New beginnings

It's been a while since my last post, but I have been busy wrapping up 8 years of living and working in Sydney and moving back to the UK.  The gems of wisdom picked up from reading some great books have helped make this move feel like the start of an exciting new chapter in life where we can put some of these ideas into practice.

So...what's on the agenda?

1.  Finding fulfilling work

I've had 6 months off and loved having a slower pace of life at home, but I'm ready to get back into it. I'll be going back to Roman Krznaric's wise book How to Find Fulfilling Work to remind myself how to go about this.

2.  My Happiness Project

One of my favourite books, Gretchen Rubin's fantastic Happiness Project, contains what she calls her First Splendid Truth:

"To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth"

Tonnes of things are making me feel good at the moment - being in the same time zone as my friends and family, writing actual letters to my best friend (which we started doing when we were teenagers) and spending lots of time with my kids. I am loving being in England again despite the bitterly cold weather at the moment, it is my spiritual home!  The growth part is definitely covered by the total change in living circumstances...new people...new places...new things to do.  All that's left is to tackle the "feeling bad" part which for me is about doing the things I avoid...

3.  Finding a home

We have lived in 5 different houses in the year since my last post.  Now we're looking for a home where we can grow things, make things, keep chickens and know our neighbours and we won't want to move again for a very very long time.  Great books  Happier at Home and the Architecture of Happiness will help with the deliberations...otherwise, Homes & Gardens magazine will do for eye candy.

4.  Learning and doing new things

What life's all about really isn't it?  I have gushed about the School of Life before and just found out about The Idler...wow...I wish there was one near me.  Another institution promoting the benefits of making things.  If I knit a tea cosy will it bring my life greater enjoyment and satisfaction? Maybe it will, I had an email today from Radio 4 to say they love knitting and will be celebrating it all next week.  Aaah, it's great to be back in England.

How to Change the World

I've been meaning to write about How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff for ages as it made a big impression on me. It's from the School of Life series so it's short, to the point and full of ideas.  This book is aimed at those of us who like the idea of changing the world in some way, but feel small, ultimately a bit powerless, think it's all too hard and then don't do anything else about it.

The book starts with a chapter on "Overcoming Defeatism" to get us out of this frame of mind and to remind us of the power of ordinary people.  If we want to hold a street party and get frustrated by petty regulations, Flintoff says we have a choice - we can either try to change the silly rules or we can just ignore them.  He talks about Gene Sharp who compiled an astonishing list of methods of "non violent action" - this sounds a bit alarming I know - but it is basically a very long list of ways of "doing something"  (all 198 of them are included in the appendix).  Flintoff says:

"Sharp demands that we remove our blinkers and recognise that political power is our own power - and that it does not reside only at the ballot box"

(Sounds like something Russell Brand would probably agree with based on his recent interview with Jeremy Paxman.)

So - that's the rousing call to action...but for what cause? Flintoff suggests how we can figure out what is important to us - what we actually want to take action on - and how to cultivate a sense of purpose.  There are some exercises in the book to help you work through those questions.

Next he suggests taking stock of your personal skills and qualities so you can work out how best you can help with your chosen cause.  After reflecting on his own experiences and skills, Flintoff comes up with this (which I love):

"I resolved from now on to stop thinking of myself only as a writer. I am also an artist, a baker, a career coach, a carpenter, a cleaner, a cook, a decorator, a dog walker, an English language teacher, a film maker, a gardener, a map maker, a bike messenger, a minicab driver, a qualified first aider, a printer, a publisher, a rubbish collector, a Scout patrol leader, a second hand bookseller, a tailor, a typist, a waiter, a washer up and possibly much else. I have to say that drawing up this list gave quite a boost to my self-esteem." 

He says there are two ways to change the world - to reduce suffering or to increase pleasure.    In the "increasing pleasure" category he talks about art and creativity.  He argues that "when we engage creatively with the world, we are having an impact".  In his mind, this is not confined to the fine arts, it could be making clothes or playing in a band.  Flintoff says

"A good world is not a world where everybody fixates on global problems according to some externally imposed framework of 'importance'. A good world is one in which people find meaning in the particular things they do - and that means a word that has a place for beauty, creativity and play."

In a nutshell then, changing the world doesn't have to be serious and heavy - we can have fun doing it too.  There are some great examples in the book of art projects and social enterprises, one of them is the Craftivist Collective which uses craft in activism.

The remainder of the book talks about where money fits in, how to get others to help, and changing the world in the wider community. There are lots of inspiring stories about people with great ideas, many of them sounded so simple that I thought, wow, I could do that.  I've come across other stories since reading this book that could have come straight from these pages. Just ordinary people doing the sort of world changing things Flintoff talks about in this book. 

How to Worry Less About Money

"How to Worry Less About Money" by John Armstrong is another book in the School of Life series.  It is a really great (and short) book which gave me a completely different perspective on money, my thoughts about it and what I spend it on.  The author offers a very refreshing and honest insight into his own money worries and how he has learnt to process them constructively.  In his own words, the book is about

"how we can bring imagination, self-knowledge, emotional maturity, and our big ideas about life and society, into the way we engage with money."

Armstrong kicks off by explaining that money worries aren't the same as money troubles (i.e. not being able to pay your bills).  He says worries are connected to imagination and the emotions, not just to what is happening here and now. Instead of simply asking how can I get more money or manage with less money, we should be asking how much money do we need and what do we need it for.

He argues that money worries are just other worries disguised as money worries, and urges us to think more deeply about the underlying cause of our worries. He illustrates this by talking about his car, which makes him feel anxious about money. He's worried that it's starting to get a bit rough round the edges, needs various repairs, isn't as fancy as other people's cars at the tennis club, and he can't afford to replace it. He digs into this a bit deeper and concedes that what he's really worried about not taking care of things properly. He's worried about his character, and buying a new car isn't going to change this, it will not make him better at looking after it.

Although I don't worry about financial security I do think about money a lot, mostly because I worry about the prices of things and I generally feel guilty if I spend a lot of money on something. I should probably spend some time thinking about what it is that I'm really worried about...

Armstrong makes some great comments about worrying (which I know I do quite a lot):

"Worry is a name for mental effort: ideally one wants to worry more insightfully and more purposefully. The aim of adult life, one might say, is to worry well. We worry about things that matter; worry implies care."

He talks about money as a medium of exchange and reminds us that almost anything can be turned into money, and money can be turned into anything.  We need to think about how we make money, and what possessions and activities we turn our money into. It's a mistake to think that the means are the ends, and that the medium of exchange is a "real thing". He argues we should think about money's relationship with flourishing (rather than happiness).

"Money brings about good consequences - helps us live valuable lives - only when joined with 'virtues'. Virtues are good abilities of mind and character."

I found his thoughts on Need versus Want really interesting.  He argues that needs are not necessarily just basic food, shelter, or the cheapest thing.  What we view as a "need" depends on what's important to us.  This is what he says:

"Need is deeper - bound up with the serious narrative of one's life. 'Do I need this?' is a way of asking: how important is this thing, how central is it to my becoming a good version of myself; what is it actually for in my life? This interrogation is designed to distinguish needs from mere wants."

He gives as an example a fine violinist who needs a very expensive bow, because this bow has a central role to play in this person's life.

He also looks at price versus value, and he says something here that made me think of the pursuit of material things that I talked about in the Status Anxiety post recently.  He talks about something inexpensive that he bought and collected over time, that he said he gets "a reliable, everyday thrill from using."

The pleasure we get from our possessions can be very real - I asked my husband to list his favourite things and he said our collection of photos and art, his guitar, and his surfboards.

When I was early in my career living in London I lusted after, and then after some encouragement from my flatmate Suzanne, eventually bought, a gold trench coat. It was GBP250 and the most expensive item of clothing I had ever bought. I loved wearing it so much, I used to joke to Suzanne that wearing it made me feel like a better person.  I have photos from a girls' weekend in Paris of me wearing that coat and it makes me so happy to see it (and remember the weekend of course).  The flip side of clothes shopping (which I do much less nowadays, and enjoy it far less than I did when I was younger), is impulse buying, bargain shopping (especially on the internet), basically buying for the sake of it. Most of the time this gives me a very short lived shopper's high, then a week later I forget I've even bought it. I hate this type of shopping and I want to try to cut it out.  

After reading this book, I want to spend money in a more mindful way, buy things that we'll treasure, that will last, that will give us a reliable, everyday thrill or allow us to flourish.  As Armstrong says, we have to look into ourselves and think what money means to us, not simply try to maximise the amount we have.

Status Anxiety and its solutions

I've finished reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton. In his "solutions" section he puts forward some interesting ideas we can draw on to counter status anxiety and feeling bad about our position in society or how we think other people view us.

He groups them into big themes: Philosophy, Art, Politics, Religion and Bohemia.

In Philosophy, he talks about some of the philosophers in history who argued that the rest of society is stupid / ill informed / wrong and therefore we should dismiss and ignore other people's opinions of us.  He goes on to state that the obvious result of this sort of attitude is that one will likely end up with no friends. Hmm, doesn't sound very appealing.

Next he talks about Art - specifically novels, painting, tragedy and comedy.  He points out that novels have the ability to show us the moral good in people who would, if only based on their lack of outward symbols of status like wealth or power, be regarded by others as unimportant.  He says in life we only give praise to moral goodness that is outwardly displayed, but in novels we can listen in to the characters' thoughts and eavesdrop on conversations, which can give us a different perspective on them and make us appreciate their deeper qualities. In making his arguments he makes references the implicit social commentary in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and George Eliot's Middlemarch. I liked this idea and it reminded me that novels can teach us a lot about life, it doesn't always have to be through non-fiction. I haven't read either of these books so I'm adding them to my list.

The rest of the Art section didn't really strike a chord with me, but the Politics section made up for it. He starts by talking about what "status" meant in different societies through history and found that it was sometimes contradictory, and ever changing. In 2004 when the book was written he said that high status meant:

"[someone who has] been able to accumulate money, power and renown through his or her own accomplishments (rather than through inheritance) in one of the myriad sectors of the commercial world (including sport, art and scientific research)."

He talks later about our pursuit of material things, and how advertisers sell us things like cars:

"...[the advert will] fail to mention our tendency to cease to be excited by anything after we have owned it for a short while...We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction...Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another...The new car will be rapidly absorbed, like all the other wonders we already own, into the material backdrop of our lives, where we will hardly register its existence..."

This section made me think a lot, particularly the lines quoted above. I mentioned it to my husband and we had a good chat about our different buying styles, and which of our possessions give us pleasure beyond the initial rush of buying them.  I think this will probably deserve a separate blog post on its own...

The other part that I liked in the politics section was his recounting of a scene from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.  Woolf is denied entry into Trinity College Library at Cambridge University because she is a woman (she was told she could only enter if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or if she had a letter of introduction).  Instead of thinking "what's wrong with me?" she thought "what's wrong with them?".  After this she came up with a set of political demands for women, which included "a room of one's own".  I've never read this book, but that was my university library so it caught my imagination - I know that as a naive 18 year old I took it completely for granted that I could come and go as I pleased.

The remaining sections of the book cover Religion (where he reminds us that in the end we're all going to die so status anxiety is a bit pointless) and Bohemia, where he pointed out that there are groups of people who choose to forgo status giving activities and possessions, and he talked about Henry David Thoreau and his time at Walden Pond as an example.  

So...to wrap up, I liked this book and definitely had a different perspective reading it now than when it was first published.  Even so, the quote about status in Roman Krznaric's book is still my favourite on the topic and had the most impact on me and how I think about status. So punchy, so simple and so true.

How to Thrive in the Digital Age

I had a mini obsession with the School of Life books recently, and read 5 of 6 of the first series of books in quick succession. Then I convinced a good friend to ask for the whole set for her upcoming birthday (handy, because they weren't all available at my local library - thanks Alex!).  I haven't managed to blog about them all yet...but given some of my recent ramblings about technology it seemed like a good time to write about "How to Thrive in the Digital Age" by Tom Chatfield.

I picked up this book purely because it was in the School of Life series, I didn't have any particularly strong views on technology or the digital age, so wouldn't have chosen to read it based on the subject alone. I haven't got an iphone or an ipad (I know, how do I survive!), but I've got a Facebook account, this blog, a work email account, 2 personal email accounts, a mobile, a Blackberry and an insulin pump (I'm type 1 diabetic). That's enough technology for me.

Chatfield makes some interesting observations in the book. Since technology has become mobile, we've experienced a huge increase in media consumption.  We don't need to set aside special time to use it, we can be "plugged in" all the time and multi task with technology while doing other things.  Despite all the advances in technology, we have not found a way of increasing the amount of time we have available in a day.  Obviously technology has enabled us to use the time we do have more efficiently and be more productive, but it has also created lots of new ways to waste time.  It also means we are more available to others, more of the time, and can be more easily interrupted.  

Chatfield argues that we need to be more mindful about how we use technology, and makes the case for carving out plugged and unplugged time.  He remarks on the fact that people are becoming more interested in holidays where they can venture "off the grid" to places with no mobile phone reception - being uncontactable is our ultimate idea of luxury.  One of the best holidays I've had in the last few years was when I was pregnant with my first child - my husband and I drove around Tasmania and over the course of 8 days I only had mobile and blackberry reception on 2 of them (in the main towns, Hobart and Launceston). Once the reception bars disappeared it was utter bliss being totally present in the moment, watching what was going on around us, talking to each other, and not being bothered by anyone. It wasn't a luxurious holiday by any stretch but we relaxed completely, and being unplugged was a big factor. We couldn't google things to do in whatever area we were in, we had to talk to people and ask for recommendations and write things down!  It was no surprise to me to read in this month's Elle magazine that e-tox breaks are being offered at an upmarket resort in Tasmania, although at astronomical cost!  Although it costs nothing to switch off your own devices and stick them in a drawer, some people clearly need a bit of help and encouragement to do so.

So if you're not going on a cold turkey break like this, how do you build unplugged time into your every day life?  For a long time, I was the sort of person who would check my blackberry last thing at night and first thing in the morning.  Not anymore. Earlier this year I read an article (Is There Life After Work?) by Erin Callan who said she realised only after losing her high powered job in finance that she had slipped into this habit (along with various other workaholic tendencies), to the detriment of all her other relationships, and when the work was gone she realised there wasn't much else left in her life.  As a working mother, time in the morning with my kids is precious (even though it's hectic and messy getting everyone out the door sometimes) and I have imposed a rule on myself that I won't check my blackberry until my kids are up, dressed, breakfasted and ready to go.  It's about priorities I guess. I don't always manage to stick to this rule but I'm trying hard.  

Thoreau on news

As I said yesterday, I've been reading Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau and he is talking about anything and everything - nature ("I rejoice that there are owls" - this made me laugh), civilisation, institutions, learning, health, appearance, money, freedom, work, relationships, philosophy, religion and the list goes on. This is the latest instalment in the Walden Pond posts...

Thoreau on news:

"I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.  If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?" 

How true.  Also, see how all his examples of "news" were negative things? It reminded me of something Philippa Perry says in "How to Stay Sane" about how we should limit our exposure to the TV (including the news).  She says:

"...even the news appears to be filtered for maximum emotional shock value, which means it has a bias towards bad news rather than good.  Be careful which stories you expose yourself to.  I'm not saying it is not important to be informed about what is going on, but to be informed repeatedly about bad news will give us neither a balanced view of our world nor of the other people who inhabit it."

I think Thoreau was onto something.

On freedom and "having it all"

In his book, How to Find Fulfilling Work, Roman Krznaric talks about the importance of freedom.  In the short section in the book on "freedom" he addresses, among other things, the idea of "having it all."

He quotes Shirley Conran, the British author and journalist, who wrote the 1975 book, Superwoman, in which she famously said "life's too short to stuff a mushroom".  She was lamenting the implicit message our culture is peddling that women who aren't able to shine in both their job and as mothers (while doing something esoteric on the side like learn Japanese) are somehow inadequate.

Krznaric brings a male perspective to the issue and reframes it as being relevant to both parents.  He thinks "can women have it all?" is the wrong question to be asking (I agree), and argues that the question should instead be:

"How can parents support each other so they can both have some of it all?"

I was at a drinks function after work one night last week and met two other women who were both qualified lawyers, one was looking after her children full time and one was working part time after returning from maternity leave.  This topic came up in conversation and I mentioned the "you can have it all, just not all at once" idea and they both said "that's what Quentin Bryce said".

Quentin Bryce is Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, and a pretty remarkable, inspiring woman. She said this in an interview in 2008 (you can see it here). My favourite quote is this, and I think it's relevant to men and women:

"For a very long time now I've been saying to young women, you can have it all, but not all at the same time. How important it is to take very good care of yourself, of your mental and physical and spiritual wellbeing, it's hard to do. It's easier to be a workaholic than to have a truly balanced life. It's very tough for a lot of women teetering on that tight rope of balance and balancing too many responsibilities."

How true.  It's so easy to let work take over sometimes, and so much harder to stop it.

On flow

I promised I would come back to the subject of "flow", which was one of the key elements in fulfilling work that Roman Krznaric wrote about in "How to Find Fulfilling Work".  Just as the idea of "being yourself" kept coming up in various books, so did the the concept of flow. 

Krznaric explained that a flow experience is one in which we are completely and unselfconsciously absorbed in whatever we are doing.  We are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.  Usually this activity is challenging enough to require our focus, but no so challenging that we fear failing.  It has been described as being almost like Buddhist meditation - we are totally engaged and present and the future and past fade away.  For athletes this is being "in the zone".  It's important in the context of work because doing these "flow" activities gives us a sense of fulfilment.

The pioneer of the theory of flow is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and it feels like his name is referenced all over the place now I know what flow is.  He talks about it in a TED video here, and you can read a review of his book, Finding Flow here.  

Susan Cain talks about flow in her book, Quiet.  She says:

"The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings."

She argues that typical "flow" experiences tend to be solitary pursuits that have nothing to do with reward-seeking (which is why it's relevant to her book about introverts).  Flow also get a mention in Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project (she covers a lot of ground!). 

I realised when I was reading about flow in Krznaric's book that I had been experiencing it myself in the process. I had barely noticed the hours passing by.  If I'm enjoying a book and it's not too hard going I definitely get into a flow state.  But what about other people? My husband, who loves surfing, says for him it's in the moments when he's riding a wave.

What about you?

On being yourself

The importance of "being yourself" to sanity and happiness has come up in various ways in the books I've been reading lately.  The "feeling right" bit in Gretchen Rubin's First Splendid Truth in her book, The Happiness Project, wasn't something I focused on very much while I was reading it, but I've been thinking about it more since I read two other books:

I recently finished Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, which I picked up, partly because it was endorsed on the cover by Gretchen Rubin, whose writing I love.  It took reading this book for me to realise (at age 33) that actually, I am a bit of an introvert, and - because Cain presents a wide range of reasons why this can be a positive, despite popular opinion - that's OK. It explained a lot.  It was also fascinating to read about the studies on the behaviours of babies and how they were effective predictors of whether they grew up to be an introvert or an extrovert.  I think we've got a 3 year old extrovert and a 1 year old introvert in the making in our family and now I feel like I understand them even better.  The book also explained why arguments between my (extrovert) husband and I are so ineffective, because we argue in different ways that don't really work together.  It gave me a real insight into myself and how I interact with other people, both at home and at work.

How to Stay Sane is a book in the School of Life series, written by psychotherapist, Philippa Perry.  She makes the case for taking the time to look after our mental health, just like we do our physical health.  In her view, to stay sane - which means to avoid the extremes of living in either an overly rigid way or in chaos - we need to practice self observation, cultivate good relationships, expose ourselves to positive stress (like learning and exercise) and think about our personal narratives.  Perry has this advice about relationships, which highlights (for me, anyway) the importance of being with people we feel comfortable with so we can be ourselves:

"...in order to meaningfully connect with another person, one has to be open. This means not being who we think we should be, but allowing ourselves to be who we really are.  This usually involves risking feeling vulnerable."

Reading these books has been an exercise in self observation of sorts as it's impossible to read them in a detached way - they automatically make me think of my own behaviour and thought processes and help me understand them better.  Some things I've tried to change and others I have simply learnt to accept.  I feel like I'm being myself.  

How to Find Fulfilling Work

I love libraries. I set up this blog in the State Library of New South Wales and I'm writing this post from Avalon Community Library on a glorious sunny spring day.

It was during an unexpected afternoon in my local library last month that I began reading How to Find Fulfilling Work by Roman Krznaric, one of the books in the fantastic School of Life series, which is edited by the equally fantastic Alain de Botton.  After about half an hour of starting the book, sitting in the study section of Manly Library, I got an excited urge to run out to the newsagents and buy a notebook and pen so I could remember the insights starting to emerge from the pages.  Five minutes later and back in the library, I spent the entire afternoon immersed in the book.

I think most of us at some time in our careers question whether what we're doing is the right thing for us. I happened to be in the middle of a couple of weeks off work so it was a good topic to reflect on.  I loved this book.  It completely changed the way I think about work - and how I use the time I have in my life - and found it quite liberating.

Thinking about work can be mind bogglingly complex.  Krznaric breaks it down nicely and works through the elements methodically.

He very neatly sets out his view that fulfilling work has 3 key elements:

• Meaning
• Flow
• Freedom

He then breaks down "meaning" into 5 components: money, status, making a difference, following our passions and using our talents.  He explains that money and status are extrinsic motivating factors and the others are intrinsic motivating factors. Given everyone will have different preferences and priorities around these components, Krznaric says there is no single blueprint for a meaningful career.

The next part of the book looks at each of the 5 components in more detail.  The role of money in life and happiness is a fascinating topic in itself (and the subject of another book in the School of Life series called "How to Worry Less About Money" - more on that later).  Status as a topic is also something that I find really interesting ("Status Anxiety" by Alain de Botton is on my list to re-read), and there's a great quote in Krznaric's book - which I've copied down from my scribbled notes so might not be word perfect but you get the gist:

"the universal desire for reputation in which we judge ourselves through other people's eyes is fraught with dangers"

Next he talks about "making a difference" and how this can weave into the world of work.   This made me think about the emerging world of social entrepreneurship and some articles I had read recently about people making a difference as individuals, and also prompted me to read "How to Change the World" by John Paul Flintoff - yes, you've guessed it - another in the School of Life series.

The fourth and fifth components are combined into a section on cultivating passions and talents. Again, he offers a great quote, this time from Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand:

"The master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labour and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."

I love this quote.  It reminds me of an interview I read many years ago with the photographer, Mario Testino, who was talking about how he ended up becoming a professional photographer, and he said someone (father or grandfather...I forget who) told him that he should do a job he loved and use the weekends for rest, and not to choose a job that meant you had to fit your entire life into the weekends. I've never forgotten that.  There is another quote in the book, from Herminia Ibarra, that I absolutely loved and was an utter revelation to me:

"our working identity is not a hidden treasure to be discovered at the very core of our being - rather it is made up of many possibilities...we are many selves."

Krznaric argues that, because we each have within us a range of different experiences, interests and talents, we could find ourselves happy in a whole range of different jobs and we don't need to agonise over finding the one perfect thing. He encourages us to consider becoming "wide achievers" with "portfolio careers" (pursuing different jobs at the same time on a part time basis) or as "serial specialists" (doing a range of different jobs one after the other).  He encourages people to "act now, think later", because humans suffer from "negative bias" which makes them naturally cautious and more prone to focusing on what could go wrong.  He advocates decreasing risk by dipping your toes in the water of a new job or career by doing work experience, volunteering, undertaking training courses, talking to people who know about it and doing things in your spare time outside your main job (like write a blog!).

The remainder of the book talks about the other elements, flow and freedom, which I'll pick up in another blog post.

One thing I found really valuable about this book is the series of questions and exercises you are prompted to do throughout.  By taking the time to do them it makes the book more engaging and relevant to your own life. There is also a "homework" section at the back recommending further reading.

If you don't get round to reading the book, you can watch the author give a talk on it here.

Have a great weekend!