The Best Book I Ever Read

Would you like to know the one book that will absolutely change your life? Come on! Wouldn't you like to know how to cut through the thousands of self-help books out there to the one book that sums it all up? It's so much work to read all of those books. What if you could just listen to this podcast episode and hear my answer to the best book I ever read? Wouldn't that be awesome? It's the perfect microwave answer. You can take your uncooked mind and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and presto... you have wealth mentality.

This is appealing to so many people because we are getting to be a lazier and lazier society. What if I did have the best book ever to give to you? Do you realize that I have read over 500 books in my professional life over the past 20 years. And I haven't just read them. I've studied them. I've shared them. I've written in the margins. I've changed from one level to the next in my thinking. Here's what I'm saying. It's taken me 20 years and 500 books to tell you which was the best book I've ever read. There's a catch. If you read this book, would it change your life as much? I don't know, but my inclination is to say no.

"Okay, Ken. Stop with the ambiguity. Do you have a book to recommend or not?" Wow, you are so demanding. Okay, I'll give you a few that changed my life.

"The Monster at the End of this Book" by Jon Stone - Seriously! This is profound. Grover from Sesame Street fights so hard to keep the reader from turning the pages. My Pop-Pop read this to me every weekend from age 6 - 9 ish. I LOVED that book. We would joke and make faces, but the lesson is so clear. No matter what the obstacle, keep turning those pages in your life.

"The Choice" by Og Mandino, "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews, and "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson - I've read these books over 15 times at least in my 20's, 30's and now 40's. They get better each time! They touch my heart and help me see WHY I do what I do, giving me the courage to keep traveling.

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey - I just read this book and it changed my life. This is the book that inspired this episode. I want to be a Quadrant 2 person! I want to operate my life most effectively and I couldn't believe this book wasn't in the first 100 that I read!

You could read these books and they could change your life or they could do nothing for you. So what is the best book for you to read to change your life? I believe that the answer is different for every person. Why? Some of you have read 1,000 books and have a dominant wealth and abundance mindset. Others maybe haven't read at all and still think at the level they always have. Napoleaon Hill had a quote, "Think and Grow Rich". In fact, this quote became a best-seller on teaching how to create wealth. Books help us to think differently. They cut us open and force us to make decisions to either change and grow or stay the same and wither. We are all at different stages of growing and developing. Books are static. This means that the information in the book will affect us differently at any given snapshot of our life. Have you ever read a book three times and get something different from it every time? I mentioned this about me already. The book hasn't changed, but we have so we get something different from it.

The 7 Habits book was the book I needed at this time in my life to scale my business and simplify my life. That's what's most important to me right now. It's why I feel that the seven habits is the best book I've ever read. But that's when I realized. The best book I ever read is the book that I needed the most at the moment. Therefore, there is no best book in a one size fits all answer. Remember. The best book is the book that you need the most at the moment. How do you know which is the best book you need at the moment? You need a mentor or a coach who sees the things in you that you don't see that he or she can. I call this the third window from "We All Need a Coach". This type of coach or mentor can view your life and circumstances and identify the exact book that you need to move your forward. But they can only see these blind spots if they are also well read and coached. And they can only help you if you are willing to humble yourself and be teachable.

When the right book meets the right person at the right time, magic happens.
Would you like to discuss any books you may want to read? Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available at the Smart Cleaning School website. Also, do you have questions for me? Book a free coaching call on my website!