes a habit. No one shows up to work naked, smacks themselves in the forehead and says, ‘I can’t believe it- I forgot to get dressed this morning!’

This is because you have practised getting dressed before leaving your house so many times that it has become a habit- a neuro physiological programme in your nervous system.

When you apply the same logic to reaching your big goals, you will find yourself mastering the action habit. Simply write down your BIG goals somewhere you can see them. Take at least one action every day that takes you closer to achieving them. By doing at least one thing for each goal every day, you build an unstoppable momentum making it easier to move in the direction you want.

Page 198- Social Confidence- Simon Cowell, one of the most confident people I know, told me that his father taught him that the key to success with other people was simply to imagine that everyone has a sign above their heads with the words ‘make me feel important’ written on it in big bold letters. So the most valuable thing of all to remember is this: the key to social confidence is to put the majority of your attention OUTSIDE of yourself and onto the person or people you are with.

In order to do that, you will need to feel comfortable enough with yourself that you don’t have to continually monitor what is going on with you.

Amish Society

Page 10- Foundations- Amish life is distinctive in that religion and custom blend into a way of life. The two are inseparable. The core values of the community are religious beliefs. Not only do the members worship a deity they understand through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the Bible, but their patterned behavior has a religious dimension. A distinctive way of life permeates daily life, agriculture, and the application of energy to economic ends. Their beliefs determine their conceptions of the self, the universe, and man’s place in it. The Amish world view recognizes a certain amount of spiritual worth and dignity in the universe in its natural form. Religious considerations determine hours of work and the daily, weekly, seasonal, and yearly rituals associated with life experience. Occupation, the means and destinations of travel, and choice of friends and mate are determined by religious considerations. Religious and work attitudes complement each other. The universe includes the divine, and the Amish society itself is considered divine insofar as the Amish recognize themselves as ‘a chosen people of God. “The Amish do not seek to master nature or to work against the elements, but try to work with them. The affinity between Amish society and nature in the form of land, terrain, and vegetation is expressed in various degrees of intensity.

Page 16- Foundations- As soon as the law will allow, Amish children are taken out of the school for work at home. The Amish viewpoint is that ‘if a boy does little hard work before he is twenty-one, he probably never gets to like it afterwards. In other words, he will not amount to much of a farmer.

Page 152- Stability and Fulfilment- The extent to which the farmer aids his wife in household tasks is nominal. He helps on special occasions such as butchering and cooking apple butter, but he does not help in the routine preparation of food, nor does he wash dishes. At weddings, the men serve as cooks and table waiters for their wives. Guests at an Amish table are often addressed by the husband: “Now reach out and help yourselves.”

The wife’s duties include care of the children, cooking and cleaning, preparation of produce for market, making clothes for the family, preserving food, and gardening. Typically, washing will be done on a Monday, ironing on Tuesday, baking on Friday, and cleaning on Saturday. There are no special shopping nights, as purchases are made in the village store during weekdays.

Page 399- The Discourse With Survival- As the world becomes more complex, insecure, and stressful, more seekers will be attracted to the Amish way of life. An increasing number of inquiries are coming to the Amish people themselves from outsiders who wish to join the Amish church. In the past there were relatively few, undramatic instances of outsiders who joined. The chances factors that accounted for some of these conversions brought into the Amish fellowship such present-day names as Anderson, Cross, Delagrange, Flaud, Girod, Headings, Helmuth, Huyard, Jones, Lambright, Lee, Luthy, Whetstone, Wickey, and others. Most, if not all, of the converts had lived and worked in Amish homes, or they entered through adoption, They were exposed to the Amish life pattern and attracted by example rather than by verbal discourse.

For a young man who is a prospective convert, Amishness begins with the horse stable and a pitchfork. For the young girl, it begins with the work at hand-scalding tomatoes, preserving apples and fruit in glass jars, and preparing the family meals. The Amish may show hospitality to the outsider who would join, but only those Amish who are disposed to verbal discourse would attempt to reason and persuade to become a member.