109 - Best Books Of 2019 | Undaunted.Life

0:00 Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline?

0:04 That's bullspend, and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

0:09 My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive-sounding metric I had, impression.

0:16 Cut the bullspend. See revenue, not just reach.

0:19 LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks.

0:23 Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $25 credit.

0:27 Go to linkedin.com/campaign. Turn sick edition supply.

0:33 This is on Dante's Life, a manned podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.

0:45 All right, guys, we have made it. We are almost to the end of the year, so just like I told you,

0:49 in the last podcast, our last two podcasts of the year, are going to be the best books of 2019,

0:54 and the best podcasts of 2019. Make sure you come back here next week so you can get my

0:59 favorite podcasts from this entire year of all the different podcasts that are out there.

1:03 Make sure you come back for that. For today, we're going to look at the best books of 2019.

1:08 One thing, just to throw this out there, because I have to throw this out there every year,

1:11 these are not all books that were released in 2019. To be honest with you, as I'm thinking about it,

1:17 of the books I'm going to talk about today, there might only be one or two that were actually

1:20 released in this year. The thing about it is most book lists that you have at the end of the year,

1:25 the best of books of this particular year, they're books that are released in that year. However,

1:29 as with most guys, you're not reading 100, 150 books a year, most of you probably aren't doing

1:35 that again. I'm usually 20 to 30 books a year type person, right? And so there's going to be a

1:40 lot of books that you miss out on if you're only looking at the best books for that particular year.

1:44 And again, we have hundreds and hundreds of years worth of books at our disposal that we can just

1:48 hit a button and have on our phones or have on our laptops or have basically in our houses at any

1:54 point in time. So that's not what this list is. These are just the best books that I was able to

1:59 take in this year. And I got a bunch of different categories for them. So if you've listened to

2:03 this, this is actually our third best of books podcast. And every year, I kind of have different

2:08 categories of each. But at the very, very end, I will tell you what I think was the best book

2:12 that I read this year. And that is the book that I want to make sure that all of you guys read

2:16 at some point. Okay. And so for me, as I've tried to tell you guys a lot is I'm not a great reader.

2:21 Okay. Now some of you guys, you can sit down, you can read an entire book in an evening, you know,

2:25 like if your wife's gone or if the kids are out doing some sort of activity, you can just sit down

2:29 and read an entire book. That's not how I do it. At best, I'm a one chapter and evening type person.

2:34 And you know, I like books with shorter chapters. So I can kind of like get to the end and feel that,

2:38 you know, God, yeah, I got there. We made it. And then there's those other books that have like

2:42 100 page chapters and it's like, okay, it's kind of like a slog to get through those things. But

2:46 one thing that's interesting about this year is about halfway through the year I started kind of

2:49 reevaluating how I read and reevaluating why I read certain books and why I don't read certain

2:55 other ones. And I kind of made a decision I had an epiphany that there have been a lot of books

3:00 that I've read over the last several years that I knew they were crap about a third of the way in

3:04 maybe even before that. But I couldn't not finish them because I had my books, you know, goal for

3:11 the year, right? So oh, my goal is to read 25 books. And you know, if I put this book down,

3:15 just a third of the way through, dang, and I'm going to have to, you know, start another book that

3:18 kind of puts me behind. And so what I've kind of made the decision of is that I'm not going to do

3:23 that anymore. Okay. So in the future years, and I'll talk a little bit more about this on the

3:27 first podcast of next year in terms of goal setting and things like that. But in future years, I'm

3:31 going to set a smaller goal in terms of the amount of books that I want to read. But I actually want

3:36 to read them at kind of a higher clip. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of books that are

3:40 longer or maybe more dense. But again, I'm just trying to get to the end of the year and make sure

3:44 I hit my books, reading, you know, goals and all those different things. And so I will just kind of

3:49 go through books and not reread parts, even if I don't understand them, just because I need to

3:52 finish. And then there are books that are awful that I will just find okay. And then it takes me

3:57 another two, three weeks, maybe even a month or two to finish a particular book. I'm not going to do

4:02 that anymore. So that's just a little something that I'm going to try and do. That's one thing that

4:06 I want to kind of get y'all's feedback on like when you read, what are the ways that you do it is

4:09 is easy for you, all those different things. But again, like I said, we'll get more into that

4:12 here next year. So today, we're going to be talking about 10 different books, okay? And they're all

4:17 in different categories. They're not in any particular order, except at the end, I'm going to give you

4:21 my most disappointing book that I read in 2019. And then again, the best book of 2019. So make

4:28 sure that you hang with me to the end. And without further ado, let's get into the first book I want

4:33 to talk to you about. And this book is the most interesting book, the most interesting book that

4:38 I read in 2019. And that is ego is the enemy by Ryan holiday ego is the enemy. And so just kind of

4:46 give you an idea on each one of these books, I'm going to kind of give you a description. And I'm

4:49 usually just taking the description right off of the the author's website or Amazon or something

4:53 like that. I'm going to kind of give you the idea as to why I think it is that particular category.

4:57 So why is it the most interesting? My favorite quote from the book, those things, and I'll make

5:02 sure I give you the links to everything at the end. So back to ego is the enemy by Ryan holiday. I'm

5:06 going to go ahead and read the description to you here. Many of us insist the main impediment to a

5:10 full successful life is the outside world. In fact, the most common enemy lies within our ego. Early

5:17 in our careers, it impedes learning and the cults of a cultivation of talent with success. It can

5:22 blind us to our faults. And so future problems, in failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery

5:28 more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back. Ego is the enemy draws on a vast array of stories

5:34 and examples from literature philosophy to history. We meet fascinating figures such as George Marshall,

5:40 Jackie Robinson, Catherine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who all reach the highest

5:46 levels of power and success by conquering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be

5:51 ours as well. In an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless

5:56 self-promotion, the battle against ego must be fought on many fronts. Armed with the lessons in

6:01 this book as holiday rights, you will be less invested in the story you tell about your own

6:06 specialness. And as a result, you will be liberated to accomplish the world changing work you've set

6:10 out to achieve. Okay, so that's the description there. The reason why I think it's the most

6:14 interesting book I read this year is because of what it said right there in the little intro in the

6:18 little summary there. It's got a lot of stories in there. There's a lot of anecdotes. And so if

6:23 you're one of those people that doesn't necessarily like to read through a big long novel or story,

6:27 because you're having to follow all these different nuances and different plot angles and characters

6:31 and all that. Okay, well, this is a book that has a lot of nugget sized takeaways. And that's why

6:37 it's interesting because what this book can do for you, it's it's on a very long read, 250 pages,

6:42 300 pages, something like that. But what this book can do for you is it can send you down a rabbit

6:46 hole that will improve you. Okay, so it could be a rabbit hole. So he mentioned, you know,

6:51 George Marshall. So maybe you're like, Oh, I'm not as familiar with George Marshall. Well, now

6:54 maybe you're reading books about George Marshall. Now maybe you're reading about certain things

6:58 that happened in his life. And so those are things that I think are really, really awesome in these

7:03 types of books is that you have these different takeaways. Okay, now I'm going to do my favorite

7:06 quote here from this book. So this was actually a story where he was talking about John Boyd.

7:10 And that is not a name that you should probably know, but John Boyd is a fighter pilot. Okay,

7:14 and he's actually considered by a lot of people to be one of the better fighter pilots, but

7:18 it's his impact that he's had on future pilots and future soldiers, or, you know, younger soldiers

7:24 or something like that that have kind of made him famous in the military world. So I want to go

7:28 ahead and read this quote from from this. It's just a little story about John Boyd. The speech

7:33 Boyd gave to a protege in 1973 makes this clear, sensing what he knew to be a critical

7:38 inflection point in the life of a young officer, Boyd called him in for a meeting. Like many

7:43 high achievers, the soldier was insecure and impressionable. He wanted to be promoted and he

7:47 wanted to do well. He was a leaf that could be blown in any direction that and Boyd knew it.

7:52 So he heard a speech that day that Boyd would give again and again until it became a tradition

7:57 and a rite of passage for a generation of transformative military leaders.

8:01 Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road. Boyd said to him, and you're going to have

8:06 to make a decision about which direction you want to go. Using his hands to illustrate,

8:11 Boyd marked off these two directions. If you go that way, you can be somebody.

8:16 You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends,

8:20 but you will be a member of a club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.

8:24 Then Boyd paused to make the alternative clear or he said, you can go that way and you can do

8:32 something, something for your country and your Air Force and yourself. If you decide you want to

8:38 do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly

8:43 will not be the favorite of your superiors, but you won't have to compromise yourself. You will

8:48 be a true friend and to yourself and your work might make a difference to be somebody or to do

8:55 something. In life, there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision.

9:00 And then Boyd concluded with words that would guide the young man in many of his peers for the

9:05 rest of their lives to be or to do which way will you go. All right guys, most interesting book I

9:12 read in 2019, ego is the enemy. Next book here, the most applicable book, the most applicable book,

9:19 and that is building a story brand, clarify your message so customers will listen by Donald Miller.

9:25 Okay, so let me read the description here. Donald Miller's story brand process is a proven solution

9:31 to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their businesses. This revolutionary method

9:36 for connecting with customers provides listeners with the ultimate competitive advantage,

9:40 revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their

9:44 products, ideas or services. Building a story brand does this by teaching listeners the seven

9:50 universal story points all humans respond to the real reason customers make purchases,

9:55 how to simplify a brand message so people understand it, and how to create the most

9:59 effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are a marketing

10:04 director of a multi-billion dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running

10:08 for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, building a story brand will forever transform the

10:12 way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

10:17 So the reason why I think this is the most applicable is because it's useful in all contexts.

10:23 This book is incredibly useful. I've suggested this book to so many different people and a

10:28 myriad of different contexts. And the interesting thing about that is it becomes a reference book

10:32 for a lot of people. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in a meeting with a guy that I'd suggested

10:36 this book to six, seven months ago, something like that. And he literally pulled it out in the middle

10:40 of a meeting to make reference to it because it gives you an idea about what messaging is.

10:44 And so I have got two quotes for you that are kind of my favorite quotes because this kind of gives

10:48 you a summary of what the book is like. So the first is a short one. It's actually just a title

10:52 of a section in the book. It's called story brand principle number one. The customer is the hero,

10:57 not your brand. And we repeat that the customer is the hero, not your brand with most brands out

11:04 there's guy out there guys. And you know this to be true. The brand is the hero. The product is the

11:10 hero. The service is the hero. They're the thing that's going to make everything great. But with

11:14 most stories, that's not who that's not who we align with. We don't think about that in terms of

11:19 the hero being somebody else. We think about ourselves as the hero. And so as a consumer,

11:24 we are the hero, right? In the story as it were, right? But what the brand needs to be,

11:29 what the product needs to be is the guide. And so the example that he uses is for all you Star Wars

11:33 nerds out there. It's you got Luke Skywalker. He's the hero. But the guide is Yoda. And so Luke

11:39 Skywalker is the consumer and Yoda is the product or service. Okay. And then I'm going to go in and

11:44 give you the kind of the story that they use. And so this is kind of what they break down. So here's

11:49 another quote from here. Here is nearly every story you see or hear in a nutshell, a character

11:54 who wants something encounters a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair,

12:00 a guide steps into their lives, gives them a plan and calls them to action. That action

12:06 helps them avoid failure and ends in a success. Okay. So again, guys, I've used this book in a

12:12 myriad of contexts, I've helped some organizations kind of get their stuff together. I'm going to

12:16 be using some of the elements of story brand and some of the other things that Donald Miller and

12:20 his crew do to shift some things with undaunted life. So that'll be coming before too long just

12:25 in terms of the messaging and how we get that out to people. So again, the most applicable book

12:29 that I read in 2019 is building a story brand. All right. Next book here, the most challenging book

12:36 that I read in 2019, the most challenging. And that is the right side of history, how reason and

12:41 moral purpose made the West great by Ben Shapiro. Okay. So let me give you the description here.

12:46 In 2016, New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of California,

12:52 Berkeley, hundreds of police officers were required to protect his speech. What was so frightening

12:56 about Shapiro? He came to argue that Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose

13:02 and ideas that we have let grievances replace our sense of community and political expediency

13:07 limit our individual rights that we are teaching our kids that their emotions matter more than

13:13 rational debate and that the only meeting in life is arbitrary and subjective. As a society,

13:18 we are forgetting that almost everything great that has ever happened in the history happened

13:22 because of people who believed in both Judeo-Christian values and in the Greek-born power of reason.

13:27 In the right side of history, Shapiro sprints through more than 3,500 years, dozens of philosophers

13:33 and the thicket of modern politics to show how our freedoms are built upon the twin notions

13:38 that every human being is made in God's image and that human beings were created with reason

13:42 capable of exploring God's world. We can thank these values for their birth of science,

13:46 the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens

13:52 built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty

13:58 and gave billions more spiritual purpose. Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated

14:03 the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty and gave billions more spiritual

14:09 purpose. Yet we are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law,

14:13 watching our civilization collapse into an age-old tribalism, individualistic hedonism

14:18 and moral subjectivism. We believe we can satisfy ourselves with intersectionality,

14:22 scientific materialism, progressive politics, authoritarian governance or nationalistic solidarity.

14:28 We can't. The West is special and in the right side of history,

14:32 Ben Shapiro bravely explains how we have lost sight of the moral purpose that drives each of

14:37 us to be better, the sacred duty to work together for the greater good. So guys, and again, I said

14:42 one of those sentences in there for effect. I said it twice in a row, the thing about this book,

14:47 and guys, if you're, if this all sounds familiar, episode 68 of this podcast, go back and listen to

14:52 that because I spend, I think, 45 minutes talking just about this book because Ben Shapiro's team

14:56 sent me a copy of the book and advanced copy so that I could get it to you guys. Go listen to that

15:00 because I go into way more, way more detail. But why this is the most challenging book that I read

15:05 in 2019 is because it's incredibly dense. And I talked about that in episode 68, but there's a lot

15:11 of big ideas in this very short book. And the book moves at breakneck pace, right? And so it's not a

15:19 very long book, but the concepts are so big. And so I was actually expecting the book to be much

15:25 larger whenever it came in. And so I was excited initially because I was like, Oh, it's just this

15:29 little book. It's going to be no big deal. I'll just fly right through this thing. Man. And the

15:33 thing is, is it's easy to follow, but it's so dense. And so this is maybe around the time where I was

15:39 thinking to myself, like, man, that section didn't really land with me. I really should go back and

15:43 reread that. But I got to keep going, right? That may have been when that idea kind of surfaced for

15:47 me that that would kind of help me kind of change my philosophy in terms of how I read. But again,

15:52 the book is very, very dense. It is a challenging book, but it's an accessible book at the same time.

15:57 So I've got a couple of quotes from this that I feel like are interesting. One is just the very

16:01 intro of the book. And it's very quick. It's just this. This book is about two mysteries. The first

16:07 mystery. Why are things so good? The second mystery? Why are we blowing it? Again, I said about this

16:14 in episode 68. I think that was one of the more poignant beginnings of a book that I've ever seen

16:18 in my entire life. Because again, like you could sum up the entire book and basically those two

16:22 questions. Why are things so good? And why are we blowing it? So I thought that that was very,

16:26 very good. But later on in the book, there was this short quote, so I'm going to give it to you here.

16:29 "Rights and duties, according to the founders, were simply two sides of the same coin. While some

16:35 critics of the founders have claimed that they ignore duties on behalf of rights, thereby setting

16:39 the course for societal disintegration, that's a misreading of the founding philosophy. As George

16:44 Washington states in his first inaugural address, the foundation of our national policy will be laid

16:50 in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. There exists in the economy and of course

16:56 of nature, an insoluble union between virtue and happiness." Again, guys, this book had so many

17:03 huge concepts, a lot of great things. If you have not read this book yet, you certainly need to do

17:07 that again. The most challenging book that I read in 2019, the right side of history. Now,

17:12 the next one, the best short read of the year, the best short read, and that is The Old Man and the

17:17 Sea by Ernst Hemingway. Okay, so a short description here, "The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's

17:23 most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is a story of an old

17:28 Cuban fisherman down on his luck and his supreme ordeal, a relentless agonizing battle with a giant

17:34 Marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here, Hemingway recasts in strikingly contemporary style,

17:40 the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat of personal triumph, one from loss.

17:45 Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary

17:51 world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. So,

17:57 the thing is, guys, I had not read any Hemingway before this, okay? I don't know why. I have no

18:03 idea why I didn't get any of that in high school and certainly not in college, but it's one of

18:07 those things that you know that name and it's such a giant name and you know some of the stories and

18:12 things like that, but I just had never really had the time to get into anything, okay? But a couple

18:17 of years ago, I picked up a copy of The Old Man and the Sea because the buddy of mine, Jordan,

18:21 suggested it to me and he's a well-read guy and he's got a lot of different things, but the thing

18:26 about Jordan is he's way more into fiction than I am. As I've told you guys, I think that is the

18:30 only fiction book that I've read this year out of the 2025 I'll end up reading. That's the only one.

18:35 I just don't enjoy fiction. It's harder for me to follow. It just kind of is what it is. But the

18:39 reason why I think this is the best short read is because I was absolutely entranced by this book.

18:43 I was, I was, you know, like I told you, it's hard for me sometimes to read books that have longer

18:49 chapters. It's hard for me to be engaged. I fall asleep, things like that. But the copy of this book

18:54 that I had, I don't know if it's the same with every copy, it was just one long thing. There

18:59 weren't chapters, right? There was no separation of any of the sections. And so when I realized that,

19:04 I was like, oh, no, this is going to be horrific for me. I'm not going to have any chance of hanging

19:09 on and, you know, making sure to keep all this stuff straight. And I didn't have that issue.

19:13 Like, this was an incredibly, incredibly entertaining book and it was very exciting.

19:20 And you felt like the thing about it, I guess that most people look at is you feel like you're

19:24 in the boat with this guy, with this fisherman, you feel his pain. But the coolest thing,

19:27 because I don't have a favorite quote from here, because you know, you can't, there's not like

19:30 quotable stuff from this book necessarily. But the thing that I like the most about this book

19:34 is that it was a story of resilience. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you guys for any of

19:38 you guys that haven't read a 70 year old book. But it's just one of those things that it was an

19:43 unbelievable story of resilience. And this guy and kind of his internal thoughts and the things that

19:49 he was going through as he was trying to nab this, this large Marlin after he'd kind of been down

19:53 on his luck and wasn't having really good luck getting, you know, fishing and getting any fish,

19:58 you know, his relationship that he had with, with a young man that that lived in his community.

20:02 And those things were really, really important. They had a lot of undercurrents and undertones

20:06 within the story. But again, it's a quick read. I don't know. I can't remember how long it is.

20:09 Again, I read digital and so the page numbers are all funky and wonky. But again, it's a tremendous

20:14 story if you haven't read it yet. So guys, best short read I did of 2019, the old man in the seat.

20:19 Now, next book is the most useful book that I read in 2019. And that is Tactics, a game plan

20:26 for discussing your Christian convictions by Greg Kogel. So here's a description here.

20:30 In a world increasingly indifferent to Christian truth, followers of Christ need to be equipped

20:35 to communicate with those who do not speak their language or accept their source of authority.

20:40 In tactics, the 10th anniversary edition, which was just released here not that long ago,

20:44 Greg Kogel demonstrates how to artfully regain control of conversations,

20:47 keeping them moving forward in constructive ways through thoughtful diplomacy.

20:51 You'll learn how to stop challengers in their tracks and how to turn the tables on questions

20:55 or provocative statements. Most important, you'll learn how to get people to think about Jesus.

21:01 Tactics provides the game plan for communicating the compelling truth about Christianity with

21:05 confidence and grace. Drawing on extensive experience defending Christianity in the public square,

21:11 Kogel shows reader how to initiate conversations effortlessly, present the truth clearly, cleverly

21:16 and persuasively, graciously and effectively expose faulty thinking, skillfully manage the

21:22 details of dialogue and maintain an engaging disarming style, even under attack. So this is

21:27 a book that my Sunday night crew read and it's a group of guys that would mainly consider themselves

21:32 to be Christians. But the reason why I thought it was the most useful is there are some apologetics

21:37 books that are a little bit too, too heady. You know, if you're having a discussion with somebody

21:41 that maybe is a non-Christian or a non-theist or someone that doesn't believe that the bible is,

21:46 you know, real, it's just a book of myths or something like that, some apologetics books are

21:50 going to be so far over your head and thus you're not going to be able to give some of that content

21:54 to those other people. Okay. But the reason why this book is so useful is because it has unbelievably

21:59 practical ways of discussing things with people. And so one thing that was interesting is I did

22:04 read this book probably about five or six years ago and I reread it this year. And the cool thing

22:07 about it is is there are things that I've been employing even on this podcast, but certainly in

22:12 conversations, dyadic conversations with people that were, you know, have divergent opinions from

22:17 mine and for divergent worldviews. And I use a lot of these tactics. And so I don't know if some of

22:22 those just came out naturally or if I've, you know, subconsciously put those into practice since I

22:27 read this book, you know, so long ago, but it's one of those things that it's helped me to be able to

22:32 get to the positive end of these conversations because sometimes whenever people get into conversations

22:36 with people that have differing opinions than them, they think it's bad if they win, that they think

22:41 it's bad if they, they prove the point or get the best point across. And I feel, especially with

22:47 Christians, they feel like they shouldn't, they feel like if they win a conversation with somebody

22:51 that they've somehow dominated them, that they somehow, you know, put them to heal or something like

22:55 that. And that's just not necessarily the case. There's just a lot of times where us, especially

22:59 as Christians, especially as for the most part, a masculine churchmen, we basically go into these

23:04 conversations and it's just like, well, agree to disagree. Like, and we just kind of think that's

23:08 okay. But in a lot of these situations, when we get pushed, we should push back. And when you

23:15 think of, you know, you know, Peter and the apostle Paul and William Farrell and people like that from

23:20 church history and these are people that when they were pushed, they push back. Now they didn't

23:25 push back just out of spite or to prove a point or law and I'm a bigger man than that. That's not

23:30 really what they did, right? It was a much different tact that they took, but they were going to

23:35 push back. And this book does a fantastic job of showing you how to do that. So I've got three quotes

23:40 here that I wanted to pull out for you, because there's a lot of good useful things, but some of

23:43 them come in stories. And so I just went to kind of pull out a couple of tidbits here. So here's one,

23:48 but where when rhetoric becomes a substitute for substance, you always know that a person has a

23:53 weak position when he tries to accomplish with the clever use of words, what arguments cannot

23:58 alone do. And so the thing is interesting about all of this is that a lot of times when you get

24:03 into these discussions with people, especially if you get into a discussion with somebody that is

24:07 more high minded, maybe an intellectual or something like that. It's one of those things that

24:14 they will try to kind of overwhelm you with vocabulary. I guess it took me a long time to get there.

24:19 Maybe I need work on my vocabulary, but they try to overwhelm me with that. But again, if they're

24:23 trying to use the flowery words to do you, it's a good hint that they probably have a really crappy

24:28 position. Here's another little quote here. Simply put, never make a statement, at least at first,

24:34 when a question will do the job. And so one of the biggest things, one of the biggest things

24:39 that I can say to most people is whenever you're in an argument with somebody, your tendency is

24:43 going to be to want to jump right back in. Even early on, you're not going to try to define terms,

24:49 you're not going to try to make sure that you're on the same page, not even to try to make sure that

24:51 you're arguing about the same thing. You just want to hop back in. Well, what about this situation?

24:55 What about that? And you might throw out three or four different new things that the other person

25:00 has to contend with. And it doesn't actually keep the conversation going, right? So one of the

25:04 greatest things that you can do is when you ask a question, not only does it show that you're

25:07 genuinely interested, if you ask a good question that is based off the last thing that they said,

25:12 it shows that you're listening. It shows that you're actually engaged in the conversation. And that

25:16 is something that I've used to a tremendous degree in sales and relationships and those types of

25:21 discussions. Okay. Last little quote I wanted to give you from this book was this, believing in

25:26 leprechauns is irrational. Believing in God by contrast is like believing in atoms. The process

25:33 is exactly the same. You follow the evidence of what you can see to conclude the existence of

25:38 something you cannot see. The effect needs a cause adequate to explain it. Okay. So that is

25:43 something that I found was very interesting. There's a lot of different quotes that are like that

25:46 that are incredibly practical, things that you can actually put into use. And that is why that

25:50 the most useful book that I read in 2019 is tactics. All right, guys, the next book is this one,

25:56 the most impactful book that I read in 2019. And that is drumroll, please, I finally did it.

26:02 The Gulag Archipelago. Okay. So this is by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. So let me read the short

26:06 description here. That was from Amazon. The best nonfiction book of the 20th century,

26:11 according to time magazine, volume one of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn chilling

26:16 report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world, the vast bureaucracy of

26:21 secret police that haunted Soviet society. And it features a new forward by Ann Applebaum.

26:26 Volume two of the Nobel Peace Prize winners towering masterpiece, the story of Solzhenitsyn's

26:31 entrance into the Soviet prison camps, where he would remain for nearly a decade. Volume three

26:36 of the Nobel Peace Prize, no Nobel prize winners towering masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn moving account

26:41 of the resistance within the Soviet labor camps and his own release after eight years. After serving

26:46 as a decorated captain in the Soviet army during World War two, Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1918 to 2008

26:52 was sentenced to prison for eight years for criticizing Stalin and the Soviet government in private

26:56 letters. Solzhenitsyn vaulted from unknown school teacher to internationally famous writer in 1962

27:01 with the publication of his novella, One Day in the Life of a Von D's Snovitch, Dennis Sovitch.

27:07 There you go. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1968. The writers increasingly

27:12 vocal opposition to the regime resulted in another arrest, a charge of treason and the expulsion

27:17 from the USSR in 1974, the year the Gulag Archipelago, his epic history of the Soviet prison system

27:23 first appeared in the West. And then there's a couple of quotes here from Jordan Peterson and

27:28 one from Ann Applebaum. The thing about this book is if you haven't heard about this book,

27:32 it's because either you haven't been paying attention. You don't know Jordan Peterson has any of those

27:35 types of things. The reason why it's the most impactful book is because it gives you a deep

27:40 dive and look behind the curtain of communism and of parts of socialism. And when when the government

27:48 is given this overwhelming amount of control and it's controlled by people that are operating on an

27:53 atheistic worldview, kind of what happens. Okay. And here's the thing, I read the abridged version

27:57 and the abridged version was still like a thousand pages long. Okay. So if you read the whole thing,

28:01 it's thousands and thousands and thousands of pages. And guys, the stories are horrific.

28:06 Like it's some of the worst stuff that you can imagine. Again, whenever, whenever it was said that,

28:12 you know, God, God was dead. It was wondering what would the 20th century look like? This is one of

28:16 the things that happened in the 20th century is the archipelago, the labor camps, the prison camps

28:21 that they had in the Soviet Union. And if you're not familiar with what happened then, it's kind of

28:26 one of those things that leads directly to modern people, especially young kids, maybe college age

28:30 kids that are they kind of think communism's okay. They think socialism is okay. They think,

28:34 you know, government that's bigger and has more power and more say, even on morality and things

28:39 like that. This is the only way they could get to that ideas if they don't know about history like

28:44 this. Okay. Now, this isn't one of those books that I can necessarily say, yeah, I have your 15

28:48 year old read this because it's a really, really difficult book. And again, it's forever long,

28:52 it'll take them two years to read it or something like that. But the thing about it is, it's an

28:56 incredibly important book. And so possibly it's something that you could read yourself and distill

29:01 down and teach some of those lessons to your children. Because here's the thing, a lot of their public

29:04 school teachers, they actually believe this nonsense. They believe in, you know, communist

29:09 things from the communist manifesto. Marxism doesn't seem that crazy to them.

29:12 Socialistic tendencies is kind of where they would lean. And again, I'm being pejorative and

29:16 talking about all of them. But at the same time, these are things that the kids aren't learning

29:20 anywhere else. Okay. Unless they're, they're following some more conservative YouTube channels

29:26 or things like that, or listening to podcasts or something like that, they may not even get

29:29 this information. You know, and I'm not thinking that, you know, in the public schools are all

29:32 sudden going to teach that Hitler was just an okay guy that made some mistakes. Like, I think

29:36 we're going to be okay with that. But it's just like, we're, they're missing out on the fact,

29:40 but like, why were these people evil? And how were they even capable of doing the horrible things

29:44 that they did? Right. So again, guys, how do you pull out a favorite quote from a horribly dark

29:49 book book that's, you know, thousands of pages long. But there was one story that I thought was

29:53 interesting that I wanted to share with you guys. So here's a short quick story from that. And again,

29:57 my Russians not great. So I think there's a couple of Russian names in there. So just forgive me,

30:00 in advance. So here we go. You know, and actually we're just going to skip to the meat of the story.

30:04 So this is a story about these interrogators that were basically in the face of this old woman.

30:09 They were trying to get this old woman to give, give them information about this guy that had

30:12 come through the area that had stayed at her house in Moscow, blah, blah, blah, blah. So

30:16 let's get into the quote here. So here we go. They shook their fist in the little old woman's

30:19 face. And she replied, there is nothing you can do with me, even if you cut me into pieces. After all,

30:25 you are afraid of your bosses, and you are afraid of each other, and you are even afraid of killing

30:30 me. But I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute. So I

30:37 thought that was a cool story because there's so much depravity and there's so many negative

30:41 things that happened to the people that were, I guess you could say enslaved but imprisoned during

30:45 this time. But this woman was a gangster. And so I don't know where she got this, but she's Russian

30:49 and it just kind of is what it is. But again, guys, it's an incredibly difficult book, but it'll leave

30:53 a lasting imprint on you. There's just no way it can. You can look through the lens of a lot of

30:59 things that happen in this book and apply that to what we're seeing today, even in modern culture.

31:02 Here what we see with some of the things that are being said by the modern left in American culture,

31:06 or in the UK or things like that. So very, very impactful book. In fact, it's the most impactful

31:10 book that I read in 2019, the Gulag Archipelago. All right, the next book is one that I'm actually

31:16 to be, to be honest, I'm in the middle of reading it, but it is the most entertaining book that I've

31:22 read in 2019. And by the time you get this podcast, I will have likely finished this book, but it's

31:27 Empire of the Summer Moon, Quanna Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful

31:32 Indian tribe in American, in American history by SC Gwen. So if any of that sounds familiar,

31:38 it's probably because you listened to the Joe Rogan podcast. And this is a book that he has

31:41 mentioned on his podcast three or four times in the last several weeks. And then also he actually had

31:45 SC Gwen on his podcast this week to specifically talk about this book. So this is a guy that's,

31:50 yeah, I think from Connecticut, he's from the Northeast, but he became incredibly enamored

31:54 with things that were happening in the Old West and things like that. And before I get too much

32:00 further, I need to go ahead and read you the description for the book that was on Amazon.

32:03 Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall

32:09 of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the

32:14 most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West, the epic saga of the pioneer woman

32:19 Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed blood son, Quanna, who became the last and greatest chief of the

32:24 Comanches. Although listeners may be more familiar with the names Apache and Sue, it was in fact the

32:29 legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West

32:34 opened up. They were so masterful of war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they

32:39 stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion Westward

32:44 from Louisiana. While settlers arriving in Texas from the Eastern United States were surprised to

32:49 find the frontier being rolled backwards by Comanches and sensed by the invasion of their tribal lands.

32:55 So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for

32:59 the advent of the new weapons specifically designed to fight them, the six gun. The war with the

33:04 Comanches lasted four decades in effect holding up the development of the new American nation.

33:09 Gwen's exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism,

33:14 the Civil War, the destruction of the Buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads.

33:18 A historic feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. So here's the

33:23 thing guys is I'm not big on a lot of history books because some history books are incredibly

33:27 they're supposed to be enthralling and thrilling but they're just not. But the coolest thing about

33:32 this book and why I think it's the most entertaining is because this happened in like the area where I

33:36 grew up. And so the Comanche area, Comanche area was basically southwest Oklahoma, northwest Texas,

33:44 you know, northeast New Mexico and southeast Colorado kind of this big area. And again,

33:49 like I said in there, these people held up the French and the Mexicans and the Spanish

33:55 and the Americans for hundreds of years. And the thing about the Comanches is these weren't huge

34:00 Indians. These were, you know, fairly small people. The horses that they rode weren't especially,

34:05 you know, grand steeds that you would see, you know, some of the English generals and people rolling

34:09 around in those types of things. But the thing about this book is it gets, it delves into a lot

34:14 of different topics about what was happening. This isn't like, you know, a timeline narrative

34:18 necessarily every chapter kind of goes into something else. But every single thing that they

34:23 talk about is ridiculously entertaining and interesting. Okay. So when you have Cynthia Ann Parker,

34:28 if you don't know her story, she was kidnapped as a young girl from the Parker family because her

34:32 family basically made a homestead out way past civilization and the Indians came, the Comanches

34:39 came in and they killed a bunch of people. They also kidnapped some of the young kids. And they

34:43 live with them for a while, but then, you know, people basically went back and re kidnapped her

34:47 and tried to get her back into American, you know, Western society, but she wanted to kind of go

34:52 back to the Comanches. And the whole thing there, you have Kuana Parker, he's on the cover of this

34:56 book and everything about him. When he talked about how Colt designed this five shot revolving

35:02 cylinder pistol or revolver, and then he basically also talked about how he created the six gun,

35:08 that firearm that basically that was literally how the West was one was because of the invention of

35:12 this. Everything is super, super interesting. And like I said, I'm about halfway through this

35:17 book right now. And it's already the most entertaining book that I've read this year.

35:20 Okay, it is just absolutely incredible. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. You might be

35:25 thinking, why isn't this the best book that you would say for this year? And the thing about it

35:29 is guys is if I had finished this by the time that I read this podcast, it may have been the best book

35:33 that I got for this year. So I cannot recommend this book highly enough. And again, there's not

35:37 like a bunch of quotes because this isn't like a self-help book, it's a historical book. But I did

35:41 think that this was an incredibly important paragraph. Because it's interesting when you when you hear

35:46 about like Columbus Day or a dangerous people's day or Thanksgiving, and you hear people talk about

35:50 the Native Americans, it seems like there are some people that have a kind of a disjointed view of

35:54 what the American Indians were doing before we settled and before we got here. And what I'm about

35:59 to say is in no way saying that any of the atrocities that happened from the settlers to the Indians

36:04 were, you know, things that we should just ignore. And again, I'm Choctaw Indian myself. I have Choctaw

36:09 Indian blood running through my veins as we speak. But I was just surprised to see this paragraph in

36:14 a book from a guy that I think is very clearly of the left. But I just want to go ahead and read

36:17 this to you here. Thus, some chroniclers ignore the brutal side of Indian life altogether. Others,

36:23 particularly historians who suggest that before white men arrive, Indian to Indian warfare was a

36:28 relatively bloodless affair involving a minimum of bloodshed, deny it altogether. But certain facts

36:33 are inescapable. American Indians were warlike by nature, and they were warlike for centuries

36:38 before Columbus stumbled upon them. They fought over hunting grounds, to be sure, but they also

36:43 made a good deal of brutal and bloody war that was completely unnecessary. The Comanche's relentless

36:48 and never ending pursuit of the hapless Tonkowas was a good example of this. As was their harassment

36:53 of Apaches long after they had been driven from the Buffalo grounds, such behavior was common to

36:58 all Indians in the Americas. Okay. So again, I just that was that was a paragraph that just stood

37:03 out to me because when you think about what is actually going on at this time, even before the

37:08 settlers come in, these were not a group of people that were just sitting around in their TPs and

37:13 just kind of hanging out and like, Oh, you know, going over to other tribes and saying, Yeah, you

37:16 can hunt here for a while, no big deal. It was a very brutal time period for a lot of people. This

37:22 is a, you know, a group of people, no matter what tribe you were talking about, they had kind of

37:28 deep religious beliefs, but they were all kind of pagan beliefs about the land and about the sun

37:32 and water and dirt and all those types of things. These are not people that had any type of a Judeo

37:36 Christian ethic. And it was a very interesting thing to hear him talk about that in that way.

37:41 But again, guys, this this book has been incredibly fun. There's a lot of books that I've read where

37:46 it's just like, yeah, I take two, three days, maybe four or five days away from it because it's just

37:50 not that interesting. But then as a sense of duty, I'll go in and finish that book. But for me,

37:54 I literally can't wait to get to bed in the evenings, you know, when my wife falls asleep. And then

37:58 it's like, okay, hey, it's time to read another chapter of this book. So again, the most entertaining

38:02 book that I've read of 2019 Empire of the Summer Moon. Okay, guys, just a few books left here.

38:07 This one is the best reread of 2019. And that is Wild at Heart discovering the secret of a man's

38:13 soul. And that's by John Eldred. So here's the description of a book that I'm sure all of you

38:17 read it to this point, but I'll give it to you anyway. Every man was once a boy. And every little

38:21 boy has dreams, big dreams, dreams of being the hero, of beating the bad guys, of doing daring

38:27 feats and rescuing the damsel in distress. Every little girl has dreams to, of being rescued by

38:32 her prince and swept up into a great adventure, knowing that she is the beauty. But what happens

38:38 to those dreams when we grow up, walk into most churches, have a look around and ask yourself,

38:42 what is a Christian man? Without listening to what is said, look at what you find there. Most

38:48 Christian men are bored. And Wild at Heart, John Eldred invites men to recover their masculine heart

38:54 defined in the image of a passionate God. And he invites women to discover the secret of a man's

38:58 soul and to delight in the strength and wildness men were created to offer. So the reason why this

39:03 is the best reread is because this is a book that I was not certain that I would never read again,

39:08 but it was a book that I never thought I would need to read again. Okay. So, but this was brought

39:12 up in our Sunday night crew. And we were going to be moving on to another book. And we thought

39:15 we were going to be moving on to Empire of the Summer Moon. And then we kind of took a left

39:18 turn and it was like, okay, we're going to read Wild at Heart. And I remember initially being like,

39:22 wow, the heart, because I really liked the book. I remember really liking it. And you know,

39:26 I helped a ministry in this area start. I helped found a ministry based on the teachings of John

39:31 Eldred from Wild at Heart. It's like, I don't need to reread this book. I could probably rewrite it

39:35 myself. But like, you know, verbatim, those types of things. So I was like, ah, fine, whatever.

39:40 I'm just, I won't make a stink about it. I'll just go ahead and read this book. And the thing

39:43 about it was is I forgot a ton. I forgot a ton of the stuff from the book. I could still give you

39:48 most of the main points, but it's all the different nuanced points that I was able to

39:52 kind of delve into more deeply this time because I knew all the signposts already. And that was the

39:57 thing is it was just a book that is timeless. I mean, the book's almost 20 years old. But the

40:02 things that he's talking about in this book, especially the struggles of modern Christian men

40:05 in the modern Christian church, they haven't gone away. Surprise, surprise. I mean, the church

40:09 hasn't all the sudden had a big emphasis on making sure that they don't produce emasculated men that

40:15 are morons. Like that they haven't made this big change. It's still bad. If anything, it's gotten

40:20 worse, right? And the thing about it is this is the seminal John Eldred's work. John Eldred's is

40:24 written a dozen books, maybe more than that. But at this point, none of them have had the impact

40:28 of Wild at Heart. It is, and I've said this before, and some people for whatever reason they think I

40:33 hate on John Eldred and I just don't know where they get that because I think Wild at Heart is the

40:36 most important men's ministry book ever written. Like I can't think of another one off the top of my

40:42 head that is specifically for men for Christian men. That is better than this book. Like there's

40:48 there's other ones that are good, but they're just not better than this. So guys, there's a lot of

40:52 quotes that I could give you from this book. And so I'm just going to give you one here because I

40:55 thought it was the most poignant, especially for the guys in this audience. So here we go.

40:59 We don't need accountability groups. We need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside,

41:05 someone to watch our back. A young man just stopped me on the street to say, "I feel surrounded by

41:09 enemies and I'm all alone." The whole crisis in masculinity today has come because we no longer

41:16 have a warrior culture, a place for men to learn to fight like men. We don't need a meeting of

41:21 really nice guys. We need a gathering of really dangerous men. That's what we need. I think of

41:27 Henry 5th, the 5th of Agencourt, his army had been reduced to a small band of tired and weary men.

41:33 Many of them are wounded. They are outnumbered five to one, but Henry rallies his troops to

41:37 his side when he reminds them that they are not mercenaries, but a band of brothers. We few,

41:43 we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

41:48 And gentlemen in England, now a bed shall think themselves a curse. They are not here.

41:54 And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks. That fought with us. Yes,

42:00 we need men to whom we can bear our souls. But it isn't going to happen with a group of guys

42:05 you don't trust, who really aren't willing to go to battle with you. It's a long-standing truth

42:10 that there is never a more devoted group of men than those who have fought alongside one another,

42:15 the men of your squadron, the guys in your foxhole. It will never be a large group,

42:21 but we don't need a larger group. We need a band of brothers willing to shed blood with us.

42:26 So guys, if you go back a few podcasts away from this, when I talked about your foxhole,

42:29 again, John Eldridge didn't come up with a concept of the foxhole. Foxhole neither did I.

42:33 But that's the thing right there is most of us, if we're in a men's group, it's a really,

42:38 really calm group of dudes that meet on Wednesday mornings at iHop and just kind of talk about their

42:42 weeks. Sorry, that's not a band of brothers, no matter what you call it. And I know there are

42:48 groups of guys that get together and they kind of assign people to groups and they think that's a

42:51 band of brothers. It's like, that's not a band of brothers either. You were put in that group. You

42:55 didn't earn your way into that group. There was no pound of flesh. There was no sweat. There was

43:00 no dedication to get into that group. You didn't earn that group. And the thing about it is is

43:05 most guys aren't even looking for a group of dangerous men. They are just fine being in a group

43:09 of nice guys. And I tell people all the time, I was like, if the best thing that someone can say

43:13 about you is that you're a really nice guy, you're doing this wrong. And so again, best reread I did

43:18 of 2019 Wild at Heart. Now, here we go. Two books left. We got the most disappointing and the best

43:24 book of 2019, the most disappointing book. And this is going to shock a lot of you. But let me

43:31 explain. All right, let me explain the dichotomy of leadership by Jocko Willink and Lafe Babin.

43:38 So before I get into why I didn't like this book, let me go ahead and read the description to you.

43:43 With their first book, Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Lafe Babin set a new standard for

43:47 leadership, challenging readers to become better leaders, better followers, and better people in

43:51 both their professional and personal lives. Now, in the dichotomy of leadership, Jocko and Lafe

43:56 dive even deeper into the uncharted and complex waters of a concept first introduced in extreme

44:01 ownership, finding balance between the opposing forces that pull every leader in different directions.

44:06 Here, Willink and Babin get granular into the nuances that even successful leaders must navigate.

44:12 Mastering the dichotomy of leadership requires understanding when to lead and when to follow,

44:16 when to aggressively maneuver and when to pause and let things develop, when to detach and to let

44:21 the team run and when to give into the details and micromanage. In addition, every leader must

44:27 take extreme ownership of everything that impacts their mission, yet utilize decentralized command

44:31 by giving ownership to their team care deeply about their people and their individual success and

44:36 livelihoods, yet look out for the good and overall of the overall team and above all

44:40 accomplish the strategic mission. Exhibit the most important quality in a leader, humility,

44:44 but also be willing to speak up and push back against questionable decisions that could hurt

44:48 the team and the mission. With examples from the author's combat and training experiences in

44:52 the SEAL teams, and then a demonstration of how each lesson applies to the business world,

44:57 Willink and Babin clearly explain the dichotomy of leadership, skills that are mission critical

45:02 for any leader and any team to achieve their ultimate goal, victory. So, even after reading

45:08 that, you're thinking to yourself, Kyle, this sounds like it's right up your alley. This sounds

45:12 like it's right up my alley. But here's the deal. There's basically three things that I found very

45:18 disappointing about this book. Okay, the first thing is that I was expecting more. So I liked

45:23 extreme ownership. I thought the concepts were good, but there was something about extreme ownership

45:28 that just, I don't want to say it didn't sit well with me. I think that's a little bit too extreme,

45:32 but there were just certain things that I was like, yeah, okay, like I just kind of passed over it

45:35 like when they would say certain things. It just I was like, yeah, sure. But the most of the book was

45:40 really, really good. I like Jocko style. So who cares? I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go with it.

45:43 With dichotomy of leadership, I was expecting them to do more. I was expecting a little bit more.

45:49 This was basically a rewrite of extreme ownership. Okay. And that is kind of the second reason that

45:54 I was kind of disappointed in the book is because the reason they had to write this book in the first

45:58 place was because of gaping holes in the extreme ownership philosophy. I mean, and the thing about

46:04 it was is when Jocko used to do Q&A a lot more on his podcast, it would almost always be about

46:09 the concept of extreme ownership. It's like, well, hey, Jocko, you know, I did the extreme ownership

46:14 thing on this. And then it blew up in my face at work. And I lost my job. And what could I have

46:19 done differently? And the thing is, is in a lot of those answers, I don't, I wasn't really satisfied

46:25 with how Jocko would answer some of those questions, right? Maybe I'm not nuanced enough or high-minded

46:30 enough to kind of get what he was saying. But there was a lot of times I was like, yeah, that's

46:34 not going to work. Like, that's not going to work at home. That's that's certainly not going to work

46:37 at the office. Like, I don't know why you would suggest anyone do that. And the other thing about

46:41 this book that I found disappointing is that it was the same thing in every chapter. So there was a

46:47 military story, again, from either their time deployed or their time in training. And those were

46:51 normally very, very exciting stories. I liked all those. There was a description of the principle,

46:56 usually a short description of whatever principle they were talking about. And then there was an

47:00 an application to business story. But it got old. Like, I mean, because that's how extreme ownership

47:06 was. So that's why I say they just, and again, I'm not hating these guys, like they just wrote a

47:11 second best selling book off the heels of another successful best selling book. And it's like,

47:15 hey, you've got the formula, just keep doing it. They're like, they're kind of like the George

47:19 Strait of leadership books right now. It's like, George Strait wrote the same song,

47:24 like a thousand times over 40 years. And he's one of the biggest acts ever, because he found the

47:28 formula people like the formula they're going to continue to buy the results of that formula. So

47:33 let's just keep going. So they just wrote a part two, I guess. But again, a lot of the things in this

47:38 book, I don't feel like they add to extreme ownership. I feel like it proves that a lot of

47:42 things in extreme ownership just aren't that effective. And so here's the deal. It's the most

47:48 disappointing book that I read this year, like 100%. It's the most disappointing book that I read

47:52 in 2019. Part of that is because my expectations were so high, I was expecting to get a little bit

47:56 something better out of this book. But here's the thing, and this might be surprising to you as well.

48:01 I'm not going to say that you shouldn't read it, right? If you've listened to the last two years,

48:05 where I've done the best books of 2017 and 2018, those were books that I was like,

48:10 do not read this book like under no circumstances ever. Should you even touch this book? And that's

48:16 not what I'm going to say. If this book is on your mantle right now and you're about to read it,

48:20 go and read it. If it's in your to read list for next year, keep it on there. I don't care.

48:26 But just know that there are gaping holes even in this book, which could be by design, perhaps.

48:33 Maybe they're going to write a follow up to this, another dichotomy of leadership or just

48:37 something like that. But but again, I love almost everything that Jocko Willing does. And Lafe is,

48:42 you know, kind of, you know, in Jocko's shadow. But the same thing, I love what those guys do.

48:46 I love the things that they've done for the military, for this country, for jujitsu, for

48:52 business in general, I'm a big fan. I'm a huge, huge fan. Just last week, I suggested a Jocko

48:57 Willing video in the, in the show notes, right? That you should have your kids listen to. So I'm

49:01 definitely all in. But again, there are massive issues with this book. And I think it's okay to

49:06 point those things out. So the reason why they wrote this book was to, you know, kind of clear

49:10 up some of the problems from the first book, because when people finally let the dust settle on the

49:15 first book, it's like, now wait a minute, in practicality, that would never work because

49:19 dot, dot, dot, dot. So again, like I said, I'm not saying this is a bad book. I'm not saying this

49:23 is a book that you shouldn't read. But it's certainly the most disappointing book I read in 2019,

49:27 the dichotomy of leadership. And now guys, we've made it. You've been with me for the last almost

49:32 50 minutes or so. So congratulations, you made it all the way here. You made it to the end of the

49:36 year. I'm going to go ahead and give you the best book that I read in 2019. So without further ado,

49:42 it is the professor in the cage, why men fight and why we like to watch by Jonathan Goshtell. So

49:49 let me go and read the description here. An English professor starts training in this mixed martial

49:54 arts, exploring the science and history behind the violence of men. When in MMA, when an MMA gym

50:01 opens across the street from his office, Jonathan Goshtell sees a challenge, pushing 40 out of shape

50:07 and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, he works up the nerve and finds himself

50:12 training for an all out cage fight. He sees it not just as a personal test, but also as an opportunity

50:18 to answer questions that have intrigued him for years. Why do men fight? And why do so many

50:23 seemingly decent people love to watch? In the professor in the cage, Goshtell unlike he's unlikely

50:28 journey from the college classroom to the fighting cage drives an important new investigation into

50:33 the science and history of violence. The surging popularity of MMA, a full contact sport in which

50:39 fighters punch choke and kick each other into submission is just one example of our species

50:43 insatiable interests, both in violence and in the rituals that keep violence in check.

50:47 From duels to football, to the roughhousing of children, humans are masters of what Goshtell

50:53 calls the monkey dance, a dizzying variety of rule bound contests that establish hierarchies

50:58 while minimizing risk and social disorder. Goshtell's unsparing odyssey through extremes of pain,

51:04 occasional humiliation, his wife's incredulity, and ultimately his own cage fight opens his and

51:10 our eyes to the uncomfortable truth that as brutal as these contests can be, the world would be a

51:15 much more chaotic and dangerous place without them. Okay, so the reason why this is the best book

51:20 that I read in 2019 and guys, this was the first book that I that I finished and started and finished

51:25 in 2019 is I was expecting an autobiography. That's it. I was going into this. I read the same

51:32 description that I just read to you guys. I'm like, Oh, okay, this is a guy 40 kind of fat,

51:37 said he was going to get in shape as opposed to becoming a triathlete. He decided to be an MMA

51:41 guy. Finally, you know, maybe there's a guy in another gym that's the same as him. It's like,

51:44 Hey, how about you guys fight? Sure. They both signed on the dotted line. They both went in there

51:47 and fought cool, cool story. I can get behind that story. But I got way more, way more from this book

51:55 because there is a lot of auto body audio. Sorry. One more time, auto biographical stuff

52:02 from this book. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of storytelling about this guy and why he

52:06 walked over into that gym for the first time. Some of the experiences he had with injuries,

52:10 some of the experiences he had with people that he told that he was trained and they're like,

52:13 why did you do that? Oh my gosh, that sounds so terrible. You're gonna be like sweaty and bloody

52:17 environment. It's that kind of stuff, right? But he does a deep dive into a lot of different topics

52:23 around violence and around like it, like I said in the description about duels and

52:28 in rituals with violence and all these other cultures. Okay. And so one of the days on one of the ways

52:32 that I want to have elucidate for that, that for you is I want to give you four different quotes. So

52:36 there's a lot of different quotes from here that I could have gave you. But again, this is the best

52:39 book of 2019. So I'm going to spend a little bit of extra time on it. But I'm going to give you these

52:43 four different little quotable sections from the book. So here's the first one. When I first joined

52:47 the gym, I expected to write a book about the rapid rise of cage fighting in America and what

52:52 its massive popularity says about us, not just as a nation, but as a species. I thought MMA was bad

52:58 for the athletes who did it and bad for the society at large. I saw cage fighting as a metaphor for

53:03 something darkly rotten at the human core. But my library research convinced me that MMA tells us

53:08 nothing particularly interesting about our place or time. Everywhere and always, people have loved

53:14 to watch men fight. And my gym research, sparring interviewing and finally fighting myself, upended

53:20 all my other preconceptions. In short, I set out to write about the darkness in men. But I ended

53:27 up with a book about how men keep the darkness in check. And that was early in the book. Just a super,

53:34 super quote again, I'll read the last part in short, I set out to write a book about the darkness in

53:39 men. But I ended up with a book about how men keep the darkness in check. Awesome, awesome start to

53:45 this book. I'll go into the next quote here. We all are trained to think of stereotypes as stupid,

53:50 lazy and mean, but stereotypes about masculinity became so entrenched for a reason. They are mainly

53:57 true. To be timid, muscularly weak and emotionally shaky is now and has always been unmaskulent.

54:04 Masculinity is not a cultural invention. It is not the result of a conspiracy by men against women.

54:10 It is the real thing that has evolved over millions of years as a response to the built in competitive

54:15 realities of male life. This isn't to suggest that masculinity is entirely innate, leaving no

54:21 room for cultural variation. In ancient Greece, for example, one status as a manly man wasn't

54:26 compromised by public weeping or having sex with boys. And obviously, the brani masculinity

54:31 you'd find in a warrior society is a lot more, well, masculine than what you would find in a

54:36 middle class American suburb. But the difference would be of degree, not of kind. And there's another

54:42 thing about being a man that Annabelle and Abby left out, being a man has always required more

54:48 than a penis to earn the status of a real man, not in Earth, or sets one. A guy must prove he has

54:55 the right stuff. And I love that as well, because again, that goes completely against a culture that

55:00 we have now about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy and all this nonsense. It's like,

55:04 no, this is just the way it's always been. And this is how it's currently playing out. So I

55:08 like that the author got into that. Here's a third quotable section that I want to give to you. It's

55:12 a little bit longer than the other ones, but I think you will dig it. So here we go. In most

55:15 societies, girls have rights of passage too. But with some gruesome exceptions, they don't rival

55:21 the ordeals invented for boys. That girls will grow up to be real women is pretty much taken

55:26 as a given masculinity is not it must be one and one at all cost. Take tough man. The young men have

55:33 to confront fear and danger to prove their masculinity. All the young women have to do is prove their

55:38 femininity is reveal their bodies. Tough violent societies have the toughest rights of passage.

55:44 Softer and less violent societies have softer rights of passage. In the modern West, the male

55:49 role has gone so soft that formal rights of passage survive only in certain subcultures,

55:54 such as gangs, fraternities, and elite military units. In formal rights of passage, such as tough

55:59 men or youth football are a different matter. Western culture no longer needs most of its men

56:04 to cultivate aggression and toughness. When there were bears in the woods or barbarians at the gates,

56:09 everyone welcomed a certain ferocity in men. But now that our ferocious grandfathers has driven off

56:14 the bears and killed the barbarians, male ferocity just complicates life in the family and the community.

56:21 Where does this leave men today? Cervantes's hero, Don Quixote, loved tales of knights and

56:26 chivalry, but he lived in a world where there were no more dragons to battle. So the crazed

56:31 Quixote invented the world in his mind, creating imaginary monsters to slay and princesses to rescue.

56:36 In his book Fighting for Life, the scholar Walter Ong points out that there is a lot of Don Quixote

56:42 in modern men. The qualities of traditional masculinity, bravery, toughness, stoicism,

56:48 have less and less of a place in today's society, leading some commentators to prophesy the end of

56:53 men. But deep down, when men need to feel like men and so, like Quixote, we invent our own dragons.

56:59 Taking crazy risks remains a prerequisite for manhood in most cultures, and if young men no

57:04 longer take their risks in formal rites of passage, they do so on their own. YouTube offers an endless

57:10 string of amateur videos from around the world, showing young men of all hues and shades accomplishing

57:15 heroic feats and exuberant stupidity. Indian boys dodging hurling trains, urban climbers hanging

57:22 one handed from skyscrapers high above Moscow, American boys performing [inaudible] stunts.

57:27 This is what Fight Club is about. Males, some of whom have literally lost their testicles

57:32 and are growing breasts, others of whom were castrated only in spirit, finding a way to be men

57:37 in a post masculine world. Again, guys, the entire book is like that. Like even just reading that

57:44 section, I'm just like, yes, like, yes, I was not expecting that. I was expecting, you know,

57:48 a story of a wimpy guy that became a less wimpy guy. And then the last one here, just another

57:53 quick quote is a is this one here. An MMA gym is a man factory. It's where men go to hammer the

57:58 softness, weakness, and timidity out of each other. Yes, fighting is dangerous and scary,

58:04 but a fighter walks forward into fear with his gloves up and his chin down. And so for any of

58:09 you guys that have trained any aspect of MMA, so boxing, western boxing, kickboxing, moi tai,

58:15 jujitsu, wrestling, any of those things, you know this to be true. And that's why I'm seemingly so

58:21 adamant about children getting into jujitsu and wrestling, because you know, there's potentially

58:27 some issues with little kids, if they're going to spars a little kid and they're boxing or something

58:31 like that, and they get hit in the head, you know, I haven't done a lot of research on that, but I

58:34 can't imagine that that's great. But there's nothing that can make you tougher as a little kid than

58:38 doing jujitsu or wrestling. I just not convinced that there's anything else that's going to make

58:41 you tough. The thing about it is is whenever you have that level of toughness in you, you apply that

58:46 everywhere, you apply that in relationships, you apply that with, you know, sickness that you're

58:50 fighting any of those types of things, it just knocks that weakness out of you. And so again,

58:54 guys, there's so many things I could have talked about for this book. But again, I don't want to

58:58 really spoil it for you. But again, this is a book where the the cover does not do it justice,

59:03 and even the description does not do it justice. It is an absolutely incredible book. I'm actually

59:09 astonished that I didn't even do a full episode on it this year. But you know, there was a lot of

59:13 things to talk about this year in these last 50 episodes or so. But again, if you don't read this

59:17 book, you're a moron and you're no longer allowed to listen to this podcast. So guys, the best book

59:21 of 2019, the professor in the cage. Now, what I'm going to give you before we get out of here with

59:27 the quick resilience boost, I do want to give you a list of books that I'm excited to read

59:31 in 2020. But in past years, I've told you what books I'm going to read in 2020. And then I don't

59:37 always do it. I get distracted by other books or whatever the situation may be. So here's just a

59:41 list of books that I may or may not get to next year, right? And here's the thing about this list of

59:46 books. If you've read this book and the book sucks and it's on my to read list, let me know,

59:52 hit me up on Instagram, send me an email, whatever the situation may be. If this is a book that's

59:56 going to be a waste of my time, save me that time and let me know. I'm not going to give you a long

59:59 description of each one of these. I'm just going to list them here verbally. And then we'll put in

1:00:03 the show notes too, if we've got space, okay? So Jordan Peterson, the first one we don't have the

1:00:07 name of this, but I think it's going to be 12 more rules. So this is going to be another 12

1:00:11 rules for light book, but it's going to be an addition, an additional 12 rules. And so he had a

1:00:16 delayed in his writing process, because his wife got sick and you know, he kind of checked in to

1:00:21 rehab, not for like abuse or anything like that, but just to kind of reset himself and things like

1:00:25 that. And so the book was supposed to be out in early 2020, but it'll probably be out later in

1:00:28 2020 now. So whenever that comes out, I'll be looking forward to it. There's another one,

1:00:33 or I'll just kind of list them here. So as a man thinketh by James Allen, liberal fascism

1:00:39 by Jonah Goldberg, ordinary men by Christopher R Browning, the arm by Jeff Passen, Martin Luther

1:00:47 by Eric Metaxis, the coddling of the American mind by Greg Lukanoff and Jonathan Hate,

1:00:53 American Buffalo by Steve Renella, call sign chaos, chaos by General James Mattis or Jim Mattis,

1:01:00 alone at dawn by Dan Schilling and Lori Chapman Longfritz, not a daycare by Everett Piper,

1:01:06 never split the difference by Chris Voss and Tallaras, Iron John by Robert Bly and The Cross of Christ

1:01:14 by John Stott. Okay. So some of those books are released this year. Some of those books are

1:01:19 decades and decades old, but those are ones that I'm thinking about getting into next year. And so

1:01:23 we'll see how that goes. But as always, guys, if you've got suggestions for me, send me an email

1:01:27 info at undaunted.life had some guys send me even some suggestions in between the last episode. So

1:01:33 feel free to always shoot those my way. I'm glad that this content's out there for you. We always

1:01:37 want to make sure that it's going to be there for you in the way that you want it. So before we let

1:01:41 you guys out of here, we are going to do a quick resilience boost as you know, by now we are a

1:01:44 men's ministry and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience. And specifically, we do that by

1:01:48 providing content like this podcast that helps you forge spiritual mental and physical toughness.

1:01:52 So today I've got Amazon links to all the books that I talked about. And then I've got just the

1:01:57 the regular list of the other books that we're going to be looking at. So here's the deal. I can't

1:02:01 put too many links in the show notes because there's like a character limit. So as it sits right now,

1:02:06 you're at least going to get the list of each one of these. But if the link doesn't come through,

1:02:11 you're a big boy, take the name of the book, plug it in Amazon, plug it into your audible,

1:02:15 plug it into whatever you're doing, and just go ahead and find the book and pick that up. So all

1:02:18 the books that we talked about today, they are right here in the show notes. Thank you guys as

1:02:22 always for listening to the podcast. We really do appreciate it. If you would subscribe on iTunes,

1:02:27 SoundCloud, Spotify, or Google Play, and refer your friends to listen and share this on social

1:02:31 media. If we deserve a five star review, please leave us a five star review to keep us five star

1:02:35 review rated and leave us a few sentences, letting us know why you like the content. I'm currently

1:02:39 booking speaking engagements for the entirety of 2020. And I'm going to make an announcement

1:02:43 about one coming up in your area soon. But if you want me to come speak to your men's event,

1:02:46 on your podcast, your team, at your company, whatever, hit me up info@undontin.life again,

1:02:51 email info@undontin.life. The website is www.undontin.life. You can follow us on Instagram,

1:02:56 and Twitter @undontin.life or facebook.com/undontin.life. Check out our free devotionals on the U-version

1:03:02 Bible app. Just search "undontin.life" under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band

1:03:06 August Burns Red for allowing us to use their entire music library for our content. The intro

1:03:10 outro track on this podcast is our song "King of Sorrow", which is off their latest record entitled

1:03:14 Phantom Anthem. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember,

1:03:20 keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness,

1:03:26 keep seeking the Lion of Judah.