This and the later entries may seem a sharp change in direction from the blog’s main theme. However, they are very much in line as may become apparent later. Although there is no method to this madness, these are the latest audio books in my library. They all provide different viewpoints of the serious question “How should we live?”
- Timothy Ferriss: The 4-Hour Workweek
- Brian Tracy: No Excuses: the Power Of Self-Discipline
- William Forstchen: One Second After
I recommend these books, and they can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your other favorite booksellers.
The common denominator in these books—they were purchased close together and listened to in roughly this order. Creative thinking results from piling things together, mixing them up, and examining the result. Don’t try this with cooking though; some horrid results occur. Unlike cooking, ideas seem to improve with this mixing and mashing. Is it synergy or just a confused mind?
Timothy Ferriss: The 4-Hour Workweek
A confession—I read the 4-Hour Workweek because of an addiction to “get rich quick” books. I loved reading and researching getting rich quick. I dream about getting rich and all that would mean to my life. But it was only dreaming. Fear or hesitancy would make me back away from buying into such schemes. Sometimes fear is a good thing.
Reading between the lines — this book is not about getting rich quick. The author works hard, very hard. The author is extremely creative and has applied this in every area of his life.
The message of hope from this book: you can live better than “the rich” when you clearly know what you want, and then seriously apply creativity to what you do to get there. Brains can overcome bullion.
Brian Tracy: No Excuses: the Power Of Self-Discipline
What seems at the opposite extreme is Brian Tracy’s book on self-discipline. Listening to this sounds a little “old-school” at first. But what he says is highly relevant today. As a recovering addict of “get rich quick” schemes, I am sensitive to anything that touts money and power as the end all and be all to life. Some parts smack of this lopsided view of life. I am not going to waste my life chasing an elusive goal of getting rich and getting powerful. Those are wonderful things when servants of a higher calling. But they are cruel taskmasters in themselves.
Again, the most important message I get from this book is the need to build good character, of which Brian Tracy is truly a model.
William Forstchen: One Second After
And why would an “end of the world” disaster story have anything to do with the above? Mostly, I bought it after the ones above.
This book is a fiction story about one person, his family, and his town and how they struggled after a specific type of nuclear attack, electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Unfortunately, the EMP threat described in the book is real, and the book is a wake-up call to all of us to prepare.
To explain: The EMP attack is not the typical bombs with flames, loud explosions, and mass destruction—the spectacular ending shown in grade B science fiction movies. Rather, for EMP, a nuclear bomb is detonated at very high altitudes, safely out of range to blow up or burn anything on earth. Such a device doesn’t harm people, animals, or even plants. Rather, it shorts out almost every electronic device, all those made with transistors and semi-conductors.
Upon such an attack, electronics such as our computers, cell phones, cars, radios, TVs, the Internet, and such would be fried, dead, and unusable. The book describes the resulting changes to society when none of our high-tech gadgets work.
Blending the Three into One
Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People summarizes principle number two as follows “Begin with the end in mind.” After listening to the book on the EMP attack, thinking about endings seems very important. Regarding EMP, the good news is that preparations don’t cost much and really don’t take much time.
The lack of planning can kill us. When things get bad, those with a plan and preparation will make it through. Those without a plan won’t. And most of us wait until it is too late to find out the cost of not having a plan and preparations in place when something happens.
Referring to the first two books mentioned, planning, goal setting, discipline creativity, and so forth provides us with enormous rewards. When it comes down to it, investing time in thinking about our life, thinking about what we want from life, and planning how to achieve our goals pays enormous rewards in more than money. We become different people. And although we can’t see it in the moment, but in hindsight, we can look back and see how these things greatly enriched our lives. In some cases, how discipline, character, hard work, and preparation saved our lives.
The Goal
The first goal is to examine possible scenarios without becoming Chicken Little. That’s the one who lost her head running around screaming, “The sky is falling. A piece of it hit me on the head.”
The second is to figure out the best ways to prepare for it in the way that real people would do. (Some preparedness books sound fanatical—sell your house and all your belongings, build a bunker, and wait. Sorry, I have a job, bills to pay, and mouths to feed.) With creativity like that in the 4-Hour Workweek, we can creatively solve this in ways that give us peace of mind without throwing our lives away.
