Thoughts on: Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton

We all lie like hell to ourselves and others, and it’s stresses us to death.
It’s to the point, unapologetic and without sugar coating. The honesty Dr Blanton is talking about is not just “truth is the best policy”, but to tell the truth as you experience it, in great detail and no matter how it portraits you identity.

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Video Book review of Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton

What he suggests is shock program, but don’t worry, because 99.99% of you won’t have the ball (or tits?!) to do the exercises described in this book. Your ego won’t let you. And you don’t need to, you will still get massive value from reading it.


Notes From the book:

📝 Nietzsche: “A mans maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play.”

📝 “The stress that kills or cripple most of us come from people being too hard on themselves when they don’t live up to their own imaginings about how other people think they should behave.”

📝 How long it takes to build a ego identity depends on culture and tech level. For a bushman to go from child to starting to making babies, take on an adult role and choose vocation takes about a year. In our culture adolescent last from 12 to 40 y/o.

📝 “We mix up reality with our interpretation of reality. We invent some fundamental lies of how life should and shouldn’t be. Then we use food and drugs to temporarily escape the lie we invented.”

📝 “Getting drunk & stoned works! being sad & being fat works! Especially in a world where being angry, horny or being expressly joyful is tabu.”

📝 “The key to happiness is the willingness to take care of oneself. Problem is that most people are willing to take care of anything and anyone else, but themselves.”


⭐️TAKEAWAY: The author walks his talk when describing his intention with this book; to show off what he learned during his career, but also to show that he is smarter than most people. To be rich and famous and to create a legacy that lives on after his death.
Thing we all think but never say explicitly.

I end this review by quoting my notes: “Mind-blowing book!”

Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton – 5 out of 5

Check out my reading lists for more great books!

    Reading list updated!

    I finally got my reading list (with scores!) from last year published on the site. I bet you’ll find something you like in there!

    Enjoy!

    Frozen balls, New Book and the Run of my Life


    It was freezing, raining and windy but it was my last opportunity for a long run before Kullamannen 25k. So I took it!

    The biggest hurdle was not the weather, though, it was finding clothes to protect me from it. I’m moving houses this weekend and finding anything among all the boxes is almost impossible.

    I found what I assessed to be the bare minimum clothing-wise for 2.5 hour run and then I was on my way!

    I also treated myself with a new audio book – “Apollo 8: The thrilling story of the first Mission to the Moon” by Jeffrey Kluger – to accompany me in the trail.


    After 7k I notice I was freezing my balls off, literarily. My packages was colder than a piece of space debris in shade.

    I’d know I had to abort the mission if this problem was not adressed. I was less than a third into the run and continuing would mean this cold might turn into real damage.

     

    I proceeded to orbit the lake I was running around, like a satellite, when I got the splendid idea to sacrificing my hat to isolate my boxers. Temperature started to stabilize and the mission was saved. And I got really confused looks from passing people that tried to figure out if I was really well hung or if I had a really bad tumor growth.

     


    All in all, Good run though!

    Thoughts on: “The Stranger in the Woods”

    Christopher Knight was 20 years old when he one day walked into the woods, never to return to society again. It took 27 years for him to reemerge, not by his own choosing, but because he got captured by the police for stealing food.

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    He spent a third of a century alone in the woods. He never lit a fire to keep warm during the horrid Maine winters. He didn’t speak to anyone, not even himself. This book tell the incredible story of last true hermit.

    Video Review of The Stranger in the Woods By Michael Finkel. The Extraordinary Story of The Last True Hermit

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    📝 Lack of preparation: “It was like he planned to go out camping for the weekend and didn’t come home in a quarter century”

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    📝 “Those with less becomes content, those with more becomes confused” Lao Tsu, “Tao Te Ching”.

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    📝 He was confounded by the ideas of passing the prime of your life in a cubical,spending hours a day in front of the computer in exchange for money, was considered acceptable – While relaxing in a tent in the woods was disturbed.

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    📝 He never got sick – “You need to be around people for that to happen.” – But he had problems with his teeth. Probably because he had a child’s dream diet of junk food, candy and sodas.

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    📝 He was guilty of over 1000 burglaries.40 a year on average.

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    ⭐️ TAKEAWAY:

    We tend to want to extract the wisdom we think comes from choosing a path so different from most people. So, What was Knights advice after 27 in by himself? “Get enough sleep.” I think that is as sagely an advise as any. 😎

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    Love the book! The story is absolutely fascinating, but it leaves you wondering if there is not more to the story. His family never reported him missing, and the author shrugs he whole thing off with the comment; “The Knights are very private people”.

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    4/5

    “Stranger in the Woods” by Michael Finkel

    Check out my reading lists for more great books!

    New Audiobook for my morning run!

    Preparing for my race in November with a 21k morning run. It went fairly well except that it rained the whole time. I did see two row deer as a bonus, though!

    Accompanying me on this adventure was a new book I got from audible – “Apollo 8” by Jeffery Kluger – and it’s going to be super interesting to learn some more space race history. 


    What are you reading this weekend? 

    New biography: Muhammad Ali 

    Just starting this book, “King of the world” by David Remnick, which was “nonfiction book of the year” according to Time magazine when it was first issued. Let’s see how it holds up! I’m pumped for a new biography! 

    Thoughts on: “Light for Visual Artists”


    There are two areas into which I want to spend more of my reading time going forward; classic fiction and textbook learning materials.

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    This one falls in the latter category – which is the harder of the two to write interesting post about – and as reading material these types of books can be pretty dry & boring, but the purpose here is not primarily to be entertained but to learn a new skill or expand your expertise within a certain field.

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    📝 Most diffuse surfaces, such as wood and rock, become darker when they become wet. This is because the water is reflecting off the light in a specular fashion, and so less light reaches the underlying surface.

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    📝 Different skin colours react differently to light. Caucasian skin has the greatest color variation due to its lack of pigment, so that blood has more influence on the color of the skin.

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    📝 Direct reflection is the kind of reflection associated with mirrors: rays of light hitting the surface are reflected back at the same angle relative to the surface, thereby creating a recognizable image.

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    📝 The limited range of color a device like an computer screen can display is know as it’s gamut.

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    A must have for the visual artist, whether you are a painter, photographer or digital artist. The text is clear and every phenomenon imaginable is illustrated in great detail with photos and examples.

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    Especially the first part of the book stood out to me – The Fundamentals of light – it’s hard to see the world in the same way after gaining full understanding of light, shadow and color.

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    What really niche subject did you read up on this year?! 🤔

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    4/5

    Check out my reading lists for more great books!

    Thoughts on: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacsson

    Asshole, crybaby or smelly hippie? Steve Jobs can be described in many ways. He certainly was a flawed man, yet brilliant! The products he brought into this world disrupted whole industries, a result of always demanding the impossible.

    What really stood out for me in this book was how much of a hippie this guy actually was, and how the influence of his LSD experiences and eastern philosophy impacted on the products he created.

    📝 Steve was adopted, and a sense of abandonment what’s a big theme in his life. One of the most moving parts of the book is when Steve’s biological father casually mentions to his sister that “I had a restaurant ones and this Steve Jobs character used to eat there all the time”. Both not knowing they where family.
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    📝 He could bend reality, and make people believe they could achieve the impossible. In essence, this was because Jobs had an unshakable belief that the rules of the game didn’t apply to him.
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    📝 Steve hygiene was a huge problem at Apple. He believed firmly that his diet (containing almost exclusively fruits) made it safe for him to not to use deodorant or shower.
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    📝 When a reporter asked about the 2 year delay of his NeXT computer, Jobs answer was: “It’s not delayed, it’s five years ahead of its time”.
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    📝 “He had a this ability to focus on just 2-3 thing and say no to everything else. This is a rare and valuable trait.”
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    📝 Want to see Jobs bringing his A-game? Watch the unveiling of the original iPhone on YouTube. Look how proud he is!
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    ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: Jobs was sold on on the zen buddhist idea of detachment from material things. Still he created tons of them which might sound very paradoxical. But thinking more thoroughly about it it’s actually the other way around. The thing he created have had a tremendously dematerializing effect on society. The iPod (with iTunes) replaced shelves filled with CDs. The iPhone replaced video players, cameras, photo albums, handheld gaming consoles, calculators etc..
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    Excellent book! Probably my favorite biography of all time!
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    5/5

    Check out my reading lists for more great books!

    Thoughts on: “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”

    zenmindbeginnersmind

    I feel like some book are meant to be studied rather just being read. There are some book that I decided not to review for this reason. Reading them ones just don’t do the trick, usually this is the case with esoteric writings like today’s book.
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    So I read the book two more times after finishing it. Not because the book was fantastic in any way but to see if there was any value in repeating the information. Maybe it would reveal new insights?
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    It kinda worked! like peeling an union – each round exposed a new layer of understanding and more concepts made sense. Unfortunately re-reading didn’t turn it in to a “must read” recommendation. 😜
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    📝 When you are a beginner it’s easy to learn. The challenge is to keep this mindset – the beginners mind – when you get to an advanced level.
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    📝 “Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say: it’s easy to have calmness in inactivity. It’s hard to have calmness in activity. Calmness in activity is true calmness.”
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    📝 Zazen: “If you continue to this simple practice everyday you will attain a wonderful power. before you attain it it’s something wonderful but after you attain it it’s nothing special.”
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    It’s a cool book about Zen practice and you should probably pick it up if you are into meditation and feel like you need some inspiration to spice things up. ———————
    Which books did I end up not writing reviews for, you ask? So far it’s “Power vs. Force” and “The Kybalion”. Did you ever run into books where you not sure how you feel about them? 🤔
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    3/5

     

    Check out my reading lists for more great books!

    My Most Anticipated Book of 2017!


    After reading several of his earlier works (Franklin, Einstein & Jobs) I can’t wait to get my hands in Walter Isaacsons Leonardo Da Vinci biography!

    What books are you looking forward to this year?