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This book was a random find but ended up being a gem.

Before I read the book I had never heard of either it or it’s author. My wife picked it up at the library because she thought it would be something I was interested in. I loved both the title and subtitle and when I saw that the book received great reviews from Seth Godin, Michael Hyatt, and Dave Ramsey, I bumped it up to the front of my reading list.

That was a good decision. Jon, it turns out, works for personal finance guru Dave Ramsey and is the founder of the humor/satire website http://stuffchristianslike.net. His background in running a humor site was put to good use- this book is laugh-out-loud funny.

Although it has a very healthy dash of humor, it is about the very important topic of escaping average and achieving awesome. Jon lays out that there are five stages that you go through as you are transitioning from average to awesome:

1. Learning
2. Editing
3. Mastering
4. Harvesting
5. Guiding

These used to correspond to the decades of a normal career. You would learn in your 20’s, edit in your 30’s etc. Now however, you can blaze through these stages more rapidly than ever before.

Each one of these stages has dangers and pitfalls, exit ramps, going back to average which Jon hopes to help you avoid.

After you’ve made it through all five stages, you’re not done, you just have the opportunity to start again.

This was a fantastic book and I took a lot of notes, but before I share them in the usual short, bullet-point format, I want to share with you an entire page from the book that was so good that I copied it word-for-word into my notebook:

We All Used to be Awesome

 

Awesome is a lot simpler than you think, because you used to know awesome quite well.

 

Everyone did at one point. Especially when we were kids.

 

I was reminded of this one night as I was walking down the hall at home. My daughters were brushing their teeth, an event that usually boils over into an international crisis. This time though, they weren’t fighting over sink space, –they were talking literature. I heard L.E., my 9-year-old say to her little sister McRae “Did you know that the guy who wrote The Twits also wrote James and the Giant Peach?” I heard McRae respond “I know! I love that guy. He’s got a great imagination, like me.”

 

Like me.

 

What a powerful declaration.

 

Roald Dahl has been called the greatest storyteller of our generation. He also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He’s sold millions and millions of books. And in McRae’s little 6-year-old mind, his imagination is on par with hers. He’s a peer.

 

You used to believe like that too.

I don’t know about you, but that story gave me goosebumps. Every now and then when I’m reading I get the sense that someone has just said something so profoundly true I need to revisit it regularly to remind myself of it. This was one of those times.

Here are my other notes:

• “The starting line is the only line you can completely control.”
• “You are going to stand on a mountaintop that is better than anything you dreamed and laugh at the idea that you thought you could plot your finish.”
• “Average is predictable. Awesome is adventurous.”
• “Sometimes you’re not completely sure about the next step until you take it.” (I LOVE this quote, mainly because I’m someone who has spent too much time stalling because I thought I needed to have certainty before I could take action)
• “Luck is a word people who are lazy use to describe people who are hustling.”
• “Fear and doubt’s calendar always starts with either yesterday or tomorrow.” (i.e. they will either tell you you’re too late or that you should wait until you are ready)
• “I’d received a postcard from awesome and it had two questions on it: 1) If I died today what would I regret not being able to do? 2) Are those the things I’m spending my time doing?”
• “We’re horrible at seeing the potential of our own dreams.”
• “Learning is about addition, editing is about subtraction.”
• “We tend to add complexities to our challenges because if the problem is simple to solve, then we have to change. And change is scary.”
• “The truth is that real life-change and the joy of being who you are designed to be always reflects selflessness, not selfishness.” (In other words, you have so much potential to help others).
• One quote that I love comes after a story he shares of discovering a new band. He say them live in a stadium of 13,000 people and they were incredibly enthusiastic in how they played their music. A little while later and he was invited to a private party where they played at a house with several dozen people, but kept their same enthusiasm. Jon’s take away was this: “In that moment, I learned a simple lesson about being awesome: always play to the size of your heart, not the size of your audience.”
• “A dream you don’t have to fight for isn’t a dream –it’s a nap.”
• “Throw out your old definition of ‘volunteer.’ The new definition of volunteer is ‘any activity that lets you trade time for expertise.'”
• “Action always beats intention.”
• One good lesson on how spouses can support each other in their dreams is what he calls “the gift of wow.” In other words, when someone you care about shares their big idea with you, don’t respond with all the standard “how” questions of practicality, give them the gift of saying “wow, what an amazing idea!” If they are still serious in a couple of weeks, you can introduce all the “how” questions in an encouraging way.
• “When someone doesn’t understand your dream, give them the gift of patience. The reality is they shouldn’t share your dream 100 percent. If they did, it wouldn’t be your dream –it would be their dream. They’d be the one chasing it, not you.”
• “If the saying “hurt people hurt people” is true –and I believe it is –then the opposite is true as well. “Helped people help people.'”
• “The greatest way to ensure you fail at something is to attempt to be an expert at it on day one.”
• “Every big finish began with a small start.”
• “Perfect isn’t the goal or even possible. Awesome is, and even awesome makes mistakes along the way.”
• “Fear fears community.”
• He gave me a great idea that I have applied: to create and maintain a running list of people you need to thank when you have mad it.
• “Write a list of all the things you won’t to get done now that you’re focusing on the things that matter…Don’t feel ashamed or guilty about what balls you drop. Drop them on purpose.”

I can easily say that I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Important truths delivered with a healthy dose of humor. If you’re out to accomplish anything important, there are truths that you are going to need to continually remind yourself of. This book is the perfect companion to inspire you to keep going.

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