Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters

Start, by Jon Acuff was actually the first book I started reading this year, and one of the books on my reading list yet I only finished it just a couple of months ago. I’ll explain why I think it took so long later, but first let’s take a look at what the book is about.

Start is mostly a motivational book intended to encourage you to. . . well. . . Start! Acuff starts off by painting the picture of an intersection with a choice of two roads — the road to awesome and the road to average. The road to average, Acuff says, is gentle and easy, but the reward at the end is not enviable. The road to awesome, on the other hand, is difficult and treacherous, full of challenges and fear, but the end of the road is a huge reward. Acuff wants you to choose the road to awesome, and he’s going to draw a map of the five lands you must travel through to get to the end.

These “five lands” as Acuff calls them, are the five stages everyone goes through on the way to awesome. It used to be that the stage you were in corresponded to your age, that when you were 20 you were at one stage, and 50 another, but once you know the map you can progress through the stages more quickly. These stages are: 1)Learning, 2)Editing, 3)Mastering, 4)Harvesting, and 5)Guiding, and Acuff does a great job of explaining what happens at each stage and what it takes to move forward to the next.

This is where I had an interesting observation as I was reading the book. At first, I couldn’t put it down. We bought it while traveling for Christmas and I put my other reading aside for a while to get started on Acuff’s book. But, after a while, I slowed down and started picking other things up here and there. All in all it took me several months to read the book, and this at a time when I was pounding out a book every week or two.

So why did it take me so long? Did it turn out be not as good as I’d hoped?

No, just the opposite in fact. I loved (and still love) the book. But why did I slow down so much? I think it was because I’d moved farther in my reading than I am in my journey. I’d started down the path to awesome, and was in the editing phase, but after that point in the book the things he said didn’t apply as much to where I was at right then. They were still good. But they were good for the future, not as much for right now. When I realized that I realized one of the great hidden benefits of the book. . .

It can serve as a gauge for where you are on the path to awesome.

As you slow down in your reading and things begin to seem less applicable to you, that can serve as an indicator that you’re moving further along in your reading than you’ve moved in your journey.

I’ve just scratched the surface of the contents of Acuff’s book in this review. He has a lot of really motivating content in it that gives you the tools you need to overcome fear and start chasing your dreams. It is all very practical too, with a whole chapter at the end of the book dedicated to specific action steps relating to each chapter.

I definitely recommend reading this book. Start is more than just motivation. It gives you practical tools, insights, and language to help accelerate your journey to accomplishing your dreams, your road to awesome, and is well worth the time to read, even (especially!) if you slow down in the middle.

If you’d like to buy a copy of the book you can click here, or on the image at the top of the post. Those links are affiliate links, which means that I get a portion of any sales made through them, but I don’t promote anything just for the money and will never try to sell you something that I don’t use and love myself.

Have you read Start? What are your thoughts?