We're just finishing up on the third quarter of 2021, and it's that time again for another brief overview of the books I've been blessed to read over the past three months!
It's been an interesting past few months with significant changes from my move across the United States and being out on my own for the first time and it's been difficult to prioritize reading as much as I did before. I'm not as pleased with the number of books I read this quarter, but I've started getting back into the rhythm of things in the past couple of weeks so I'm not too afraid I'll have a similar fourth quarter!
1) Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne - a business book with the basic premise of finding oceans that aren't full of competition. Many markets are saturated with copied ideas, and everyone has to compete over speed, quality, and price. Where if you create your own market, or find one that has few people serving it, you have the opportunity to set the standards and build a reputation before it starts getting overly saturated. It goes into significant detail as to why you want to do this and how to go about it. Highly recommend!
2) The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer - a personal development book focused on helping you not lose the forest for the trees and smelling the roses along the way. John Comer goes into detail about how easily we are caught up in the day-to-day stress of our life, and how much of a distraction that is from the life we're called to live in Christ and living that purpose. It goes into a lot of small practical things to slow your days down, enjoy the struggles, and be at peace. Another book I highly recommend! (We got to go through it as our book of the month for our mastermind group)
3) Boundaries by John Townsend and Dr. Henry Cloud - this book is one of those I would mark as a truly great book and I re-read it as soon as I finished it! This book is about setting boundaries with family, work, and "friendship" relationships. And showing that it's not honoring to God to over commit to people as you have to say no to someone, and if you're saying yes to your friends, you may be saying no to your family. It's really beneficial to help put your responsibilities in perspective, and especially for those who overthink things or feel like they're responsible for everybody's problems, it's a fantastic read. Both authors are Christian and write from a Christian perspective. Highly influential to me in saying yes and no to clients over the past couple of months.
4) Gods At War by Kyle Idleman - Phenomenal book about the second commandment of not making any idols. Kyle walks through many modern-day misconceptions about what idols look like and give examples of placing work, money, toys, etc above God. I was recommended this by a good friend of mine I got to stay with on my move over to Tennesee. While I don't agree with some of the ideas put forth in the book, I do recommend it as an insightful read and helpful to see areas you may be placed above God.
5) Read to Lead by Jeff Brown and Jesse Wisnewski - a book about reading books! Loved this book as it goes through the importance of reading and how significant of an impact it has on your life and how you lead those around you. They go into many practical tips and tricks to increase the number of books you read and ways to keep it sustainable. Very insightful and consider it an excellent read! As I told a friend recently - I'm still a little shocked at how cheap books really are, considering the amount of wisdom and insight they contain.
6) What He Must Be ...if he wants to marry my daughter by Voddie Baucham Jr. - as anyone who has had a conversation with me that lasted longer than 10 minutes, knows that it's been on my heart for the past few months to get married and start a family. I was given this book as a thank you for helping volunteer at Fight Laugh Feast a couple of weeks back, and I flew through it in a couple of days! Voddie goes into the basic standards for what a man should be if he wants to get married, and gives a lot of insight as to what the Bible says what a biblical man should look like. While the audience is targeted toward the fathers of eligible daughters, I found it very practical and helpful!
7) Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki - recommended by someone I have a great deal of respect for and look up to @Eric Burton, this book is another one I would put in the category of a truly great book. It breaks down the mindsets of a typical 9-5 employee (your poor dad) and someone who builds and creates wealth (your rich dad). The whole book is written in stories that are extremely engaging and honestly keep you so interested to read the next page it's not even funny. I found it really difficult to put this book down and get to work! The book is about economics and ways to build and create wealth. I highly highly recommend it to everyone, and it could be described as an intro book to entrepreneurship.
8) The Travelers Gift by Andy Andrews - another book recommended to me by someone I have a lot of respect for and look up to @Derek Stone. This book is an allegory for taking charge of your life and pulling yourself out of victim thinking. Without spoiling it, it could be described as a similar story to a Christmas Carol. This is another one of those books I would put down with the truly great books of the world. Infinitely valuable and very inspiring. Several points in this book brought me to tears, and others real fear. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone and may pick up a couple of extra copies to hand out!
9) Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris - a book about taking charge of your life from a younger age and doing the good hard things that God put us on this earth to do. I've wanted to write a book for some time now and reading through this, it literally talks about most of the things I wanted to write about! It's an extremely inspiring, engaging, and easy understand book. I highly recommend it for all parents of teens, and teens themselves. You're given a purpose on this earth, and you need to take ownership. You can't wait until you're out of high school or college to begin taking responsibility for it.
I've got a dozen more books on my reading list and am really excited to be diving into them!