For some reason, I stopped reading books in my later years. I had always loved reading books through high school, but things seemed to change post college. I can’t really explain why that hobby changed, because I love reading.
According to Lifehack.org, there are ten benefits related to reading. They include:
- Mental Stimulation for your Brain
- Stress Reduction
- Knowledge Enhancement
- Vocabulary Expansion
- Improves Your Memory
- Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills
- Improves Focus and Attention
- Better Writing Skills
- Tranquillity
- Free Source of Entertainment
As I read this list, I find #1, #2, #9, and #10 to be my top motivators for reading. Another site I truly enjoy related to reading is Goodreads.com. This site is owned by Amazon and is a social cataloging website that allows users to search its extensive database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Like other social media sites, it allows you to make connections and share reading lists with one another. In addition, you can keep track of your own reading lists. I highly recommend looking at the site if you have not.
I have personally challenged myself to read 10 books this year. That goal is 10 more books than I have read in the past five years. I am mixing up my selections, as I enjoy both fiction and nonfiction. As it relates to my career coaching business, I will be posting my version of book reviews on my site through my company blog on Advise Your Career. My book review won’t be recapping a book per se; however, I will share what I learned from reading the book and my personal takeaways.
That being said, my first book review is David Cottrell’s Tuesday Morning Coaching book. David is a bestselling author of 25 books several of which focus on career, leadership, and management. This is the first book I have read by David. It currently sets at 4.6/5.0 stars on Amazon.
The book walks us through the relationship between Ryan, a burnt-out manager and his mentor, Jeff, a retired executive. They meet every Tuesday morning for eight weeks so Ryan can learn eight simple truths:
- No Matter What!
- And Then Some
- Consider It Done
- Above All Else
- From Now On
- See It, Feel It, Trust It, Do It!
- Focus Inside Your Boat
- Knowledge is Power
As I said earlier, I won’t go through the whole book, but the premise includes these eight truths and valuable lessons that are learned from weekly interactions with Jeff and touch bases Ryan has with various people referred to by Jeff. For me, each lesson did resonate with me in different ways, but I want to touch on two of them and my takeaways.
#7-Focus Inside Your Boat — The takeaway here for me is to not worry about things outside of my control. Worry about the things inside my boat. In the book, Jeff spends time talking about prioritizing your time and managing the attention you choose to give to things. The quote that resonated with me from the chapter was “Is this the best use of my attention at the moment?” I find personally that I can get distracted or lose focus on the important things. My choices and how I chose to prioritize my time, energy, and attention are things I can control (within my boat).
#8-Knowledge is Power — The one quote that stood out for me in this chapter was “Knowledge will not come looking for me, I must seek it out.” This chapter did talk about successful people and their quest for continuous learning and knowledge. Apparently, on average, CEOs of major organizations are said to read four books a month. That surprised me that a CEO reads that many books monthly, but I remember back to my time at Walmart, and our CEO was always making book recommendations every summer to us. I think Bill Gates does it as well. I am sure there are plenty of other leaders that thirst knowledge. It seems only fitting that I should easily achieve my goal of reading 10 books this year.
This book is a relatively quick read and provides some insightful lessons around some things we tend to overlook or take for granted.