Once I read a statement that said, “You will be the same person in 10-years time that you are today apart from the books that you read and the people that you meet.” The idea being that it is the influence of people more learned or more experienced than you that teaches you. I don’t fully subscribe to that point of view because it is possible for individuals to observe and think and learn by themselves. After all, someone had to discover those useful things in the first place. However, for most people and for most things that generally holds true. Books are wonderful because you can get the condensed learning and life experience of one person quickly and easily and without having to go through all of those experiences yourself. On occasion, you will come across books that alter your whole perspective on life. This post is about the books that I have read that changed my perceptions of reality and how to interpret events. They are listed in the order in which I read them over the space of the last 20-years.

The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. This is a futurology book that attempts to use knowledge of the past to predict the future. Alvin Toffler does it better than anyone else that I’ve ever come across. Up until reading this one I used to devour history books. I didn’t know it, but at the time I was attempting to understand my own situation and how things might progress for me by studying what happened to people in the past. I now know that I was seeking cause and effect mechanisms so that I could map out my own path with greater certainty.

The Third Wave predicted accurately much of what has happened over the past 20-years in terms of general global trends and it continues to be right. It explained why so many of the traditions and institutions that we took for granted are now dysfunctional. It also gave indicators of how to prepare yourself for an uncertain future. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to understand the chaos that confused others and I could make better decisions about how to negotiate my path in an uncertain world. However, I gained much more than this from the book.

Through the analysis of history that Toffler gave, I came to understand that I had a mass of unquestioned assumptions about my world; my reality. This shocked me initially but then I came to value questioning the origin of the things that I took for granted, because it was so revealing and it led to understanding. When you understand something you can change the factors involved and get better results. I became a seeker of the fundamental root cause of human and societal behaviors. The writings of this blog are a direct product of the spark of awareness created by The Third Wave.

The 7-Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This was one of the early self-help books that I read. He takes an awfully long-winded way to say simple things (maybe that’s where I get it from?), but there’s a lot of value in it. I was most influenced by three things in the book:
Proactivity - before I had been very reactive and I waited for other people or other things to direct me, or force me, into taking action. It was a new notion to me that I could take the initiative in everything that I did. Once I began to apply that idea I started to get better control over my outcomes.
Responsibility - this was something that I was not good at before. I used to blame other people and other things for my woes. I didn’t shake that off just from this book, but I did learn that when something goes wrong, effective people seek to understand the cause and to take personal responsibility for preventing that in the future. This led to me creating one of my favorite and most useful questions after something goes wrong: “How can I make sure that this never, ever happens again?”
The Circle of Influence - the concept that we are limited by our current levels of capability and that to get desired results we must expand our abilities.

Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. I have very, very mixed feelings about this book and about Tony Robbins but I felt that I had to mention it. Tony’s writings opened up new levels of awareness in me but his solutions aren’t adequate, in my opinion. I got inconsistent results and generally ended up more confused and frustrated than ever before. This propelled me to undertake new lines of research and investigation that has resulted in a lot of the methods that I now write about. This book awakened the giant within me, but it didn’t get that giant out of bed. I had to find my own way to do that!

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. This is a weird book about a guy on a road trip with his son recounting the story of how he goes mad. I didn’t get the philosophy part (or at least it was instantly forgettable), but one concept had a very, very deep impact on me. The main character makes a living from writing instructions for assembling devices, such as barbecues and the like. He says that the writing is very technical, formal and dry and that it doesn’t take into account the reality of how the person who buys the device and has to assemble it needs guidance about the attitude required to carry out the assembly. He suggested that each manual start with words like, “Begin with an open mind” or something equally Zen like.

I didn’t get the Zen stuff, but I was definitely struck by the part that most books of knowledge assume that the reader has the attitude and ability to follow and persist with what it takes to transform the knowledge into action and results. In my experience, this is wrong in about 99% of all cases. This led to me carrying out a very deep and focused attention on the attitudinal problems that most people (especially myself) have in doing new, complex or difficult things. My book “Making Things Possible” is a direct result of this line of investigation.

The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff. Two very charming books that taught me about the unknown philosophy of Taoism. After reading so many self-help books that were all about goal-setting, facing your fears, following your dreams etc and generally underlining how inadequate I currently was, these books on Taoism were wonderfully refreshing. The basic message that I got was, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you find yourself.” A very pragmatic approach to life and totally in harmony with my background as an engineer.

The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. This principle is a stunning way of getting massive improvements in results in almost anything in life merely through observation and a small amount of analysis. It doesn’t require any difficult personal change (what a relief!), just awareness and application.

Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer. This well written book talks about many common emotional responses that leave people immobilized and unable to feel good or act well. The basic message is that most common forms of neurosis come from neediness. When your desires are dependent upon other people or other things, you cannot control your outcomes and this leads to a continuous stream of negative emotions.

People in Quandaries by Wendell Johnson. This book describes the principles of General Semantics. This was a way of thinking based upon scientific principles and better logic created by Alfred Korzybski. I have to say that this book radically changed my perceptions of reality. Before this I had never stopped to think about the fact that words are abstract concepts used to describe reality and that they do a very poor job at that. However, we continuously describe reality to ourselves and to other people using words. They have such importance that we will often choose to trust our verbal interpretations of reality more than our sensory perceptions of reality itself. This disconnect between our descriptions and reality itself leads to a lot of mental problems.

I learned so much from the superb concepts of General Semantics. There’s too much too describe here so check out the posts that I made on this subject.

All of which leads to:

Making Things Possible by Nick Pagan. Sorry, but I can’t resist a little plug here. In October I will release my book, which is the product of lines of inquiry and investigation sparked off by the books listed above, plus a few discoveries and innovations of my own.

The book has three main sections. One section describes how the mind works, why we so easily create internal mental struggle and how to defuse it, how emotions are created and how to manage them. Armed with this knowledge you can think differently so that you avoid immobilizing problems in the first place.

Another section describes the problem solving process necessary to turn desires into reality. Most people leap into action without proper thought, care and attention. This creates many problems that generate a lot of difficulty and ill-feeling. Most of these problems are avoidable, when you know how to prepare yourself properly.

The remaining section describes how to develop new capabilities. A common factor that prevents people from getting what they want is that they lack the ability to do what they want to do. Learning is often a long and frustrating process, but there are ways to accelerate that process and to avoid wasting time and effort.

All of these methods are compiled into a personal productivity system that circumvents the things that commonly immobilize people and gets you into productive action on the things that you want to do quickly and easily. It’s simple, it’s robust and it’s deeply pragmatic. It will not only change your perception of reality, it will improve your reality.

Related Articles:

General Semantics - Deferring to Reality Brings Us Sanity

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