Here Are 14 Books That Helped Me Accomplish My New Year’s Resolution & Change My Life
December 12th 2013, my company sold out of necessity and I sat in a room letting go of 20 fantastic team members. This was the third time in six years that I had to see +20 people leave one of my startups in one sitting. Even though we had wild successes along the way, we couldn’t keep their jobs, and I failed my team. Failure sucks, and I tasted a lot of it. I had six months left to transition with the new company before my time too would come and I was sure I couldn’t continue on this rollercoaster anymore. I was miserable. I wondered;
10 years from now, if I look back on the last ten years, what will I be proud and happy to say that I’ve done with my time?
I wasn’t sure what the answer was, I was lost, but I know I didn’t want this past 6 years of grinding my life away to be the repeating story of my existence. On January 1st 2014, I promised myself I would get out, and focus on being happier rather than wealthier.
Happiness, or Joy, is a complex concept and truly deserves the 96,768 book results on Amazon.com. It’s a constantly moving target whose recipe varies vastly from person to person, but it’s the reason why New Year’s Resolutions are on the mind of millions today. I found a way to find my happiness, and I’m going to recommend to you the 14 books that helped me get there, because maybe they can help you too.
The Frustration: what do I do with my life? Why am I not happier? Is my career path the right one? Why don’t I feel fulfilled?
I began to realize that I am most joyful when I’m creating something — or currently underway in a new project. I’m sure there’s some psychological name for this, but for whatever my chemical makeup is; joy finds me most when I’m creating and progressing. When I’m not creating, or progressing, I’m miserable.
I think a lot of people find themselves in these shoes; and for some it’s easy, they just have to follow their passions or disciplines that they’ve honed. For me, not so much — back in spring 2014 I had no hobbies, a long career in advertising but a desire to leave it, many unrealized dreams; and no idea where to start and what to do with my life.
I needed a change. I needed to do something. I think, to “do” anything you need four things;
Inspiration — What you want to make and why you want to create
Drive — The energy, the tailwinds, and the gut-wrenching feeling that this thing needs to exist
Access — The information, people, and capital required to execute
Confidence — The internal belief that you CAN create it
You cannot create anything without inspiration, drive, access, and confidence (IDAC), so if you feel like any one is currently lacking, that’s what you need to focus on developing. So circa June 2014; I am naturally a driven person, I believe confidence comes from expertise and experience (so anyone can gain it), I didn’t have any special skills or abilities, but I had the internet and a large, diverse social network, and finally, I was definitely lacking Inspiration. I was lost on inspiration and I have miles of knowledge to earn before I felt like I could create my joy.
So let’s start with inspiration:
Options To Create My Joy
- Travel — James Bond lifestyle anyone? A major inspiration for me from childhood was to create this traveling lifestyle…but how?
- For-Purpose Work — I’ve led a life of opportunity, and I want to help to give the same to others, but have no experience in this and don’t know where to start.
- Clothing / Design — Always interested in clothing, never had any inherent skills, nor training.
- Events — My only qualification is that I love social gatherings.
- Visual Arts — Intrigued by the ability to convey emotion visually, but have no skills or training.
- Songwriting & Making Music — No talent, but recorded some rap songs with friends in high school.
- Entrepreneurship — Worked in startups; at the genesis of two ad tech companies, but I’m more interested in running away, rather than towards that black hole.
There were too many things on this list, and I had to narrow it down, but unfortunately I didn’t feel any more passionately about one than the other. So what next…I read, and read, and read, and the following books helped me understand my passions.
I AM NOT A READER — Until I was 26, I think I read 6 books (sorry high school English teacher, 100% Cliff notes earned that A-). My wife’s a big reader, so I figured I’d give it a try soon enough. And then I stumbled upon this video:
I think this video is fantastic, but the best thing I got out of it, the book that started it all and changed how I live my life was recommended here by my good friend Will Smith and it’s The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
After reading The Alchemist, I gained some inspiration in the travel bucket, lit a massive fire under the drive bucket, and gained interest in reading. Then I read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which was another massive drop in the travel inspiration bucket. So then I tried to balance things out and fill some other inspiration buckets, and I read the following;
For Entrepreneurship Inspiration
- The Four Steps to The Epiphany by Steve Blank
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- Zero To One by Peter Thiel
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
For Purpose Work / Charity Inspiration
For Visual Arts / Arts Inspiration
These books had me fired up and inspired to create something and make a life change. Entrepreneurship still left a sour taste in my mouth from the previous 7 years and my confidence in management was wavering. For creative arts, I felt like without any formal training to acquire skills, any form of artistry was too far off. And for Charity work, I was in a position where taking income was imperative but somehow to me seemed like the opposite of charity so ‘life timing’ felt misaligned. Therefore, I decided that travel was the right inspiration to pursue, and my next steps were to address my confidence and my access.
These next books offered the final tipping point to change our lives, leave America, and spend the next few years traveling the world.
- The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
- How to Travel the World On $50 A Day, by Matt Kepnes (Nomadic Matt)
- Vagabonding by Rolf Potts
- How to Travel Full Time by Colin Wright
These books gave me the knowledge that I needed to gain confidence to travel full time, along with a network of other travelers to get advice from. So after a string of uninspiring startup interviews in the Summer of 2014, I knew for sure, that my happiness would be found on the road…and we left.
Since then, my wife and I have continued to look at creating our happiness and joy, ever-changing as it will always be, through the lens of I.D.A.C. and the power of books. Explore the world for inspiration, dig inside for drive, communicate with others for access, and study for confidence. When we get it right, we’ve been able to create more and more of the world around us, and in that, create more joy. As you look to start something old or create something new for your resolution in 2017, we hope you may find some positive energy in these books like we have, and that you can create more of the happiness in your life that you seek.
By Andrew McDermott
http://www.AandATakeTheWorld.com
Our Journey, since 2014 on Instagram here
Adrienne McDermott: @byebyeAdrienne
Andrew McDermott: @heyheyandrew
Bonus Round: I later stumbled into this podcast of Rick Rubin & Tim Ferris: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/ and this book by Russell Brand, yes that guy, called Revolution, and they changed the way that I think about life, love, spirituality, and the world.
- All book links to Amazon are through Amazon Associates & all commissions from book purchases will be donated.
- ***As travel is underway, I have begun to work on addressing my Access and Confidence deficiencies with Visual Arts, Music making, Purpose-driven company building, Event hosting, and clothing designing. Deconstructing the process to Create into smaller areas of focus, maybe has been the most fulfilling creation thus far.
