mentorship

My Top 10 Books 150 150 admin

My Top 10 Books

My intention with this article is to share the top books I’ve read. At the time of this writing I’ve read somewhere between 100 – 200 books. Some things to note before I give this list.

  1. These books helped shape ME. They are important books in MY story. It’s really hard for me to agree or disagree when someone lays out a book list and says “These are the best books on X” because it is shaped by their unique experience.
  2. Much of what was really impactful to me and stood out as being the best for me weren’t books. Maybe a “My top 10 resources that aren’t books” article next?
  3. I listed these in the order I read them, so it’s kinda like a story.
  4. Most of these books I’ve either read as a physical book or an audiobook. I don’t think I’ve ever read a whole book on the Kindle app or tablet.

I look at books like a tool set. There are so many ideas, invitations, suggestions and mentoring out there to fix the problems that will inevitably come up in life – especially with the rise of the internet and online resources like YouTube and Google to go along with books. Let’s get into it.

Alfred’s Basic Piano Library

I know. It’s cheating because there’s more than one book here (a whole ass library yo) but….that’s ok. Sometimes I be cheating.

These were the first books I remember being into studying piano. I spent SO much time slogging through these books (slogging because I didn’t understand the payoffs of consistent practice AND felt that I couldn’t just practice when I wanted to). Both of my great teachers used these books to teach me, and I still use so much of what was in these books today playing piano.

I remember we focused on the books on theory, ear training, song/hymn books and finger exercises.

The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle

This is the best book I’ve ever read…still. It talks a lot about surrendering to the moment, and I think I had to surrender for this book to even show up in my world.

I remember it helping me specifically with emotions. I’ve probably saved SOOO much stress just by reading this book pretty early. When I started reading this book I was feeling so frustrated. The go-to-school get-a-degree and have-a-safe-stable-job-for-life path just seemed so ‘not me’, but I was headed right down that road, and it made me afraid for my future. Meanwhile, I was registered for college classes I wasn’t paying for AND I was skipping them. So mix in some guilt in there too with the frustration.

One of the resolutions was just to have some space from thinking period, which made me feel lighter and more peaceful. It was like erasing a chalk board full of stuff on it. Then, I could deliberately choose what I wanted to add on to it.

This book alone helped me be a match for more upbeat, positive people. This book was my introduction to meditation. It just showed me how much my own mind was beating me down. I hadn’t ever considered that I could actually just turn my thinking off. It was soooo freeing to be able to have some space from my negative thoughts that had gone on for decades.

Meditation and spiritual teachers have been a well for me to go back to when I feel like I’m getting bogged down by life. I can take care of things a lot better when I’m taking care of my own peace of mind.

The Pick-Up Artist – Erik von Markovik

I really wasn’t motivated by pick-up until I moved in with a friend who was naturally great with women. When I lived with him, there were just so many women in our world largely due to him, so it made me curious as to what he was doing to bring them into our world. He invited nudged me to share my love of music more with everyone, which pushed things to a whole nother level. We went out to clubs and bars and events all the time.

I still remember the 5 things from this book. Leader of men, protector of loved ones, preselection, willingness to emote and successful risk taker. If you watch enough nature documentaries you’ll even see these in the animals. It’s like a biological, evolutionary thing.

People were really turned off by the formulaic, forced aspect of pick-up overall and the inauthentic, canned routines – as they should be. But to me, the underlying principle to the formulas and routines that I can align with is this – be a better man (embody masculinity) and the feminine will be drawn like a moth to a flame. And so, the next books you’ll see stem from my desire to learn what it meant to be a better man.

No More Mr. Nice Guy – Robert Glover

I remember this book being about honesty and maintaining integrity – and sometimes that isn’t nice.

Reading these types of books and moving in with three other masculine men helped me see, and more importantly feel what I missed out on growing up. Up until that point, I really didn’t understand why not having a father around mattered. I could write a book on this. It would be titled The Absence of the Masculine.

Growing up around all women led to me HAVING to please women and be nice all the time, and this did a lot to offset my polarity while watering down an already muffled voice.

Luckily there was music to offset this. I felt the total opposite as it relates to music. I was learning music and performing and in the choir so my voice was heard a lot. I could be free and was encouraged to make mistakes.

Outside of music though, my voice was drowned out by a chaotic household. There was no masculine to balance that chaos out and calm it and ground it effectively. I think that’s why The Power of Now was so powerful for me. I read this in college, and that was the first time I felt like I got some peace.

This book (along with living with very blunt and honest roommates) gave me permission to be honest – and there is nothing more freeing than being honest. It also showed me that people respond well to genuine truth whereas my family seemed to drown it out.

Living Abstinently

Remember the chaotic household? Yeah one of the most chaotic things was our eating habits. We pretty much ate fast food every day, little to no cooking and were all fat!

Foodaddicts.org was a program that FINALLY introduced some structure by way of food that made complete sense, and this book was an overview of that program. There was also other books we used a lot though too.

It was so simple and not profit-motivated. There was no buy-this-food-from-my-company in it – just normal foods you buy on the outside perimeter of the grocery store. It was FINALLY an answer to the question I had for decades on how to TRULY lose weight – specifically fat with JUST nutrition and what I was eating. I lost about 110 lbs through this program. It was like my body was saying “thank you for finally putting some stuff we can really use in here”. I gained the weight back plus more when I left the program, but I can’t erase what they taught me over there. It checked so many boxes, and I will be forever grateful.

The Illusion of Money – Kyle Cease

This is for the money chasers or if you feel like you’re chasing anything period. Chasing can get exhausting if you feel like the chase never ends.

There was soooo much talk of money in my family ALL the time. All that talk heavily influenced me to get into accounting in college (seeing as I have a whole family of accountants). The rap music I was listening to was always talking about money. It made me exhausted of thinking about money. Like damn…we’re not gonna focus on anything else here?

HOW I was making money became a lot more important around this time. Life started to be REALLY good, and for the first time it was starting to feel unbearable to keep doing the flat, boring, repetitive, meaningless slave work that had served me in the past to just stay afloat financially.

I read book this after attending Kyle Cease’s conference Love Rising. And I started working on Social Expansion (now Welcome Home) right there. It felt good to finally work on something NOT for the money.

The Big Leap – Gay Hendricks

So…things were going amazing. It made me feel like, “damn…this was more along the lines of the experience of life I was supposed to have”. Then everything crashed, and it seemed like I made it crash. I remember sitting and tryin’ to figure out WTF happened.

The Big Leap is one of the only books I know that addressed this as what is phrased as an “Upper Limit” problem. Things get too good, and you aren’t used to things being this good for this long, so you get scared and sabotage yourself and bring yourself back down to the comfortable problems you’re used to experiencing. At the time of this writing, it’s the book I want to revisit the most.

Atomic Habits – James Clear

This is one of those books where I just read it off recommendations. It gets recommended everywhere in the personal development space, so I read it and understood why it was recommended. Just reinforced the idea that big things come from the small. There are a lot of ways that idea can be applied, and I hadn’t thought of the ways presented in this book.

Will – Willard Carroll Smith II aka The Fresh Prince aka Will Smith

Let’s go Willard! I loved this book because of the dynamics of the audiobook. There was actually music in this book along with all the twists and turns his life took. It really kept my attention for over 16 hours! That’s damn hard to do. It wove in all the different parts of his story – including the bad and ugly. I appreciated his transparency, and as a creator I learned a lot about creating an engaging EXPERIENCE for the person on the other side of the creation (the reader/listener/viewer).

Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins

This is up there with me as far as the best books ever – top two next to The Power of Now.

It really inspired me to examine and be curious about the limits of what my mind is telling me is possible on a day-to -day basis, and it’s written by a VERY credible source. David Goggins has really pushed himself and CONTINUES to push himself incredibly hard to find his true potential, and it’s so inspiring to me.

This dude is SO badass that there is ANOTHER BOOK made of someone living with him called Living with a Seal (I haven’t read that one, but I could just imagine what’s in it). If you ever feel defeated, pick this up. Like…now yo.

Give me some time to internalize his work and the messages, and I won’t be so fanboyishly in awe of it.

Honorable Mentions

50th Law – Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) and Robert Greene

I loved only the parts where 50 cent was speaking (at the beginning of the chapters). He would say something short in the beginning of the chapter and then Robert Greene would expound on it. I thought they could have cut Robert Greene’s part off though. It seemed like it was fluff to me.

The MagicRhonda Byrne

This book is all about appreciation and really explores creative ways to appreciate. I’ve loved Rhonda Byrne’s style since her documentary The Secret. She’s so resolute about positivity. Of the author’s on this list that have authored more than one book, she’s the only author on this list where I can say I’ve read ALL of her books (except her latest Masterclasses…I just found out about them yesterday).

The Courage to Be Disliked

This might go along with No More Mr. Nice Guy. I just happened to read this one later. I think I was also diving into exploring freedom and what that meant, and this showed up. There’s a lot written about systemic freedoms, but this and other books I’ve read deal with freedom internally. It’s about facing a hidden fear of being disliked (if you have that fear).

Well…that’s all folks for now. These were the books that stood out to me as the best.

What is Your Relationship With Money? 150 150 admin

What is Your Relationship With Money?

In this article I will give you direction to find out what your relationship with money is – almost immediately if you want.  When I actually examined my own relationship with money and dived deeper into the rabbit hole, I started to see results and a severe improvement with my relationship with money.

If you want to examine your relationship with money – or any part of your life – write a litter to it.  Start it off like this:

Dear money,

*insert all the feelings and thoughts you have about money*

When I did this exercise it came out similar to this:

Dear money,

I think about you all the time.  You’re always on my mind.  You’ve been on my mind so much I’m tired of you – and you’re not even around!  I’m mentally exhausted of you, and I wish I didn’t have to think about you all the time.  Sigh.

Dude…talk about creepy!  I think about you all the time, but I’m mentally exhausted of you?  WTF?!?!? Come on Broderick, what the hell man.

After seeing this in front of my face, I realized I had to put myself in a position where I’m not thinking about money nearly as much.  I needed some mental space from it.  I don’t think I ever would have seen that had I not written the letter.

I had a stressful job only because of the money, so I quit.  Again, the main focus was to get myself in a position where I’m not thinking about money.  It was great being free, and so I started to work on my creative output and made a course and hella articles.  I started independent contract work through Door Dash and moved in with parents to lower my expenses.  Gifts and opportunities just started coming, and I had the space to wait for them to come and to wait for the right places.  I realized that keeping money around was more important than how much I made.  Today the letter to money would be very different.  It would go something like this.

Dear money,

Hey.  HEY.  2020 was pretty badass right?  We gotta do that shit again! 

🙂

Listen, I know what you’re thinking – “Broderick is a genius”.  This letter-to-money thing wasn’t my idea though.  It actually came from a book called You are a Badass at Making Money.  Pretty badass book yo.

 

Asking Busy People for Help 150 150 admin

Asking Busy People for Help

Have you ever felt like you need help from a person who is already inundated with requests? You know this person has a full inbox, but you still need help and you know this particular person has the specific help you need.

Avoid Taking without Giving

When I first started reaching out to people who I knew received many messages, I would get back messages with template responses.  Something along the lines of “Hello Broderick! We’ve received your message, and someone will get back with you shortly!”.  They rarely did, and it had to do with my energy.  I wanted to take, take, take and not give.

What consistently helps me get answers to my questions a lot faster now is helping the person on the other side somehow…some way.  Thinking win-win.

Another way to put it is Law 13 from Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power.

Law 13:  When asking for help, appeal to people’s self interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.

Give and Take by Adam Grant is another good book that addresses this.

Put yourself in the other person’s position and think about things from their point of view.  What would be valuable to them?   What do they want or need that you could provide?  Money could be one thing, but you can also look for things that aren’t monetary.

Maybe they have a course or a book and they need feedback.  Maybe they’re already inundated with feedback and they need a way to manage the feedback.  Maybe they need a way to have more free time.  Maybe they need new shoes.  Maybe they need a Covid19-free hug.  How can you be of service to them?  How can you create value for them?  If they have a website, they might mention what they need or want.  Coming from a space of service when I need help has been a much more effective strategy to get the help I need.

Show some commitment if you want mentorship

If your question is a how-to/mentor kind of question, show some type of indicator that you’re committed to actually implementing the advice they’re going to give you.  If they have a bestselling book (or multiple best-selling books), its likely they’re receiving many messages.  Each message answered is a time investment.  Again, put yourself in their shoes and imagine someone comes to you for genuine advice.  How would you feel about giving advice to that person knowing it’s falling on deaf ears and that they will just ignore it?  If you want to increase the likelihood that they’ll invest their time in answering your question, show that you’ve already got the ball rolling in some form or fashion.

When I was into self-publishing and I wanted some advice from bestsellers in my genre on how they gained such visibility in the Amazon Kindle Store.  I emailed 4 authors with best-selling books.  Two didn’t respond.  One had an email assistant respond, and the last author directly responded with the exact answer I needed.  An important part of this story is that I had already published books that just needed more visibility, and I led with that in my message to these authors.  I wanted to show that I’m not some person thinking about doing self-publishing, but that I’ve already got works published.  I’m in field.

Whatever you want, give it

If you’re having a tough time getting help from the specific source you’re looking for, consider releasing your attachment to finding your answer in that direction and consider giving help to someone else.  You want advice or help?  Give advice or help.  That sounds crazy right?  Like one of these crazy counter-intuitive solutions I keep rambling about.

I’m Talking To Myself 150 150 admin

I’m Talking To Myself

It’s ironic that in creating a blog where I write for other people to read, I’m often talking to myself through the blog.

It might be my past self or…it might be something I know that needs to happen now.  I know if I need to say it to myself, then others need to hear the message as well.

I’m not a Guru.  I don’t know it all – even on the subject of badass, but I love to learn.

 

I’m All Over The Place – Gary V Video 150 150 admin

I’m All Over The Place – Gary V Video

I feel this guy Gary is talking to.  He is me so much!

Listen to this to get some insight as to what you should be doing during this pandemic if you’re wondering.

I’ve listened to Gary V’s videos, and many times I have mixed feelings about them…if I had to guess why I’d say it’s because of the wide range of people he features – many of whom I can’t relate to.  But I can certainly relate to this man below, and I really resonate with the advice he gave.

It hit me when he said people put money and entrepreneurship on a pedestal because it’s something they’ve never had, but they want.  But is it a “god-given” gift? As in…were you naturally blessed with it?  It seems like his central message was love and work with what you’ve got and who you are.

Sometimes the Thing You Don’t Want to Do Is the Thing You Need To Do 150 150 admin

Sometimes the Thing You Don’t Want to Do Is the Thing You Need To Do

I know.  Sometimes you know you need to do this thing…whatever it is, but you don’t want to.  You know it’s beneficial for you and for everyone in every way to do this thing, but you still don’t want to.

I first heard this from a sponsor who I would talk to every morning in a food group I was in, so I have been here plenty of times.

Most of the times the answer here is to surrender to whatever process I’m going through.  My mind is telling me all the reasons not to do this thing, and I’m resisting it for whatever reason…maybe it’s unknown…maybe I’m not aware of the benefits of doing it yet, but if I can put down the resistance like a hot coal and surrender to the process, then things will change for the good of all.

 

Feel The Embarrassment to Help 150 150 admin

Feel The Embarrassment to Help

Embarrassment is commonly looked at as something to be avoided. When you share embarrassing stories, there’s a possibility people can take those stories and keep them and have a “one up” on you.  I’ve seen people be vulnerable enough to share their embarrassing stories, only to have someone else bring their embarrassing story back up to bring them down a notch.  This is cheap.  It’s tacky.  And what that person who brings it back up doesn’t realize is how tacky and cheap they look doing it.  It says more about them (the person that uses it to bring them down).

When I started sharing my story in my 12-step program, it made me not care so much about situations like the one mentioned above or anything else negative that can come from being embarrassed or sharing embarrassing stories.  I saw the meaning in my embarrassment when people would connect with me after I shared, and call me on the phone. I saw how it changed the people around me for the good.  If nothing else, it raised awareness. My sponsor would tell me “just remember…it’s not about you”.  It was about a person I could help.  I saw the importance of helping just one person.  That person can create some huge ripples…and you never know who it will be.

Share your failures.  Share the things that don’t put you in such a great light.  Share your embarrassing stories.  Be willing to be publicly embarrassed.  You’ll be surprised at the people who are watching to learn and grow and raise their awareness.  I think you’ll also be surprised at the different ways it can raise you up as well.

Know Your Game 150 150 admin

Know Your Game

For some context in the video below, former players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) interview Kobe Bryant (one of the best to ever play professional basketball) to pick his brain on some things they want to know about.

Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson interview Kobe Bryant post-retirement on their podcast All The Smoke

@ 30:43 Stephen Jackson to Kobe Bryant: You got a lot of young players reaching out to you now. Your advice to them? What do you tell em? How did that feel?

Kobe Bryant: Depends what they ask. A lot them will come and ask about their game and things that they should do and things like that ….and I say listen, you know the answer to that…I don’t know. You know what makes you uncomfortable when you play. I think that’s the biggest thing for kids nowadays is that they wanna rely on coaches too much and workout guys…which is fine to have them help you work out, but you have to tell them what you need…right? You gotta be able to say, OK I’m uncomfortable with “this”. And if you don’t know, then you’re not as prepared as you should be…right? You need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are first, and then I can tell you some of the things…the rhythmic things or some of the exercises or some of the repetition you need to be doing on certain things. You’ve got to know your game.

This is in a sports setting, but I think it’s a great concept with any mentorship. Be prepared and do your homework before you go to a mentor. Sometimes you won’t “use” your homework though simply because this preparation or homework was done from your perspective, and when you get coaching or mentorship, they might flip your whole perspective upside down completely. BUT better to be as prepared as you can beforehand right? Especially if you don’t have much time with this mentor.

This also speaks to knowing yourself and being able to be vulnerable in the presence of a mentor. I wonder how many of the athletes who go to Kobe for mentorship know what they’re uncomfortable with on the basketball court, but aren’t open to sharing it. There’s some big growth that can come from sharing your weakness with the right person / people. And other times it might be better to double down on your strengths.