Five Books That Shaped My Life

Before I became a reader, I wasn’t one.  After high school and college, if I picked up a book it was to look at the pictures or to use it as a coaster.  Reading was a chore and I saw little reward in doing it.  I wonder if all that required reading in high school did more harm that good?

Anyway, something changed after more than a few years into marriage.  Like most of you, my wife and I struggled with our money, or more accurately, our lack thereof.  We had gotten into this cycle of alternating who took on the responsibility of managing the household finances.  We would each do it on our own until we got burnt out and then passed it off to the other out of shear frustration.  This cyclical pattern repeated itself with, shockingly, the same results.

When my turn came again, I was in search of some answers — I needed a system or a recipe — and wanted to get it right once and for all.  At the time, I was attending a weekly Bible study with three or four other officers from different departments.  One night we were talking and I learned that one of them (who was my age) had already paid off his house, and the other was going to have his house paid off within the year.  My head almost exploded.  Having a paid-for house did not seem possible to me, at least before I was dead.  I asked him how he did it.  He told me he learned it from a book. 

You can learn things like that from a book? Weird.

1. The Total Money Makeover

The next week my brother-in-blue gave me a book on handling money that not only changed my financial life, but it was also the book that turned me into a reader.  The book he gave me was The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, which is the first book that shaped my life.

This book laid out a step-by-step game plan for my wife and I to work together, to create a budget, to pay off debt, and to build wealth. After reading the book, I started listening to Dave Ramsey’s radio show and Podcast.  We were able to get out of debt, save up for a down payment on a house, and live with a plan.  It felt good.  Since I believed in Dave Ramsey’s message and in his character, I started checking out books and authors that he recommended. Following his recommendations launched me into becoming the reader that I am today.

2. Sometimes You Win And Sometimes You Learn

3. The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People

We all grow up with some amount of emotional baggage we lug around and with negative scripts running in our heads.  We can easily fall victim to external factors without realizing the personal change we are capable of making.  The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey showed me what was going on inside of me and what I could do to become the best version of myself.  As heavy a topic as this may appear, this book brought it down to a level that I could understand and laid it out in steps that I could follow.  “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle (p.54)

4. How To Win Friends And Influence People

“My name is Delta 9, and I’m an introvert.”

“Hi, Delta 9!”

Here’s a book that should be handed out like Slurpee vouchers — and not just to introverts.  It unravels a lot of the mystery of interacting with other humans, treating them well, and finding success in the process.  Some people are natural born people-persons while others are more suited to inhabiting a derelict cabin in the woods surrounded by Keep Out signs, and eating beans from a can.  I’m somewhere in the middle.  How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie taught me how to better speak to, interact with, and lead other people.  Whether you’re a social butterfly or a mountaintop hermit, the concepts in this book can only improve your situation because, “he who can do this has the whole world with him.  He who cannot walks a lonely way.” (p. 79)

5. Atomic Habits

I’ve heard it said that if all we needed was information, then we’d all be billionaires with six-pack abs.  If we look down at our bellies or open our bank statements, we obviously need a little more than just information.  

Often times we’re given the “what” and not the “how.”  Mind your manners. Say please and thank you.  Don’t crack your knuckles.  Stop biting your nails.  Lose weight.   Quit smoking.  Eat healthy.  Exercise.  We know what we should do, we really just don’t know how.  

Enter Atomic Habits by James Clear.  This is a book you could probably dog-ear and underline every page.  It gives you practical, actionable tiny things we all can do to break bad habits and build good ones.  This book is the how and it gave me the tools do the things I wanted to do and to stop doing the things I didn’t.  I was all about goals, and when I didn’t reach them, I got frustrated and the goal fizzled out like flat soda .  And though I still have a long way to go, this book helped me realize that, “you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” (p. 27)

I used to think that learning from books was voodoo hocus-pocus.  I used to say that I didn’t have time to read.  Maybe you feel the same way.  Is it possible that you have a training scar from crappy required reading in high school or that you just haven’t found the right books yet?

Remember This

Those who don’t read are no better off than those who can’t.

• Why don’t you read?
• If you are, what are you reading?  
• Is it growing you as a person?
• What books have changed you?

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