Page 150 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

says something and I say something sarcastic in reply. These are emotional

reactions.

If I’m to build great relationships in my professional and personal life, I
want to begin to respond and not react. A response is a creation based on what I
want the relationship to be, not based on what the other person has said. It
honors my commitments and creativity over my immediate negative feelings.
Like the great psychologist and author Rollo May points out, it’s all about
learning to pause.

The habitual impulse may be to emotionally react to people. But inside the
pause I can remember my true purpose. I can center on my commitment not to
let other people bring me down. I can see the value, as I pause, in not taking
anything personally. Then, when I breathe inside my pause, I can shift back up
to “create mode.” What kind of relationship do I really want with this person?

What kind of a response would be most likely to create that?

107. Apply the book you read

The great poet Ezra Pound said, “Properly we should read for power. A
person reading should be a person intensely alive. The book should be a ball of
light in one’s hand.”

I have found that a great book is even more powerful the second time
through, especially if it has been a year or so since I read it. I am more enriched
reading that book for a second time than I am reading some new book for the
first time. It’s the difference between information and transformation.

People often say to me, “I love that book, the problem is applying it.”

Well, my answer to that is the application is everything. Loving the book is
nothing. It isn’t how many books you read, it’s how many you apply. You are
better off, therefore, reading one book four times than reading four books one
time each. Instead, most people try to accumulate knowledge. But it doesn’t help
you when it’s accumulated, it makes you fat and overstuffed.

A friend told me 100 books he thought everyone in my profession should
read. I’d rather he tell me the one book I should read 100 times. The difference is
between a life that is changed, and a life that is weighed down with heavy,
immobilizing knowledge.