A Good Addiction to Have
I hope this finds you catching your breath somewhere in the middle of your week. I have been thinking lately about time, and about the feeling that there is never enough of it. I suspect you know that feeling too.
Here is what I notice. When we do find a spare moment, most of us spend it staring at a screen. I do it myself. But somewhere along the way, the scroll took over the quiet minutes that used to belong to something else, and I have been thinking about what we gave up.
For me, that something is reading.
Reading is the window to the world. It always has been. A book asks only for your attention, and in return it gives you quiet, learning, and tremendous comfort. When I sit down with a book, the noise stops and the thinking starts.
I will admit something. I am a book addict. I buy them faster than I can read them, and at one point I got genuinely worried about it. I told my mother I could not stop buying books. She looked at me and said, “Well, if you are addicted, at least it is a good addiction to have.”
Consider the source. My mother read one or two books a week, and she was brilliant. I do not think those two facts were a coincidence. When she gave my book habit her blessing, she knew exactly what she was blessing.
She was right. I still think she was right.
And about the time problem. We all have the same pockets of it. Here is how I handle mine.
Every morning, coffee and a book. At least a chapter before the day gets its hands on me. Some mornings it turns into two or three, and some mornings one is all I get, but the chapter happens. It is the first appointment of the day and I do not cancel it.
That is the whole system. I did not find more time. I decided what the time I already had was for.
So this week, I am sharing some of the books that have earned their place on my shelf. My reading goes everywhere, but today I am sharing the business books, because that is the window most of my readers are trying to open. One of these might be exactly the window you have been looking for.
My Shelf, Six Books Worth Your Coffee Time
The Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham
Cunningham’s argument is simple. Businesses do not fail from a lack of smart ideas. They fail from unexamined dumb ones. His fix is structured thinking time, sitting down with a question and a legal pad before making a move. Read it if decisions in your business get made on the run, because this book will slow you down in exactly the right way.
Staff Matters by Bonnie Low-Kramen
Low-Kramen spent twenty-five years as a personal assistant, including to Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis, and she wrote the book on what your people see, know, and wish they could tell you. It is unfiltered and it is practical. Read it if you have even one employee, because the gap between how you think it is going and how they experience it is costing you more than you realize. I believed in this book enough to endorse it. My words are printed with it.
Traction by Gino Wickman
This is the book behind the Entrepreneurial Operating System, a complete framework for running a business on structure instead of adrenaline. Meetings, priorities, accountability, numbers, all of it. Read it if your business depends on you remembering everything, because that works right up until the day it does not.
Words That Change Minds by Shelle Rose Charvet
Charvet breaks down the language patterns that reveal how a person is motivated, how they decide, and what moves them to act. Once you hear these patterns, you cannot unhear them. Read it if you sell, manage, negotiate, or parent, which is to say, read it.
Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff
Klaff raised billions in capital and his method comes down to this: the person across the table does not process your pitch with logic first. Their brain filters it long before the facts land. Read it if your presentations are strong on information and weak on results, because the problem is probably not your content.
Smart Brevity by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz
The founders of Axios and Politico explain how to say more with fewer words. Short, direct, built for how people actually read now, which is to say barely. Read it if your emails go unanswered and your updates go unread. The fault may be the length, not the message.
I will leave you with this.
My father had his own rule about reading. He said he did not care if we read the back of a cereal box, as long as we read. Between my mother’s blessing on my book habit and my father’s cereal box rule, I never stood a chance. I was raised to be a reader, and I have stayed one my entire life.
Maybe I have an advantage because of the home I grew up in. I will grant that. But here is the truth: even if nobody handed you that environment, the habit is yours to build. Nobody assigns you the reading after school ends. From that point on, it is self-discipline, and self-discipline is a choice you make every single morning.
Building a business and leading a life both demand the same commitment to learning, and that commitment never expires.
So make the choice. Coffee. A book. One chapter before the day starts. Read the business books, read the novels, read the back of the cereal box if that is what is in front of you.
Just read. The window is right there.
One more thing before I let you go.
If you are ready to make this a summer of learning, I have a place for you to start. On Wednesday, July 30, I am holding the Business Health Check Webinar for coaches and consultants 50 and over. In one session you will learn exactly what is holding your business back, and what to do about it.
With warmth,
Shelly
Business & Communication Strategist
