Book Review
I’ve never joined a book club. The primary reason for this is I could never read the book fast enough in which case I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the conversation. And… if you can’t contribute to the conversation, what’s the point of joining a book club? So, after so many years of not being a member of a book club, I find it a little ironic that I am blogging a book review!
In a 2022 blog post, I shared that I took a business class offered by the Small Business Development Center (also known as SBDC) with the goal of creating a professional business plan for Palisade Posh. I finished the class in June of 2022. One of the take-aways from the class, besides a fantastic business plan, was a reading list. I didn’t have time to read the books while in class because I am a slow reader, and I was also packing up the house so we could sell it. The latter being the first step in my fantastic business plan!
With the house sold in November (finally) and me officially retiring from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in December, I finally had the time to start that reading list! There were six books on the list and I’m happy to report I finished the last book late this spring! After telling my dear friend Lisa Kennedy about the books, she said I should write a blog post about them, and so here we are!
The interesting thing about the list, is you wouldn’t necessarily associate some of the books with business, instead they were more about approaches to life. As I transition from one chapter in my life to the next, these books are insightful in that regard, and I recommend each one! So, without further ado, here is the reading list and a few things I took away after reading each one. I hope it inspires you to check them out.
Book List from Kim’s Leading Edge Business Class
The Path to Wealth: Seven Spiritual Steps for Financial Abundance
Author: May McCarthy
ISBN 978-1-938289-59-0
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Author: Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
ISBN 978-1885167-77-4
The Power of Mastermind Group: The Secret Weapon for your Personal and Professional Life
Author: Edoardo Zeloni Magelli
Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money
Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki
ISBN 978-161268-065-1
Man’s Search for Meaning
Author: Viktor E. Frankl
ISBN -13: 978-0-80-70-1427-1
The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved
Author: Matthey Kelly
ISBN 978-1-942611-42-4
I purchased all the books on Amazon with many of them used… I hate paying full price for a book if I can get a used one in new or good condition. For my ‘book review’ I’m not going to go into detail for each book, but rather I will share my take-aways from each text. For me… a lot of what I get out of a book depends on what I have going on in my life. If for example life is crazy and chaotic with lots of distractions you can bet, I will get zero to nothing from whatever I am reading at the time… but as was the case with these books, if life is starting to slow down a bit, my retention rate goes up! I also think I got out of them, what I needed at the time, in this case each one helped me get into a better head space as I move toward achieving my goals for Palisade Posh. As I share, keep in mind that you might get something totally different from them as you are perhaps in a different place in time in your life.
May McCarthy’s The Path to Wealth was at first a little to process oriented for me. She shares the different steps she does each morning all of which involve a lot of journal writing. I gave it a go, but it just didn’t feel right, it was too much busy work. Instead, I have the conversations with my Chief Spiritual Officer (aka God for me) in my mind each morning. The CSO concept really resonated with me as I feel like it connected with my Catholic faith which is a large guiding force for me (although it might not appear so outwardly). Having my brief morning meetings with my CSO helped me get through the rough times of us selling our house as it helped me let go of the things that were out of my control. For me, it spoke to the concept of faith and believing that everything will work out in the end. This in turn reminded me of a line in the movie “The Best Marigold Hotel” where the lead character said “…everything works out in the end and if it has not worked out then it is not the end”. Combining these two ideas helped me keep it together during a dark time in this journey.
The other take-away from this book was a new mantra that helps dissolve any negative energy or thoughts that I might be harboring consciously and subconsciously toward an individual (sometimes I have a hard time forgetting a wrong… forgiving… not a problem, it’s the forgetting that lingers which can then fester into negative energy, resentment etc…) The mantra is simple, and it really does work, “I love you; I bless you; I forgive you; I release you”. Apply this to anything and or anyone, including yourself and you will be surprised how well it works. Granted if it is a big bit of negative energy you might have to repeat it several times but eventually, I found anyway, that anger, resentment, and negative energy does start to fade and when it does or did, I feel a whole lot better (both mentally and physically). Letting go of the hurt and negative energy helps me (and could help you too) live a more joyful life!
After adding a Chef Spiritual Officer to my business and developing a new mantra, the next thing I needed to tackle was learning how to slow things down which in turn will help me to live a more joyful life. I’m still working on the ‘slow downing’ but this leads me to the next book…The One Thing by Gary Keller.
An interesting fact about the author is that he was one of the co-founders of Keller Williams Realty which also happened to be the realtor company our second realtor Kimberly Austin worked for (if you remember she was the one who sold our house.) I was reading this book at the same time I was working with Kimberly; the timing was serendipitous for sure!
The biggest thing I got out of this book was to dial back and finally stop trying to multi-task. There was an interesting Russian proverb at the beginning of the book “If you chase two rabbits… you will not catch either one.” The gist of the proverb in relationship to multi-tasking is if you try to do two things (or more) at once, you won’t get much out of either. The key is to focus on ONE thing.
If you are like me, I always have a list (usually a long one) of things to do. In the past, before I started my ‘One Thing’ practice no matter how hard I’d try, that darn list would never get shorter. Reading The One Thing taught me to look at all the items on the list and identify the one thing that is the most important to get done and focus on it.
So now when I start my day, I make a mental list of what I want to accomplish on that day. I don’t think about anything on the list that goes beyond the current day. With some practice, I’ve gotten the list down to perhaps three things sometimes four if I’m teaching. From there, I figure out what is the one most important thing I want to accomplish, and I start with that. I use the same strategy for my ceramics. If I’ve signed up for an open studio or class both of which have set times, I then know exactly what time I will be working on my one thing… so until I get to that specific time period, I focus on other ‘one thing(s)’. I use this strategy for my paintings as well. I can’t tell you how much this has changed my life! By drilling down the ‘to do’ list to three things or less and focusing one thing at a time, I’m less stressed, and I am enjoying what I’m doing more. This book was a game changer for me regarding living a more joyful life!
The next book, The Power of Mastermind Group: The Secret Weapon for your Personal and Professional Life by Edoardo Zeloni Magelli, I will probably have to read again because I don’t think I’ve quite got my head around the concept. It is about getting a group of like-minded people together, one of which is the leader, or the ‘MasterMind’ and you brainstorm or talk about ideas, concepts etc… that relate to the success of your business. Again, I had a hard time grasping the overall concept as I kept wondering, well what happens if someone from the group then goes out and steals your idea or vision? I find intellectual property a tricky thing sometimes as it is not concrete so how do you protect it? You can copyright a work of art, or register a trademark or patten, but I’ve no idea how to protect intellectual property other than keeping your ideas and or vision to yourself which in turn defeats the whole point of the Mastermind. This is still a mystery to me so I will get back to you, if I have a break through!
Rich Dad’s Increase your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with your Money by Robert T. Kiyosaki was the next book on my reading list, and this one I did understand and found super interesting. It’s funny, this book wasn’t the book that was recommended, what I was supposed to read was the book Rich Dad Poor Dad which is by the same author. However, when I went to order the book, I got confused and order the financial IQ book instead. I’m glad I did because it helped me understand the concept of financial planning and investing one’s money for things like retirement.
The biggest take-away from this book was understanding what is‘passive income’. Rich Dad’s key message here is… don’t work for your money, instead have your money work for you! Passive income (i.e., the Airbnb) is money that is working for you or me as will be the case for my Airbnb. Absolutely brilliant! Real estate is also a good thing to invest in as well as finding a good financial planner! Andy and I have an excellent financial planner, and we are working on investing in real estate in Palisade… this is one of the reasons why we are focusing on acreage verses just buying a house. Although buying a house is also a good investment if you are buying it to become a rental property. Rental properties are passive income! I was surprised to learn that the house we buy to live in ourselves, is not necessarily a good retirement investment. Up until this point, I always looked at our home as our nest egg, but as I painfully discovered last fall… if the market isn’t in your favor, that ‘nest egg’ is toast! With that new piece of knowledge now seared into my brain for all eternity, rental properties are the way to go! That kind of ‘real estate’ will earn you ‘passive income’ so that you can spend your valuable time doing the things that bring you joy!
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl was a big pivot from the Rich Dad book as it focused more on psychology. The first part of the book talks about Frankl’s personal experience(s) in Nazi Concentration/Death Camps and how he survived. The thing I got out of this book was more spiritual regarding how I pray and what I pray for. Whereas in Pathways to Wealth the author talked about praying for things, for example if you found yourself in need of money, ask your CSO for help. In this book, I learned instead to ask my CSO for things like courage and strength. This truly helped me keep it together when we were trying to sell our house last fall. The mind is a fascinating thing and learning how to survive hard times, so that you come out intact or even better a stronger person is always a good thing and something to be joyful about!
The last book on the list focused on relationships. Written by Matthew Kelly, The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved walks you through seven different kinds of relationships ranging from one’s relationship to say a stranger (i.e., the person at the grocery check-out line) to the greatest of intimacy with those that you love and everyone in between. The trick to achieving the highest level of intimacy is to work on being the best version of yourself and in turn helping those around you be the best version of their selves. It was an interesting exploration into relationships, and I enjoyed the positivity of the book and how it focused on or dissected our responses to different kinds of relationships which relate to our life experiences.
I’m still probably not book club member material, but perhaps it’s not completely out of the realm of possibilities. So, with that this concludes my book review. It was an interesting combination of books, perhaps not a reading list you’d expect from a business class but all together they make sense! It took me a while to complete, but it was worth it. Happy reading!
