📚 The Obvious Choice, Book recs from Napoleon, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• Carl Sagan beautifully describes books.

• 10 Books that influenced Napoleon the most.

• 11 Tips to read faster from bestselling “Limitless” author Jim Kwik.

PS: Sorry for the late newsletter everyone, this week was pretty busy–I have some BIG news to hopefully share soon.

📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “The Obvious Choice” by Jonathan Goodman.

Jonathan has built a $30M+ business, has one of the top podcasts for entrepreneurs, and has helped over 200,000 small business owners grow their businesses.

Here are 3 lessons from his upcoming book:

📖

1) Start A Bug Book

To become a better version of yourself, you need to start by understanding what makes you tick.

One of the best ways to do that is by starting a Bug Book–much like how a scientist would observe, study, and track a bug’s actions to understand it, you want to study yourself the same way.

At its core, this is a journaling exercise, but Bug Book sounds much cooler.

Here’s how it works:

• Set an alarm to alert you 5 times throughout the day (ex: 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm).

• When the alarm goes off, give yourself a score ranging from -2 to +2.

• A -2 means you’re feeling awful, 0 is neutral, and +2 means you’re feeling amazing.

• After you write down your score, jot down anything meaningful from what you’re doing, who you’re with, what you ate, or anything else.

• Try doing this every day for a week.

At the end of the week, review your Bug Book and look for patterns in what affects you negatively and positively.

Here are a few of Jonathan’s findings:

• Working on his book for 2-hours in the morning was positive.

• Having back-to-back meetings without a break was a negative.

• Spending time with kids was a positive.

I’ve tried this strategy and here are a few things I discovered about myself:

• Having a heavy-carb lunch for me is a big negative–I feel lazy and my brain feels foggy afterward.

• Going for a morning walk and getting sunlight is a big positive.

• Working at a standing desk is a positive for me.

PS: You can download Jonathan’s Bug Book worksheet here.

📖

2) HAM Marketing < HIM Marketing

In the book, Johnathan tells a story about a huge gym that hired him to help their trainers get more clients.

The gym had 20,000 members but the 20-person trainer team had trouble getting clients.

As Johnathan walked around the gym, he saw that a lot of the trainers were in the breakroom either hanging out, scrolling social media, or creating content.

Johnathan then gathered the trainers to figure out what was going on. The trainers mainly asked questions about how they could grow their social media following and create more viral posts.

Johnathan answered the trainer’s question with a question, “Have you ever gotten a client from social media?”

“No,” she replied.

The room went quiet.

The mistake these trainers were making was that they were applying Human Avoidance Marketing instead of human interpersonal marketing.

Now yes, you can get new clients through social media BUT the trainers had thousands of people already inside the gym that they could go talk to in person and close as clients.

Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of hours creating social media content, if the trainers spent that time talking to gym members face-to-face, they would likely be fully booked with clients.

📖

3) Do X or Do Nothing

When asked about his writing process, the legendary author Neil Gaiman said he gives himself two options: Write or do nothing.

It might sound like a silly hack, but it works. “What I love about that is I’m giving myself permission to write or not write, but writing is actually more interesting than doing nothing after a while,” says Gaiman.

You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else, just sit there.

Interestingly, comedian Jerry Seinfeld uses the same strategy.

One of the main reasons this strategy works is because you’re giving yourself an option instead of forcing yourself to do something.

You can also apply this strategy to any skill or task you’re having trouble completing.

You can spend 30 minutes:

• writing your book or looking at the wall

• creating content or looking at the ceiling

• studying for an exam or looking at the desk

Even if it’s a difficult task, after a few minutes of staring at the wall the boredom of doing nothing will be more painful than the activity you’re avoiding and you’ll end up starting it.

It’s a win-win.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Start a Bug Book to understand yourself better and what actions affect your mood the most.

2) Stop doing Human Avoidance Marketing and start talking or messaging people one-on-one instead of creating content into the social media void.

3) Give yourself the option of spending 30 minutes doing a hard activity or doing nothing.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Newsletter: Podcast Notes

Just as you read my newsletter for quality book summaries and recommendations, you should check out Podcast Notes for quality podcast summaries and recs.

Each week they share 5-10 podcast summaries and key takeaways from each one.

I worked for Podcast Notes for 2+ years so I can personally say their work is awesome and I still read their newsletter every week.

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Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.