Brian Johnson picks books by finding one author who resonates, then reading everything they've written plus their influences. He traces this method through authors like Dan Millman, Paulo Coelho, and Steven Pressfield, following what each writer read to go deeper.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Now, I'm often asked how I read a book and how I pick the books I read. In fact, I was asked this question in one of our recent Heroic Coach Soul Force Forward sessions in which I have one on one coaching sessions with our coaches in a group environment. And these sessions are among the highlights of my month today. I'd like to chat about that for a moment or three. So in a recent zoom, I had an opportunity to connect with Franco, an incredibly inspiring 19 year old Argentinian heroic optimizer who is going through our coach certification program. He told me that he was getting an arete tattoo Go Franco for his 20th birthday and then asked me how I read a book. I kind of went off. We got a link to a video clip of our time together in this plus one. Here's the short story. The most important part of how to read a book, from my perspective, is to make sure you're reading the right book. If you're reading a book because you think you have to, or because everyone else is reading it but you're not that into it, then, well, good luck with that. It's going to be a bit of a slog and you may find yourself X pages in and then going to another book and never finishing that one. Of course, sometimes we need to read a book for school or for our jobs or whatever. In which case we'd be wise to remove all ambivalence and go all in and act like that book you need to read is the most exciting book you could ever possibly read. Seriously. Now, assuming we're talking about a situation in which our reading list is not assigned to us, the first thing I do is follow Joseph Campbell's wisdom in the Power of Myth. He tells us, and I quote, sit in a room and read and read and read and read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level and you have a nice mild, slow burning rapture all the time. This realization of life can be a constant realization in your living. When you find an author who really grabs you, read everything he's done. Don't say, oh, I want to know what so and so did. And don't bother at all with the bestseller list. Just read what this one author has to give you and then you can go read what he had read and the world opens up in a way that is consistent with a certain point of view. But when you go from one author to another, you may be able to tell us the date when each wrote such and such a poem. But he hasn't said anything to you, end quote. Yep, that's the way to do it. And that's what I've done for the better part of the last 15 to 20 years. In my 20s and early 30s, I started with Dan Millman and Paulo Coelho and Wayne Dyer. I've read nearly everything those guys have written. Check out the notes in the plus one. And more recently, I've read almost everything written by Steven Pressfield, Ryan Holiday and Cal Newport. Then there's my old coach Steve Chandler, my beloved coach Yoda, otherwise known as Phil Stutz. Then there's Joseph Campbell himself, and one of my all time favorite teachers, Eknath Eswaron, who I consider to be in many ways the Indian version of Campbell. In fact, I've created the most notes on Eswaron in his great books, nine of them so far. His translations of the Gita and Dhammapada in particular are amazing. Again, all those writers are linked in this +1. Lots of notes right there, just in that handful of individuals who have deeply inspired me. And most recently, I followed this thread with Michael Singer. Not too long ago I read his latest book called Living Untethered. It's incredibly good. We previously featured the Untethered Soul, which I really liked. But after reading his latest book, Singer became one of my new favorite teachers. So what did I do after finishing that book? I immediately got three other books he's written, including a couple he wrote nearly 50 years ago. And in one of those books he thanked Yogananda for being the deepest influence in his life. So what did I do? I immediately got his classic, An Autobiography of a Yogi. Then I learned that Steve Jobs gave An Autobiography of a Yogi to everyone who attended his memorial service as the final gift on their way out. Then I went back to Amazon and bought a half dozen more of Yogananda's books and booklets, all of which are amazing. Notes on all those coming soon. And all that to say that's one powerful way I pick the books I'm going to read, which is again in my mind one of the most important things to consider in terms of how to read a book. In our next plus one, I'll tell you more about how I actually read the book once I've decided to read it. For now, happy reading. Here's to that nice, mild, slow burning rapture we get Connecting with Wisdom from a Brilliant Soul. Day one. All in. Let's go. By the way, check out the one for a look at the books. I recently got a desk full of Michael Singer and Yogananda covers.
