The Books That Changed Our Lives - Part Two | Big Leap EP#70

There's nothing better than a remarkable person who writes a remarkable book that can affect you in remarkable ways.

I love books that take me into a different world. I opened the first page, and it was like dropping into an alternate universe.

If you want to be a great copywriter, a great sales writer, you have to read a lot of poetry.

And by the end of it, I was literally. My head was in my lap, I was sobbing so much. Hi, this is Gay Hendricks. Welcome to the Big Leap podcast. This time we're doing another episode on books that have changed our lives, this time focusing on a little bit different types of books, even some fiction. So we're excited about it, and we hope you will be, too.

All right. And Gay always blows my mind because while I record episodes like this, not only do we have an action item list, which is in the show notes with all the books that we talk about here, I ended up buying a whole bunch of them as well. So now I've got a gigantic reading list, and it's all your fault, Gay. So this is books that changed our lives, episode two.

All right, Gay, we're back. Episode two. The books that shaped us. The books that changed our life. So why don't you dive in with your. Your next big book?

Okay. I want to focus this time on several fiction books. I love fiction. That was one of my first dreams was to write the great American novel. And I've since written a whole bunch of mystery novels. So I finally got to fulfill my dream of being a fiction writer. But I've learned a lot as a psychologist and a spiritual seeker from reading certain kind of fiction, too. And one of the best ones I've ever read is. Is by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and it's called 100 Years of Solitude. And it's a book that takes place in a country in Latin America and probably based on Columbia maybe, but it's, I think, of that genre of books called magical realism, that there's a lot of real elements, but then there are a lot of magical elements in it.

But.

But it is just the most breathtaking piece of writing. And I happened to be. I was on top of a bus in Nepal with my long ago girlfriend before I met Katie, and we were trekking our way through Nepal, and we got a lift on this bus, and it was so hot that we got up on the roof to ride on the roof, and up there we discovered a Danish couple. And as often happened in those days, when you were trekking in Asia, you traded paperbacks, you know, you'd finish the Paperback. And so you say, got anything to trade? And so I had just finished another book that I'll talk about called Watership down by Richard Adams, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful books I've ever read. And so I said, oh, I just finished this, you got to read this. And this Danish guy said, oh, well, you got to read this. This is the most mind boggling book I've ever read. And so he gave me 100 years of solitude. And I opened the first page and it was like dropping into an alternate universe. You know, I couldn't put the thing down. And to this day, I still consider it almost like an altered state of consciousness going into that book, reading that book because it takes you on such a trip. So if you haven't read 100 Years of Solitude, get on that right away.

I've got it. I actually just put it in my Kindle. So that's another one. Man, every time I sit down with you, I have a longer, bigger list.

So, okay, well, you're going to do your novels, I'm going to do a couple more books. That changed my life when I sold my first company.

And.

Here's what happened. A guy I worked with started doing artwork that was very spiritual in nature and also composing music. And I didn't think of him as a musician, but he had synthesizers and he learned how to produce music. He started making meditation CDs. And he created this fictional world that a lot of people believed was real based on some aliens that had lived on, on the planet. I'll just say who the. It was called Wingmakers. Okay. My friend's name is Mark. And I watched this guy, he was printing his own CDs and mailing them. And then he ended up selling a business, setting up a business selling crystals and then artwork. And he was making.

Well over six figures a year from his condo. And I just couldn't believe it because it was doing it $10 at a time. And I didn't really understand the book business then. But without knowing it, he had really introduced me to info marketing. And again, this is kind of in the late 90s. And that's when I started learning about copywriting and making money online. And that led me to hanging out on ebay. And I bumped into a guy named Dan Kennedy. And I bought this.

Book called Info Marketing, which was really just a great big stack of photocopied papers with Dan telling you how to start selling information. It was the first time I got exposed to it because I had seen it before, but I Didn't know that such a thing existed. And the fact that you could put up a sales page or send in that at that. In those days it was direct mail. You'd buy a list, send direct mail, and people would send you money and you'd send something out. But then when you could put a webpage up and people would give you money, I got interest, introduced to some people who are selling stuff online, who'd sell something for a thousand dollars that was all digital. And my mind exploded because I realized that a thousand times, a thousand made a million. And that led me down the rabbit hole of eventually starting creating Info Market, Info Marketing. One of them, my first real product was called the Internet Infomercial Toolkit. And then the one I co produced with Ariel Ford called Everything youg Should Know About Publishing, Publicity, Promotion and Building a Platform. I knew nothing about the book business, but I worked with an expert and we split the, you know, the business 50, 50. And basically we'd get together for walks every Sunday and I'd write out a check for. Sometimes it was for $5,000, sometimes it was $15,000 at a time. And because, you know, it all started with getting, getting a book that turned into, you know, probably just from info marketing, you know, I probably produced 40, 50 million dollars over the course of my career in that space. And it began with a book.

And have you had a chance to thank Dan?

Yeah, he became a client for years. I spoke on a stage many times, made a lot of money with him for him. And then eventually Dan is well known for turning against everyone and he turned against me. And you get an angry fax from D there, it's considered a badge of honor. And we've. Since, you know, he's fine, he barely even remembers it, but God, he's got a temper and he almost died a couple of years ago and somehow he came back to life. He's like, I say this with, with love in my heart. He's like a roach, you know, it's like you just can't kill him. But I, I have a lot of. I have a lot of love and empathy for that guy. And I, I did a documentary with him. If you search for my name and Dan Kennedy, you can find the, the documentary I did with him. And he's, he's a character. He's really, really a character.

Yeah. Well, if you're a curmudgeon and you can make money doing it, why not? You know, he's a well paid curmudgeon. I want to just touch on the book I already mentioned, Watership down, if you haven't read that one. It's a book that I first didn't read because it was about rabbits and. But it's a story of this thing that takes place, and it doesn't matter that it has to do with Rab. It's just one of the greatest stories I've ever read. And it has a lot to say about heroism and courage. And I started crying about 10 pages from the end of that book. And by the end of it, I was literally. My head was in my lap. I was sobbing so much. It just has that much beauty to it. So if you haven't read that, get that right away. But I also want to put in a plug for poetry. Actually, the very first things I ever got published were three poems in a counseling journal way back in 1970, I think. But it had a magical effect because it taught me that I could write, use all my literary skills in writing about the change process, the transformation process, therapy and counseling. And so that became an entry point for me. And.

So there's a book called 10 Poems to Change youe Life by Roger Housden. And I believe it's spelled H O U S D E N. And he's got several books like that. One is called 10 Poems to Change youe Marriage or something like that. But they're collections of poems by different authors that have a transformational effect. And those. Those books of Roger Housdon's are just such a gift because.

He knows how to go around the whole and from the whole world of poetry, collect the 10 poems that are just, you know, most impactful. And so every single one of them has a life changing component to it. So also to put in a plug for that, for poetry. Also, Katie and I keep poetry books by the side of our bed so that we can read poetry to each other before we go to sleep at night. And we've been married 42 years, so it works. Can testify to the power of poetry reading. One thing we also like to do is read Shakespeare sonnets to each other. Some of them are just so incredibly powerful and beautiful. But let's remember poems and poetry when we talk about the greatest things we've ever read. Because poetry has such an incredible power to move you.

Oh, those are great. Those are great. Well, I've got more stuff. I'm gonna. I got reintroduced to poetry.

I'm gonna do this mini story here. So I just came back from spending a day with someone I love.

His name is Roy H. Williams. He Wrote the series of books called the wizard of Ads. He started the Wizard Academy, which is literally a castle in Austin. I'm actually doing a mastermind there a month from the time when we're recording this. And it's like a Harry Potter castle with secret passageways and hidden doors and artwork. And they start serving what they call purple coffee at 9am which is wine. They pour you wine because why not anything that changes your chemistry, your brain, or gets you to think differently and upside down and inside out. And.

After spending a bunch of time with Roy, so I pay him and I visit him every quarter, and I bring someone with me and just work on solving a big problem and. And he turns my brain upside down and inside out every time because he's such a fascinating thinker. But he says that if you want to become a great writer, you've got to read a lot of poetry. And if you want to be a great copywriter, a great sales writer, you have to read a lot of poetry just because you learn about rhythm and you learn about.

You know, using fewer words. There's what we used to. What we always, always call here, we call it murdering words or word murdering. It's being a great editor.

Poetry forces you to compress so much emotion into so few words, and it's so incredibly complicated, you know, to make something brief and short and meaningful and emotional simultaneously. So just listening to you right now really inspired me to do a lot more of that. So I'm gonna give. I'm gonna pop that in as the wizard of Ads books. All the books by Roy H. Williams. Another one by him is Pendulum. And it has to do. It's kind of like the fourth turning, if you're familiar with that, about the change of.

Eras in historical times, how different generations think and behave differently. And we go through our cycles, economic cycles of power and what's popular as well.

So anyway, I have one more to suggest. That's a compendium by Harold Bloom, and it's called Genius.

Okay.

And big thick book. But he explored a hundred different creative minds throughout history and just what it was that made them so creative. And wow. I mean, I've been a student of creativity all my life. And just to see the different ways people use their creativity over thousands of years, it was just stunning because I didn't. I was never good about taking history classes and that kind of thing. I just never caught on with me. And so it was breathtaking to me to read back over the last couple of thousands of years and see how we got Here through the thinking of a hundred different geniuses over time that shaped humanity and sent it in a certain direction. So read Genius by Harold Bloom.

Okay.

So many books. So many books. Okay, here's another one after Roy.

And there's a tie in here too. So when Tim Ferriss came out with a four hour work week, that was a game changer for me. It got me thinking differently and it really introduced outsourcing and doing it overseas and leveraging low cost labor to get repetitive tasks done that you normally wouldn't hire anyone for because it just isn't cost effective. And Tim changed the way a lot of people think about work and living the rich life was part of the tagline in that book. Now, interestingly, it turns out he was one of our first customers, Ariel's and my first customer for everything you should know about publishing, publicity and building a platform. And he had sent us a message asking, asking for help. And I missed the email and didn't get back to him until we discovered it after his book was out and he was already semi famous. Now the good news is he still got back to me and we ended up doing interviews with them. And later on I had built enough of a relationship that he came and we spent the day together in my studio. And you know, we've, we're never like friends, but friendly. Tim's a. Can be a prickly person but really, really smart. And all of his books are really good. They're just packed with massive value. And he really, really does hard research and lives his books and I've got nothing but respect for him and he's built an empire with his podcast. I mean, if there's anyone to model, it's Tim and his podcast. It's really good. So Tim Ferriss for our workweek.

Good. Yes, that was a game changer. All right, well, good. Well, that's the ones I wanted to recommend for this. Go around. Got any others that you want to throw into the mix?

Yeah, I'm actually going to do.

I'm going to do a couple really fast. One of them obviously. I always love to give the Shameless plug as the big leap. I think early on in your and my relationship when that book came out, it was just a great book and I felt a deeper kinship and connection with you and I loved the way I thought when I read the book because it's so simple.

But useful at the same time. So how can we not shamelessly plug the big leap?

Well, I feel no shame about that whatsoever. I think everybody ought to read the big leap, especially if they want to optimize their lives. I spend and I decided to create a life where I would never want to retire from it. And so I'll go anywhere and talk to anybody about the ideas and the big leap.

Yeah. So good. So good. So I'll give you another one. There's a book by Kamal Ravikant. It's love yourself like your life depends on it. And I'm actually going to reach out to Kamal and see if he'll come on the podcast with us. I met him a few years later and again, he's one of these guys that just had this deep.

Energetic attraction to. He's just a beautiful, soulful guy. He looks like he's elvish elfish in a way. You know, he's. He's got, he feels like a mystical being. Real, pure, clean spirit and a deep, deep thinker.

So one really rare person in his brother is Naval Ravikant, who started.

Angellist, which has been responsible for raising, I don't know, billions of dollars for startups. And it's a syndication platform. So two brothers who came here from India were very, very poor, raised by a single mother, and really, really, really are remarkable people. So there's nothing better than a remarkable person who writes a remarkable book that can affect you in remarkable ways. So I think it's great and I think that that'd be the way I'd like to end this is.

It'S kind of just happened. But the fact that like you said earlier in our first episode, beware of ever meeting your heroes or.

Which is true. And at the same time, you know, when I looked through a lot of the books that I recommended, I've gotten to know and become good friends with a lot of these authors. And nothing beats a great authentic human being who lives their work. And we've. And what I haven't spent time with and I made a commitment to myself just listening and talking in this go around and that I want to meet novelists and poets next.

Yeah, I've had once again some really good meetings with a couple of my favorite authors and I got to meet a couple of my favorite poets and I haven't been disappointed. So I think we've got some stuff to talk about there.

Okay, very good. Well, with that, this is a short episode. Good follow up, though. What would you like to leave with today?

Gay? I'd like to leave with just a big plug for the magic of reading and how I love books that take me into a different world. A different world that I haven't thought of before, which is like when I read the Dune books, I was just obsessed with Dune for a long period of time. I read those long before Star wars came out. And so those were really moving to me. The other kind of books I like are books where you go deeply inward. Not into a world that you've never seen before, but deeply into a world where you know it, but you're seeing it in a whole different way for the first time. And so those are the books that, that I try to write and the kind that I like to read too.

Great. Well, I feel exactly the same way. And in an upcoming episode, I've got a brand new book I just finished that is about to come out and maybe we can talk about that. But it's, it's called your next act. It's all about creating a business you'll love for the rest of your life, which has basically become my next. You know, really been everything I've been doing over the past five years. But it's made, it's, I feel it with a lot more clarity now. And you know, and, and when I started talking about this, I realized, ah, that's, you know, when I talk to founders and I, and I now I ask them, what's your next act? And so it just turned into this natural thing. So I think one of the beauties of writing books in addition to reading them is how they.

You can create a brand new identity by either reading one or by writing one and then live into it. It forces you to.

Change who you are. And I like it both as a reader and a writer.

Good. Here's to reading.

All right. All right. Thanks, Kay. Another great episode for everyone. Once again, we love your feedback, especially on itunes. Leave us a rating, leave us a review. Check out the show notes where we've got links for all these books and a few more that Gay and I enjoy. And we'll see you on the next episode real soon. And you can always Visit us@bigleappodcast.com Bye. Bye.