March ‘23 Recap

This episode of Books for Men is a short recap of all the episodes from March '23. It was a fun month—we shared two great books and added a new segment called "From the Vault." Listen for more!

Listen to the episode:

*Subscribe to The Books for Men Newsletter, a monthly round-up of the episodes w/ links, full book and author info, all the best quotes, and newsletter-only book recommendations!

READ THE TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so just like all recap episodes, I like to begin with a big thank you to everybody who has listened to the podcast so far and continues to share the podcast with family members and friends and other people who they think might enjoy it because without you, then we would not be increasing awareness around inspiring more men to read. And so I cannot thank you enough. I should remind you that these recap episodes are probably some of the most shareable or the easiest to recommend to somebody, mostly because they just give a general overview, obviously, and it gives the listener a little bit of a feel for the tone and content that they can expect moving forward or going back into the archives. And so I hope that you will share this episode or consider sharing this episode either by word of mouth or also on social media or any of the other platforms or ways that you communicate with people.

(01:23)

And I hope that you can continue to support in that way. And on that note, if you haven't yet and you are a regular listener, you should rate review, like follow, subscribe, whatever the mechanism is on whatever platform you're listening to this on, do that because that also is an easy way to show your support for not just the podcast, but for the initiative, which is probably the more important thing, right? So thank you to anybody who has done any of that so far. And most importantly, thank you for being a listener. Now, with that being said, let's jump into the recap episode, which was an interesting month in general because we introduced a brand new segment called From the Vault, where I go digging in the crates and find and share an older episode from my previous podcast. It's not what it seems. A lot of that content is evergreen.

(02:21)

And there were some excellent conversations that I had, ones that were both impactful to me and I think will be just as impactful for you as a first-time listener, even if they were recorded four or five years ago. I look forward to continuing to do that segment and hopefully, it is received well. And so this past month was a very essential month, I should say, because we doubled down on Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. So not only did I share it as the nonfiction book to start the month off, but I also shared my conversation that I had with him back in October of 2018 about the book on my previous podcast, as I've already mentioned for the new segment called From the Vault. So just as a quick reminder of what that book is all about, it's really a book about doing less but better.

(03:19)

It's about finding what the truly essential things are in your life. And this is not just about evaluating your career, although it could be. It's about looking at the big picture, so your entire life and really going all in on those things and making the necessary trade-offs to be able to go all in on those things. So in the interview, Greg shares a mental model or a mental framework, or actually real strategies as well that you could do with pen and paper to be able to achieve this. And the book obviously talks a lot about that. So I would highly recommend going back and listening to both the episode and the conversation that I had with Greg because I think that they could be extremely impactful for you. And that's not always the case with every book, but I truly do believe that this book will have a direct impact.

(04:16)

And not that it matters, but you should know that this book has sold over a million copies. And so typically, yes, you need to have a couple of things break your way for that to happen, but it also means that a lot of people feel similarly and they're willing to share the book with other people, which means it left an impact on them. And so you should take that as a pretty good indicator that it might have a strong impact on you as well. And so now let's pivot into the fiction book that was shared this month, which was Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner, which is a novel sequel to one of the greatest crime movies of all time, which is pretty unique. I think that it's quite possibly the only one of its kind. I talk about that a little bit in the episode, but I will say that I think it's pretty safe to say that if you like the movie, you'll probably, like the novel doesn't violate the film at all.

(05:15)

It actually deepens it. And that is one of the reasons why I enjoyed it as much as I did, and I don't want to get into that too much, but I will just say that Heat happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. And so I was really eager, but at the same time, very nervous about how this book was going to be done because you don't want to ruin a great piece of art by adding more just for the sake of adding more, which is something that we see quite often with franchises and all things of that nature. But I'm not going to get into that right now. If you want more on heat, heat too, I would highly recommend going back and listening to that episode because I throw a lot in there, not just about the book, but also about the movie.

(06:06)

And of course, this month also shared the third edition of the new segment called Bad Advice, where I debunk crappy advice, which is more or less just my opinions. Hopefully, you find them useful or entertaining. And the addition this past month spoke to all those shortcuts that people are hawking these days, mostly online, but certainly, there are still people hawking shortcuts in person as well. But the question that I really ask in the episode is, do you really need it to be faster and easier? And I think that I present an alternative way of looking at adding things into your life that just make it easier for the sake of making it easier. And so I'm not going to spoil that episode, but you should know that I'm a huge proponent of doing the work and putting in the time to do whatever you are trying to do in life.

(07:09)

And I know that that can be a very rudimentary idea, but I think that I give a little bit more of a detailed reason as to why I feel that way in the episode. And with that being said, I hope you go back and you listen to it. Alright, so as far as the recap is concerned, that's pretty much our month of March 2023. Now, before I wrap this up, I did just want to share something that stuck out in the episode we did on Essentialism. I shared a maxim or theory or thought about life that I have in that episode, and it was worth pulling out and sharing one more time here, because I think that it's important to grasp and understand, even if it tends to feel a little brutal or a little blunt. And that is, “You cannot get what you want unless you're willing to risk what you already have.”

(08:15)

So you cannot get what you want unless you're willing to risk what you already have. And I should just mention that obviously, this assumes that what you already have isn't what you want, because if that's the case, then kudos, congratulations, you're in a great spot in life, and continue doing whatever you're doing and enjoy it because you should be so lucky and appreciative that you have what you want in life. However, if you're intrigued at all by that belief or maxim, then I would definitely go back and listen to the Essentialism episode and then potentially follow it up with the conversation that I had with the book’s author. All right, so we are officially wrapped, and I just wanted to remind you that if you want more information, you can always visit BooksforMen.org, where you can also sign up for the newsletter, which is just a monthly roundup of all the episodes that you hear on the podcast, which includes full author and book information links to each episode, top five quotes from each book, as well as additional book recommendations. So recommendations that are exclusive only to the newsletter. I'm constantly looking at ways to slightly improve the newsletter. There will be much more to look forward to in the future as well. So again, if you're interested in signing up for that, you could do so at BooksforMen.org.