I have been stewing this post in my head for a couple of days. What are you reading? At our Calgary Entrepreneur Meetup breakfast on Tuesday I asked this question of the 2o or so business professionals who gathered for fellowship and networking, what are you reading?
As I look around my home office, I see great business books, you know the standard staples like “EMyth Revisited“, “Good to Great“, “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind“, and many others. Some of them are masterpieces, however do they really make up the person who you are at the core? I don’t know, sure I am an entrepreneur, I am a marketer, I am a business person…however are they who I really am at the core of my existence.
Perhaps I am at the little boy still playing by myself in the basement of our family home in Niagara Falls for hours on my own. Maybe I am the little nerd scanning the AM dial listening to distant radio stations as the sun goes down. Perhaps I am that man who went looking for the wrong things in my thirties. Are the business books I read really me? Are you the person you are or the person who you want people to think you are?
For years, I wanted to be known as the “IT Guru”, “The social networker”, “The expert”…maybe now it is about just being Stuey at the core. I wonder how it would feel to stop being what people want me to be and really allow the true me to appear. I wonder how I would really feel?
Does it start with what you read? Maybe, I have been reading several business books and yes it is good to learn. However, I have also been reading Barbara De Angelis and her book on “How did I get here“. Perhaps it is connecting with God and understand from Larry Julian through his book “God is my CEO“. How about finding you purpose with Rick Warren. You see there are a number of books. Maybe it is fiction, or Si-Fi….maybe it is just me finding business books boring and full of false hope and messages which really do not matter.
Who cares about managing email? Did I care about how to sell managed services? Will they make me a better person overall? Perhaps this question is the burning desire deep inside me. Maybe these questions I openly post here on my blog are question I am just asking myself in a public forum…maybe one of you gets this and says “wow, thanks” while others are saying “what is Stuart Crawford smoking today?”.
Does it really matter if you agree or disagree, you are entitled to your opinion and so am I. Is there a book burning inside me to come out?
I think so…
It’s always better to give too much, pay too much, and love too much, than not enough. But then, since everything comes back to you anyway, can there ever be too much?
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Stuart,
I often wonder, no, struggle with the same question. It is so counter cultural to stop being “me” focused and start being “other” focused.
Here is another good book for you, Chazown by Craig Groeschel. From the business side, I would higly recommend, Lead Like Jesus but Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges.