3 Books To Spark Change That Sticks
As avid readers of literary fiction (Literature with a capital L) we typically avoid the Business and Self-Help sections at the book store. This predilection is less about interest and more about limited time. But, as lifestyle editors with our ear to the ground, we could no longer ignore the buzz around three books that continually come up in conversation, particularly in our business groups.
These books are Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, Atomic Habits by James Clear and Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte. This suite of books builds upon each other— turning effective strategies into habits, which can be put into practice and measured incrementally, making them more likely to stick.
Let’s review.
Profit First transformed the way we think about our finances, both personal and professional. Most people are taught that profit is what’s left over after expenses are deducted from sales (revenue minus expenses = profit). But Profit First, as the title implies, focuses on profit first and foremost. Shelling out money for ourselves first and then using what’s leftover for expenses (in a separate account) is a way to operate within real constraints, not constantly playing catch up to cover or afford your expenses. Separate accounts (Michalowicz suggests five) is also a better way to keep your eye on the ball rather than drawing down from one pile. It’s a profound mindshift and one of many lessons from the book that every small business owner should read.
Atomic Habits by James Clear shifted the way we think about habit setting. In the past we set ambitious goals like ‘workout 7 days a week’—an unrealistic aim considering we were starting at zero. Plus we made no specific plan for duration or time of day to build this habit. Our biggest takeaway from Clear’s book is to create easy-to-crush micro habits (1-5 minutes) and stack, or make conditional, upon existing habits. For instance, you probably start every morning with the same routine: open eyes, check phone, pee, brush teeth, shower, etc.. But what if before you checked your phone you did a stretch sequence while still in bed? Or, while waiting for your coffee to brew you set a timer to meditate for two minutes? After reading Atomic Habits, we replaced our doom scrolling upon waking with 20 minutes of light calisthenics as a morning mood booster. Combined with Profit First teachings we have also created atomic habits around finance like checking all bank balances every morning as a reminder to make more and spend less (emphasis on the latter).
If you are a copious note taker and list maker with thoughts spread across journals, notepads, apps, spreadsheets, and platforms you’ll relate to Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte. Even as early adopters of publishing technology who pride ourselves on sharing information organized by project and hashtags, we learned a key habit from this book and that is: to get in the habit of distilling our prolific notes into more clear packets of information. And here’s the most important point: creating an organizational system that allows you to access information quickly. How many times have you remembered writing something down and then wasted time trying to remember where it is? After reading this book we realize that taking notes and making lists are not enough to retain, access, and share knowledge. Without a consistence process and system for note synthesis and retrieval we are just filling pages.
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