Read Any Good Books Lately? (September 20, 2025)
One of the greatest gifts of traveling the world is time. Specifically, I set my own agenda and timeline. At first, I was in “Sprint” mode and tried to see too much in too little time. So, I adjusted to “Marathon” mode where I find myself currently. And, as I enjoy the luxury of time (as you can see from all my blog posts), what I have not yet shared are all the incredible books I’ve read in the past 85 days.
I LOVE The Myth of Normal and highly recommend it!
As you may have seen, I have precious little space in my 44 liter backpack. So I can only carry one physical book at a time. What I have been doing is a book exchange. I’ve been reading one book and then trading it with coaches along the way — each time we sign it and share it so we can keep track of who gave who what and when. This latest book, The Myth of Normal comes from my dear friend, Stefan Wurzer from Austria. I love it and highly recommend it.
Author Gabor Mate explores his own childhood trauma as a means to illuminate the illusion that any of us had a mythical “happy childhood” — even when we grow up with wonderful parents who love us and gave us everything we could possibly want. Huh? Exactly. Our brains make up stories about how life is supposed to be and then we live into these stories and forget we made them up. One of my favorite quotes (of which there are MANY) is “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.” (p20). He goes on to quote Peter Levine who says that, “Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood and untreated cause of human suffering.” Mic drop.
I’m not going to try and summarize 500 pages of brilliance here other than to say, one of Gabor’s main points is that much of our “dis-ease” today is caused by our own lack of mental health and the fact that most of our healthcare system treats our symptoms rather than our root causes. Specifically, when was the last time any medical professional simply asked what’s happening in your life that may be causing you stress, exhaustion or burn out? Or if there have been any recent triggers that may have happened around the same times our bodies began “acting out”?
The sheer volume of incredible stories of people who have healed themselves bucking the statistical odds given to them by their medical professionals is staggering and yet rarely is a single one of them asked, “What did you do to heal yourself?” No one seems to be curious about these incredible stories of healing and unbelievable turn-arounds happening all around us.
And, Gabor’s point is that there’s nothing “normal” about the growing health crisis in our world today. If we continue to treat the symptoms rather than looking at the root causes, this polycrisis will only continue to grow and expand until such time as we “think different” about what’s behind all of them.
Gabor Mate painstakingly documented each of his points and cross-referenced them with the latest in scientific research and findings from his peers. There are about 50 pages of footnotes alone and you could spend a decade or more reading the content that supports his book. So yeah, I’ve really enjoyed this one.
Creator by Steve Chandler
The book I traded Stefan Wurzer from Austria was Creator by Steve Chandler which was given to me by Nikola Maras in Croatia. I always enjoyed another book by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin, The Prosperous Coach, so I was excited to read this one. It did not disappoint.
Steve Chandler has a “unique” style of writing. He more or less is talking to himself and encouraging you to look over his shoulder and follow along. When he says, “You …” he’s actually talking to himself, but assumes that the information is useful to others reading his work.
The basic premise of the book is that your divine inspiration is and has always been deep inside of you and all you need to do is allow it to come out — never judge it. Rather, to trust each of us is part of the interconnected web of life and God, the Universe, your Higher Power, or whatever you choose to refer to it as will guide you to create the wonderful things that serve humanity — if only you give yourself the time and space to release what is deep inside of you.
The book is about discovering your inner creator; your God-given spiritual essence that the world needs you to allow to come out and been seen, heard and experienced. It’s a good reminder that we all have something deep inside of us that the world needs and when we give ourselves the time and space to allow it come out of us, what we create is beautiful and worthy.
Loved The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier — Great Framework!
And all of these physical books started with none other than Nancy Cogswell from Ealing (UK) who handed me The Coaching Habit as an example of the brilliance that simplicity brings when you can take something complicated and really, really boil it down to it’s essence. This is the book I gave Nikola Maras in Croatia for Creator by Steve Chandler.
What I love about The Coaching Habit are the 7 questions that any leader can ask (without being a “coach”) and still getting the result that coaches get when asking powerful what and how (open-ended) questions:
Nancy gave this book to me as a framework to show me how powerful simplicity can be. She knows my commitment to financial freedom for every coach and sees this book as unlocking the missing element — deeply simple approach to building a coaching business.
I’m working to incorporate my learning into AskBill.us so that my artificial intelligence agent can simply and effectively support the individual needs of each coach who interacts with it.
And finally, to my wife Elena’s point, I usually only consume “Broccoli books”; that is, books that are “good for me” and help me grow in some meaningful way. I was thinking of her comment when I picked up my most recent book:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (not a “broccoli book”)
Yes, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been around for a long, long time, but one of those books I never got around to reading. LOVED IT. Very entertaining and enjoyable read. Reminded me how important our imaginations are and what a great story can be told when we lean into our imagination and dream the biggest dreams we can fathom. Wonderful.
I trust your summer reading has been going well. I should also share I’ve been tearing through many, many audible books including:
And I’m currently listening to Leading from Purpose by Nick Craig.
So you can see, when I’m not actively reading physical books, I’m enjoying listening to them via my Audible subscription. That’s been a game changer with all the trains, planes and automobile rides across the world. Enjoy your reading!
