Why do we take ourselves so seriously?

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The Art of Possibility, by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander, was one of the many powerful suggestions recommended by you! Last month, I recommended five items worthy of your summer reading list and I promised to share your most compelling suggestions. Thank you for the many suggestions: I chose to highlight the mind/body/spirit connections for my recommendations:

The Zander book is most famous for “Rule #6:” Don’t take yourself so seriously. It’s a book whose setting is Benjamin Zander’s role as a world class orchestral conductor.  This weekend I found myself meditating to Rule #6 as I was competing in an exhilarating golf tournament.  After one monumentally frustrating (silly) mistake that certainly cost my partner and me strokes (money), I found myself swearing a blue-streak. Not a goodness moment, for sure…suddenly Zanders’ Rule #6 snapped me back into humility…reminding me there’s a reason I don’t play golf for a living.

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You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay, is a book that popularized the mindfulness movement across the western world.  Today, it’s one of the most popular books in the spirituality and wellness categories. Louise reminds us our minds can focus on the “dis-ease” in our lives and literally make us sick. Powerful stuff… appropriate for anyone who approaches life with a type-A intensity. This book helped me embrace and understand the possible shadow-side of my own “Carpe Diem” philosophy.  Like the Zander book, I often reflect on or even reread a chapter or two.

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The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, is a guide to spiritual enlightenment endorsed by all of the gurus, including Deepak Chopra. What I found particularly pointed and useful is his insights on fear: “Psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. It happens because you are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future.” It’s a powerful book, worth the effort to chew on each sentence: mainly because we all live in some state of this fear.

Each of these suggestions is the type of book where you will want to write in the margins and return again to read your own insights.  They are also #1 New York Times Bestsellers.  Here are three other books with honorable mention: Mind Gym, by Gary Mack and David Casstevens is a fine inspirational book about sports psychology, Your Brain at Work by David Rock, unveils how our brains are literally addicted to our own ‘insights,’ and The Trust Edge by Dave Horsager (which I recommended back in April of this year, and Golfing with God, by Roland Merullo.

Good leaders make a habit of reading good books to help us understand ourselves and why we take ourselves so seriously.  And we find joy in recommending the most insightful titles for others to explore.

PS: thanks also to the one person who recommended “What Really Works” by these guys named Paul Batz and Tim Schmidt.  Gosh, what are you reading that helps you avoid taking yourself too seriously?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]