135 Next Up: The Space Between Books

We pause between books to invite you to read with us and announce The Four Agreements as our next deep dive into practical personal freedom for work and life. We share why slow, deliberate reading changes behavior, and offer a complimentary Agile Brain assessment to support the journey.

• reason for a pause and invitation to catch up
• announcement of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• link promise to buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
• personal freedom as a leadership cornerstone
• why ancient Toltec wisdom applies to modern work
• four agreements as a simple, durable framework
• reading slowly vs consuming summaries
• savoring lessons and implementing week by week
• year theme moving between modern and ancient ideas
• impact on community, family, and teams
• shoutouts to producers and contributors
• invite to binge past seasons and join the journey

To receive your complimentary Agile Brain assessment, send either of us a message saying you want the free Agile Brain assessment

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Format Shift
• 3:19 Why A Pause Between Books
• 4:54 Announcing The Four Agreements
• 7:19 Personal Freedom And Work-Life Strain
• 9:29 Why This Book Hits Deeper
• 12:29 Complimentary Agile Brain Assessment
• 15:29 Toltec Roots And Right-Left Brain Blend
• 17:19 Four Agreements As A Simple Framework
• 19:39 Yearly Arc: Modern To Ancient To Modern
• 23:09 How The Show’s Format Evolved
• 27:39 Reading Deeply vs Book Summaries

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Welcome to What's on Your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves. With your host, Denise Russo and Sam Powell.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our little video clip. My name is Denise Russo. I'm here with my friend and co-host Sam Powell. We are from What's on Your Bookshelf. Sam, so happy to be with you here today in this different kind of a format.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Yeah, I love this. This is super fun. Um, and so if you follow along with us, right, you're you know that we're all about taking the books off of our shelves and reading through them piece by piece, talking about how we're implementing them in our lives, which is hoping, hoping, helping you implement it in your life. So um, yeah, really excited. We are doing something a little bit different here, like Denise said. We are taking a small pause between our books. Normally we go from one book straight to the next, but we decided to give you a rest from a listening perspective and to give you time to go get the book so you can follow along with us as we're reading it. Um Denise, I had somebody, I had one of my friends text me the other day and was like, hey, I started listening to your podcast and I decided to buy the book and follow along. So I I read and I caught up, and they're like, I loving doing this piece by piece with you because I'm getting a lot out of it. It's really helping me like put this, you know, into play. They were using the last book, the unf yourself that we just completed. So uh I loved it. I was like, yes, somebody's doing exactly what, you know, what we uh what we want you to do and uh really how you get the most out of this. So super excited to, I don't know, do this a little different and give people that opportunity, like my friend, to come join us on the journey.

SPEAKER_02: 3:07

I love hearing that. I think we take for granted that we've already read the book, likely even read it before we decided to record it. Then we read it together while we're recording it, and then we listen to our recordings, and then we talk about what we recorded. And so, you know, subconsciously, we may know more about the book than the person that's joining us each Wednesday when the new episodes come out. So I'm also excited for this pause to catch people up so that they could go and grab a copy of the book. We'll make sure there's a link that we can share where you can easily find the book uh on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever you decide that you want to buy books. But I'm really excited to announce what the next book is because it really isn't what I think most leaders have on their bookshelves, and yet it's a book about knowledge and wisdom, which parlays very easily into the world of how you lead in life and in business, which is the whole point of what's on your bookshelf. So uh without further ado, the book that we are reading next is called The Four Agreements, and this is by an author named Don Miguel Ruiz. It's a wisdom book of Toltic wisdom. And what was really interesting about this is that the the headline of the book says it's a practical guide to personal freedom. And you and I, Sam, right before we decided to record this, we were talking about some of the challenges that our clients and just people we've been talking with lately are facing, which is not feeling that sense of personal freedom at work, which is bleeding into their personal lives outside of their working hours.

SPEAKER_01: 4:50

Yeah, absolutely. And this book, I think of all the books we've read, this one grabbed me from the beginning on a deeper level than all of the other ones. So I'm really excited to explore this. And I really do think that this one is good if you are reading it in reflection with us, because you're like you said, it is different. It's not your, it's not your typical like leadership book, but it's like deep wisdom. And I don't think I have a book that's more highlighted than this one, because it's like I like everything. I'm like, yes, this is these are the words I couldn't pull out of my feelings. These are the words I couldn't pull out of like the deepest parts of me in so many ways. And so I really think that I don't know, if you want to lead your life, if you want to really be in control of how you show up in your own life and how you show up as you move forward, then you you've got to get in touch with those deepest, those deepest things, right? This ancient wisdom, this you know, collective, what are the things we've learned as human beings? And and I think this is a book is just an interesting, digestible, tangible way to do that. And so I I'm glad we're giving people this moment to go like find the book and and buy. And it's short, it's really thin for those of you that are watching this. It's tiny. So easy to read. Um, and uh and definitely something that's, like I said, better if you're following along with us.

SPEAKER_02: 6:17

100%. So it's less than 140 pages long. The font is pretty big, the book is really small. It's it's I want to say it's an easy read, but it's not a simple read because it's really about looking at your self-limiting beliefs and analyzing them and doing something different than you're doing today. And I think that one thing that I'd like to do from now till the end of the year is offer to anybody listening to this video and those who will listen to this book with us through the end of the year complimentary agile brain assessments. So, agile brain looks at your emotions at a subconscious level. And Sam and I have access to these assessments uh for you. So if you're interested with no catch, we'll give you the assessment complimentary. If you want to take deeper dives into your assessment, we could talk about that afterwards. But as a gift from us to all of you, especially those of you who have been listening along with us for the last couple of years, that's something that I think will also dovetail nicely with this book. So the way to get that assessment and for us to send it to you is just to send one of the two of us a message saying you want the free agile brain assessment. It's A-G-I-L-E, and we'll send that to you as a gift from us to you. This book is uh written around this idea of this ancient wisdom that was garnered from these men and women in South Mexico that were scientists and artists. And what I so loved about learning about that in the very beginning of the book is you've got right brain and left brain people that were maximizing their way of thinking and their way of acting. And we talk about that a lot, don't we, Sam, about how the things that we think about become the things that we do in our lives and the things we prioritize as important.

SPEAKER_01: 8:07

Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that this, like I said, really gets into that on a just sort of a deeper, a deeper level, and I think helps you think about showing up differently and and right, like how to think differently to then do and act and be different and you know, in a lot of ways. And and it's a simple, it's a simple framework. It's the four agreements, it's four, four things, right? That you that you do. And I um, you know, I read the other day that uh our attention span has changed. We used to be able to handle seven things at a time, and now we can only handle four, like collectively as human beings. I blame, you know, we blame the internet and social media content and all that kind of stuff. But four, we can still handle four, so you can do this with us, so we can all handle four things. Um, but it's gonna be a, I think it's gonna be a really good, good journey. And it comes off of I, you know, I it comes off of the year, right? This is our last book for the year that we're gonna be looking at. And so it comes off of five bold choices at the beginning. The obstacle is the way after that, and then unf yourself, you know, following. And so then we are, I like our little bit of like flipping back and forth here throughout the year. Like the five bold choices was really about like modern, you know, decisions and leadership and the stories were all from like our modern age. And then we flip back to the obstacles the way, which is ancient stoic wisdom, right? And really um looking at uh looking at obstacles through the lens of them becoming the path. And then we flip to something again, really modern and really like in your face with unf yourself. And now we're sort of flipping back to um, you know, more collective ancient wisdom. And I I'm liking this vibe a lot. Like I really am enjoying this, like, okay, let's talk about today. Let's talk about, you know, what we've like pulling in older wisdom that we've collectively gained over the years. And then let's talk again about right now, and then let's go back. And I don't know, it's it's really working for me as far as like just being able to implement this stuff into my life. Because I think if we were doing like all ancient wisdom and then all modern stuff, it just wouldn't have the same effect as far as like getting it off the shelf and into my life.

SPEAKER_02: 10:27

I think what I'm finding as well is it's it's easy to take the ancient stuff and figure out how to apply it to today, because we have this contrast of learning about how other authors and other leaders have done some of that application as well. And for those maybe who are newer to listening to our show, What's on your bookshelf, this is our third year, third, third year. Good gracious, our third year of recording the show. And each of the years, we set out, we have a meeting in the fourth quarter of the year to sort of talk about the theme that we want the entire next year to be about. And we didn't do that at first. At first, our first episodes, we'll tell you, they're a little bit clunky. I think they're not bad, but they're a little clunky because we took several good content, but it was like one book in one episode. And I felt like we were being a commercial for the author and we weren't really getting the deep value. And it wasn't until we got into Coach Wooden by Pat Williams, and I'll never forget the most important thing I pulled from that one was that Pat Williams was taught by his dad the importance of drinking deeply from good books. And that became the entire premise of what's on your bookshelf was that we no longer were going to just be advertisers for other authors, but that we wanted to be able to live out loud the pages of these books that have been sitting on our shelves. I have uh I said a story, I think, early on about my cousin. He uh was so proud of himself for going shopping at this book sale one time, and he was redecorating his apartment or his home, his home. And he was like, Hey, do you have this book and do you have that book? I was like, Oh yeah, I love this book. This is what it's about. He said, Oh, no, no, no, it just matched my decor. And so I've got the book on my shelf.

SPEAKER_01: 12:16

It's pretty on the shelf. Like those rainbow book sales people have, or they do it by color. I love those.

SPEAKER_02: 12:21

Yeah, it was like that. And so it took me a long time early in my career to be willing to break the binder and to put highlighter notes and to bend pages. But now, I mean, my books, if they get donated, somebody is gonna open them and think, wow, this person actually read this, did something about it. I have notes in the margins of all of my books. Some of the books I continually pull off of my shelf. And that really became, again, the reason for doing this. I'll never forget, Sam. We were having the conversation. It was with uh Andy Hughes and Scott Miller and you and myself. And Andy and Scott were from the early-ons of What's on your bookshelf. Before it was even that, it used to be called Let's Be Real. And we were sitting together, and I recall it was, I think it was Scott who just said, as we think about what we want to do, I was never in the spotlight of the show. I was the one in the back of the scenes, inviting authors, bringing people to the table that Andy was interviewing. And I remember Scott saying, Well, as we transform this and create a new format for it, I really think that people just want to know what's on your bookshelf because people would constantly come to me and say, Hey, do you have a book for this topic? Or what book do you recommend for my team? Or what book can I use for some sort of leadership development for myself personally? And people were always asking me because they knew that I loved to read and I had a lot of books. And that's how what's on your bookshelf came to pass. And then one day we talked to you about hey, what would it be like for you to just jump in and help us out? Andy was having a baby and he's busy, his job was changing a little bit. And how was that for you coming into this? Because it wasn't planned for it to be the Sam and Denise show.

SPEAKER_01: 14:10

Well, uh, it's like every other crazy adventure I've joined you on. You come at me with so much excitement and so many good ideas that it's like, uh, okay, yeah, like why wouldn't I want to do that? And um, I mean, that's how you approached me with the John Wooden book. You're like, it's a sports book. I think we could do like seven episodes because he has seven principles. Like, it would be really neat to do that. But then as as we do, we got into talking and the seven episodes became many, many episodes. I'm not actually sure how many it is, um, but it's more than seven. We ended up going really deep into it. And again, like we came across that principle of, you know, drink deeply from good books, and it really became kind of the heart of what we were doing moving forward. And, you know, I always say this like I we use this time as like personal development more than anybody else, and we just bring everyone along with us. Um and I like I love talking to people in my life who are listening to this podcast and who are, you know, follow along with us because they they just have so many fun little mini stories to tell me, right? As they're doing it, they're like, Oh, I heard you say this and now I'm doing this, or you know, I I loved this episode because of XYZ. Like I got a text from my friend's husband the other day. And he was like, I was listening to your podcast and I just love it. I'm gonna like keep listening. And I was like, all right, like bringing in, we're bringing everybody in now. Um, and uh, you know, it's just so neat to to, I don't know, like grow on this journey with you. And I'm so glad that you did talk me into this in your your Denise way that you do, which is all wonderfulness. And um, and I'm glad that we bring other people along with us too, because it's it really is just about, I don't know, like working through kind of an idea through the year. Like last year was all happiness. This year is really all about, you know, making, you know, we're facing problems and issues that, you know, like that it doesn't all work out perfectly, right? When you're pursuing happiness, what comes on the tail end of that is problems, right? Like we're facing real life. And so this year's all about exploring how do you do that, right? How do you work through the things that are difficult, work through the things that are, you know, hard, work through the things that are standing in your way. And, you know, we started with choices. We went into obstacles becoming the way. We talked about unf ourseland and getting out of our head and into our life. And, you know, and now we're talking about, you know, the four agreements that we make that help us, you know, move forward. And so I don't know. But your question was how how has that been for me? It it has become the whole journey and become something that is outside of just you and I sitting down, recording this week over week, it's become something that's part of my life overall, right? In how I show up in my community and you know, people talking to me about it and how they're showing up and how I'm showing up with them. And you know, it's really become something bigger. And so thank you for convincing me to join three years ago, because this has been something that uh has shaped me in a way, and that's what I hope for other people, right? Is that this becomes, and as you get in this with us, it becomes something that shapes you into the next best version of you.

SPEAKER_02: 17:39

Yeah, I've read a lot of books in my day, and what I love about doing this show with you is there's just something different about reading a book with someone that you love and learning about what that person is taking away that you maybe were sort of thinking, but it's even a little different than you were thinking, and then you get an aha, like, oh, I missed that part. Now, what's funny is we'll often talk about a chapter and we both have the same parts highlighted in the book, which at least means the writer was a good, was a good writer in those areas. But what I'm hoping for our listeners as we round out the year with this book is that we can together go through this journey of the confluence between wisdom and knowledge, and that those two things are not the same, but complementary. And this book will be sort of like the tipping point of traction and then taking action. One of the things that we were talking about right before we decided to do this video today is that there's a lot of uh our colleagues, friends, clients, and people we've met that just aren't getting the results that they want. Whether it's being in a job that they're dissatisfied in, or maybe they've lost their job this year and they're feeling worried because the job market is just tough. Or maybe they are stuck trying to figure out how to grow up wherever they are. Or maybe it's about people balancing the difficulties of how much time they invest in their job at the expense of the time that they invest with their family. And so these books for me have been a real way. We talk about it in the tagline of the show. It's how to live out loud the pages of the lessons that these authors poured their lives into writing these books, many of which are bestseller books that often people have said, Yeah, I've heard about that book, or I read a book summary. I am not a fan of when you see all these posts coming out on Instagram or wherever that say you could read a hundred books in a month or a year or whatever. That's not really reading. The book summary might give you the highlights, but that's like if you went to the movie theater and all you did at the movie theater was um look at the previews. After you watch the movie, you can actually um look at the uh preview of the movie and think, oh, that really was the whole movie. But when you watch the preview without watching the movie, then it's not.

SPEAKER_01: 20:16

Yeah, yeah. And I and I think that that's so like I we talk about the I read a lot. I read a lot of books just for entertainment purposes. Like I do read hundreds of books every year, but those hundreds of books are like the same thing as me like binging a Netflix series. Like instead of doing that, I'm reading in that regard. And so I like I've I live both lives of the like quantity of book, and like there's quality, there's tons of quality stuff in there. Um, that I just I love that, right? It's the entertainment part of my life, it helps me expand my views in lots of different ways and other things too. Yeah. But this cadence of doing four books a year, doing them slow, doing them right, reading a little, doing a little, reading a little, doing a little, and implementing into my life, this is changing my life in fundamental ways. This is changing the trajectory of my life in fundamental ways that is different. And so, like, yeah, I'm I'm with you. Like this, you could do the 100 million summaries and like read all that kind of stuff. And that's great, right? It reminds me of like consuming a lot of good content on social media, but it's gone automatically, right? It's the things that you take a moment and then you go do something with that really fundamentally make a difference. And I think that that's where like in the world today we're we're so um just avalanched with quantity of content and information and ideas and all this kind of stuff, and it's great, and it makes you feel really smart that like I have learned all this stuff and I've read all this stuff, yeah. But unless you put it into your life in some meaningful way, it's not actually doing anything for you. And so it's like, well, what how do you slow it down a little bit? How do you do that? And that's really, I think, what we're doing here and what makes a big difference for me and you know, in in how we're showing up and how we're doing things.

SPEAKER_02: 22:15

Have you ever been to a restaurant and the meal is just so amazing that you just want to take your time with whatever it is you're eating and savory to the bites, and it doesn't have to be that it's an expensive restaurant, but you know, it's just a place where the meal is just really good.

SPEAKER_01: 22:32

And I do that more with desserts than meals, but yes.

SPEAKER_02: 22:37

But you've also been to fast food drive-throughs. That's the difference, really, right? They both feed you, they both serve a purpose. The difference with our podcast is it's like savoring a really good meal. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 22:51

Yeah, that's exactly it, right? It's taking the time, it's it's taking the picture of it, it's telling a friend about it. It's like it's creating an experience that becomes part of your life rather than, yeah, like I ate, check, move on, right? Like it was fine. It's like, no, I I took the time to savor. And I think in that savoring is like you said, which I love I love that, that's where that's where magic happens. That's where big things happen. And I'm really I'm really excited to do that with this next book. Like super, super like like I said, I haven't had a book that hit me this deep in all the books that we've been reading. The other ones have been great in other regards. This one's like deep, like from the outset. And I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, highlight, highlight, highlight, highlight, highlight. And I think that that's uh this one's gonna be so good. And I just cannot wait to get started.

SPEAKER_02: 23:46

Me too. I think I'll close by just saying another thing I love about doing this together with you is that it extends beyond us. So it goes, of course, to those of you that listen in with us, but it goes to our personal lives and the people that we love as well. So my phone was just ringing. It was Vincent calling back to back. And, you know, I often talk about Olivia and Vincent on the on our show. And for for months, neither one of them were willing to listen. One, because you know, they're in their 20s, and two, because they're my kids. And three, they're thinking, like, oh, it's my mom is doing a podcast. But one day I was going somewhere and they were captive in the car. And so I knew on that particular episode that I talked about both of them. And so I played it. And afterwards, I saw Vincent on the couch like a couple weeks later, and he had his headphones on. And I and I said, Well, what are you what are you doing? What are you listening to? And he likes to watch the podcast Diary of CEO, which is a great podcast he introduced me to. But he said, Uh well, I'm listening to your podcast. I'll just make sure we weren't we weren't talking about me. Well, I probably was talking about you. But, anyways, the point is that I love that also the things that we're learning, these are books that are good for business, but they're great for life, and it extends beyond your own life, the way that this can impact others. And so I hope even for you listening today, that you'll share with us what you're learning in these books with us. And this is just an interlude. We're coming to the book, but we wanted to take a pause, do something different, create a video so that you could see who we were face to face and what we're about and why we're doing the show and our heart for it, and to join us in the journey and to share it with others as well.

SPEAKER_01: 25:39

Yeah, I'm super excited to, like I said, get started. And, you know, if you haven't followed along this year or any other year, like go back. The episodes are there, they're recorded. You can easily binge them if you're more of a binger than a you know weekly cadence person. So go back and, you know, start at the beginning of this year and then go back a year and learn how to be happy and you know, find the thing that you like and and go through it with us. But you know, come on the journey because it'll change your life. And that's really all we want for you is you know, to have the biggest, most expansive life that you can.

SPEAKER_02: 26:11

And I want to do a special shout out to Andy and Scott, who were the originals for what's on your bookshelf. And an extra special thanks to Zach Elliott, who is our current producer for all that he does behind the scenes. And he's got a really special edition series that we have with books that were written by uh military veterans on leadership lessons. And that series is a part of what's on your bookshelf as well. You'll see it in the list if you look on Apple Podcast or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you like to listen to shows. So, Zach, thank you so much for all that you do with us week after week to edit and upload and produce this show for us.

SPEAKER_01: 26:54

Yeah, absolutely. And those episodes are great. I have listened to them and uh can't wait for more. So, yeah, that's uh definitely go check those out if you haven't, especially if you've got any kind of like interest in the military or background in the military, like really, really good stuff. As somebody who grew up on a Navy base, like, yes, good, good, good stuff and uh definitely good to check out. But yeah, thanks. Uh thank you to the people who support us that you don't hear every week, right? And um, yeah, no, we we love Zach and you know, Scott and um Andy, right, as as the years have gone on. And um, anytime y'all want to pop in and have a chat with us and talk about a book, we're we're happy to let everyone else experience all the greatness that uh that you have brought and bring.

SPEAKER_02: 27:38

Yeah, absolutely. And special shouts to Tom Schweizer and Dennis LaRue who join us on Zach's show. Uh, we are looking forward to this book. We're gonna end for now since this was just an interlude episode for you. We hope you enjoyed the way of having this format as well. Sam, any last thoughts for people who might be listening to this?

SPEAKER_01: 27:57

Just come along on the journey with us. It will be well worth your time.

SPEAKER_02: 28:02

See you next week, friends, on another episode of What's on Your Bookshow?