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My Reading Journey Backwards and Forwards

Category: Books (Page 1 of 6)

The Boron Letters

June 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

June 3, 2026

A book about marketing written by Gary Halbert

Reflections and Random Thoughts

This book is a series of letters written by Gary Halbert, from prison to his son Bond Halbert. While it is full of advice about everything from how and when to exercise to how to make money in direct mail it is noticeably absent any advice on how to stay out of prison!

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Choose your market and then your product – not the other way around. I own a small business. I did what I think most people do – I have a thing, I do a thing and now I’m going to try to sell it. Gary Halbert did something different – he chose a hungry market and then created a product to sell to them. He by the way made millions.

Something Actionable

There are a lot of actionable take-aways in this book. He talks a lot about exercise – as does MJ DeMarco in Choose Hard, Live Easy – which I just finished reading as well.

Exercise more – is on every list I’ve got everywhere including this one.

Review Title (star rating)

What Everyone Else Thinks

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Books, Non-fiction

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

May 17, 2026 / / 0 Comments

May 15, 2026

A Book About the principles of success by Eric Barker

Started: April 8, 2026

Finished: May 15, 2026

Reflections and Random Thoughts

This book was engaging and easy to read but I had trouble remembering what it was about. For me it seemed to be all over the place.

I took a lot of notes (97) because there were a lot of interesting tidbits and stories but I’m not sure if I learned anything new. So far only 6 of those 97 notes have made it to my Zettlekasten.

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Self-compassion beats self-esteem.

“Research suggests that self-compassion is strongly related to psychological wellbeing, including increased happiness, optimism, personal initiative, and connectedness, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, neurotic perfectionism, and rumination.”” (Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree)

Something Actionable

Practice self-compassion. So for the next 7 days I’m going to write down 1 thing daily that I can forgive myself for.

My Rating

What Everyone Else Thinks

I think this was the fairest review I’ve read, this was from Mojo in March of 2018 he gave it 3 stars. This was an Amazon review.

This was a nice and easy read. The writing was pretty relaxed and casual which helps keep the subject matter fresh. There are a few simple concepts and ideas, supported by studies, that aim to help you feel balanced, successful and happy. Not a lot new here but the book is an enjoyable read and the presentation of the ideas is nice and easy to grab hold of and put into action.

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Books, Non-fiction

Choose Hard Live Easy

April 23, 2026 / / 0 Comments

A Book About Making Better Choices – By MJ DeMarco

Start: March 21, 2026

Finished: June 2, 2026

Reflections and Random Thoughts

This is one of those books that I’d read again IF I didn’t hate the delivery. Marco has a flamboyant style – which is probably necessary to deliver this kind of message – but as I’ve mentioned before I don’t like made up words – like eventuality, momentality, pastuality – (see spell checker doesn’t like them either) but the message is worth hearing anyway.

This book is where the concept of commonplace books comes in handy – I can essentially rewrite it without all the drama – and in fact that is what I’m going to do.

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Something Actionable

Create a common place book from this book

My Rating

What Everyone Else Thinks

It’s only got 10 reviews so far on Amazon but it’s only been out for a month – they are all 5 star reviews.

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Books, Non-fiction

Never Split the Difference

Never Split the Difference

March 7, 2026 / / 0 Comments

A treatise on negotiating – by Chris Voss

March 3, 2026

Reflections and Random Thoughts

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Listen. The truth is I talk too much. I always have. I hear myself talking over prospects – it doesn’t get any worse than that.

Elicit the NO!

Something Actionable

Stop talking and start listening.

Review Title

What Everyone Else Thinks

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Books, Non-fiction

Flow

Flow

March 2, 2026 / / 0 Comments

A book about how to experience happiness in spite of circumstances by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Date Purchased: Mar 7, 2024

Date Started: Aug 13, 2025

Date Finished: Nov 15, 2025

Reflections and Random Thoughts

When I finished reading this book I created a calculator to tell me how many hours were left in this year – I don’t remember how I did it and I don’t know if I’ll be able to edit it at the end of the year – but FYI right now there are 7286 hours left in 2026.

There are 7156 hours left in 2026.

Insights or Stuff I Don’t Get

On page 59 the author writes “The concentration of the flow experience, together with clear goals and immediate feedback, provides order to consciousness, inducing the enjoyable condition of psychic negentropy. ”

So that definitely falls under the Stuff I Don’t Get category, even after having looked up the definition of negentropy – I’m having trouble understanding what he is saying.

Try Googling negentropy – it’s not a lot of help. But I think what he is saying is, we generally experience ordered thoughts positively.

Key Take-Aways – Or 3 Things Worth Remembering

Be mindful of how I spend my time.

Something Actionable

Is it actionable to stop doing something? Stop faking my mind out playing games on my phone.

Review Title (star rating)

What Everyone Else Thinks

This book has 4.8 Stars on Amazon 68% 5 Stars.

As usual the 1 star reviews are entertaining. One in particular that, according to Amazon 13 people find helpful – let’s us know that she read all of 10 pages of the book and decided the author “has a complete disregard for all religions” and that “she” has some work to do. Lest I confuse you Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is a man. Perhaps our well read reviewer should read a page or two more.

Post Progress

6%

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Books, Non-fiction

The Kaizen Way

One Small Step Can Change Your Life

May 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A Book about The Kaizen Way by Robert Mauer, Ph.D.

May 22, 2025

Housekeeping

Copyright 2004

My first read was 2010, I read it again in 2022. And I’m going to read it again now – but I’m also going to buy the physical book.

Reflections and Random Thoughts

I’ve been spending a lot of time with strategic planning recently and I believe I can see the impact this book had on the way I work.

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Something Actionable

Review Title (star rating)

What Everyone Else Thinks

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Books, Non-fiction

A Falcon Flies

May 10, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A novel by Wilber Smith

📅 Started: March 2025

📅 Finished: June 2025

📚 Format: physical book

Why I Started Reading It

My Opinion

My Rating

What Everyone Else Thinks

Amazon & Good Reads

Post Progress

5%

Vocabulary Quiz

Show Your Work

May 8, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A Book about helping people find your work by Austin Kleon

May 8, 2025

May 8 When I’m struggling with posting my work, I always remind myself that no one is reading it anyway – so I can write anything I want. Spend any amount of time reading online advice and you come away with “post something every day”.

The message in this book is “Share” something every day. Uh oh, that’s a little harder.

But that’s the book, 10 Ways to share your creativity and get discovered. I’m not sure I want to “get discovered”. My anonymity is comforting – knowing no one is reading allows me to write. To wander and wonder –

I’m not sure I’m particularly creative either – it took me months to choose a paint color for my living room – and 3 years to find a picture to hang. My gardens are never up to snuff and I don’t have anything brilliant to say about the books I read.

And yet, without them …

That’s my project – documenting my reading journey – backward and forward. It’s the books that that brought me through my darkest days (well, the books and my therapist).

All kidding aside – for those of us without the amazing mentor, or therapist, whose parents and friends give bad advice, the books are always there.

Read them, use them, it helps.

On This Day in History

In 1945, World War II ended in Europe.

Strangers In Time

Strangers In Time

May 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By David Baldacci

May 2, 2025

📅 Started: April 27, 2025

📅 Finished*:* [date]

📚 Format: (hardcover / Kindle / library loan / audiobook, etc.)

Why I Started Reading It

I had just finished Beach Music and found At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks in my bookshelves. Lunchtime is fiction only, so I started it, but it wasn’t working for me. I saw this book on the shelves in Target, and I always enjoy David Baldacci, so I grabbed it.

My Opinion

Love it …

My star rating

What Everyone Else Thinks

Post Progress

13%

Vocabulary Quiz

Wizard Academy

Da Vinci and the 40 Answers

May 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Mark L Fox – A Book About Creative Problem Solving

Housekeeping

I bought this book back in 2008. I assume it was either shortly before or after I attended a seminar at the Wizard Academy. I have highlights from 2009, 2014, 2020, and 2023 that I’ve found so far – but I feel like I never finished reading it??

Reflections and Random Thoughts

Grammarly is sooo annoying.

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Something Actionable

My rating

What Everyone Else Thinks

Post Progress

7%

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Books, Non-fiction

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