Readings of 2013, Part 5

Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and this is the end of my readings of 2013 series of post, seeing as these are the last of the books that I read in 2013. I did, however save my favorites for last.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris:

When there is an elephant in the room, it is best to call it out, so I will go ahead and do just that... after reading this book, I may have just a tad bit of a completely heterosexual man crush on Tim Ferris. Powerlifter, "drug dealing" entrepreneur, and author, what's not to love?

Ok, now that I cleared the air with that, time to move on to the book.

This book is about as candid as it gets, and completely unapologetically so. It was also rather eye opening to exactly how little one needs, as well as how easy it is to outsource/automate the biggest time sinks in life(read email).

I will try and sum it up(but will probably screw it up royally, so read the damn thing): automate what you can, outsource as much as the rest, do the remaining yourself, and then travel around the world finding your vocation. There are also some really interesting challenges throughout the book to get you used to being out of your comfort zone.

Do Cool Sh*t by Miki Agrawal:

Now there is the another elephant in the room... Miki Agrawal is pretty much the female, soccer playing version of Tim Ferris, who just so happens to deal pizzas as opposed to "drugs"... so naturally, if reading Tim's book can put me in heterosexual man-love land, Miki's book had the same effect, minus the man part.

This book was actually the inspiration for me to start writing this blog(nod to the book in the sub-title of the blog). It had been an idea that I had been tossing around for awhile, and, well, reading the book inspired me to "do cool shit"(more cool shit on the way too).

It is essentially a chronology of a lot of the cool shit that Miki has done in her life(there is a lot of it), with attached take home lessons from each encounter; they include, but are not limited to, almost getting kicked out of her study abroad program, juggling semi-professional soccer with her I-Banker job, and James Bonding her way into the offices of newspaper food critics to get the word out about her wholesome pizza shop(which she started to accommodate her lactose intolerance, despite not having a clue about making pizza or running a restaurant).

There is also a section about health and fitness, which was just the icing on the cake.

Oh, do you remember those interesting challenges in Tim's book? Well one of the was reaching out to successful people. Miki was one of those people I reached out to... and she responded... now that is some cool shit!