Sunday Six: Les Paul, Fiction Books & V60
Hey Friend 👋
Happy Father’s Day 👏 (If you’re a dad) and if you’re not a dad, Happy Father’s Day to the Father in your life. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. Our day was almost exactly the Sunday you could have expected.
- Went to morning church service at 12Stone
- Grilled steak and veggies on the Blackstone
- Hit the pool with the family
Aside from writing today’s Sunday Six (which I know you’ll love), I am either going to be winding the night down with a new book I’m enjoying or a new Lego set that my our family picked up yesterday. We’ve been on a lego kick. Highly recommend if the lego bug hasn’t already bit you.
Also, progress check-in on my book. I’m 15,000+ words in. This is a major milestone as it’s a little less than halfway written. Nonetheless, there is still a long journey ahead of me. After I write this rough draft, I will go through the entire book to do a round of self-editing before it hits my professional editor. (Pray for me… I’m a perfectionist and this will likely get intense 🙏)
Thank you for the incredible support and encouragement along the way! Means the world. By the way, I’ve landed on the title. Finally. Officially. That was grueling. But… once the cover is done — I’ll share it with you 😄
Sunday Six ☀️
📚 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — this is one of my many attempts to try to get into fiction. I have read probably 300+ non-fiction books on business, leadership, spiritual development, entrepreneurship, writing and creativity. The tension with non-fiction is that it gets my head spinning with ideas.
Reading is one of my favorite ways to wind down the evening but it’s counterintuitive when I read a book that has me taking notes and firing up new ideas. I end up in the “tired but wired” state of mind. So, I’ve been attempting to read fiction to transport myself into another world and wind down the evening.
So far, it’s been wildly unsuccessful. I tried the 5AM Club — which was a self help book disguised as fiction (which I thought would be a perfect transition). The wisdom in the book was great but the story was horrendous. The same thing happened when I read The Alchemist. It came highly recommended as a great fiction that can play as non-fiction help. Decent self-help. Terrible Story.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book about young friends who are game developers building a new video game together. So far (I’m about 100 pages in) — the book is excellently written, the story is pretty solid and it’s hasn’t crossed the line into cheesy yet. It inched close a few times but not too bad.
It’s 400 pages and it feels like this may be the first fiction book I actually enjoy. If this doesn’t work — I’m giving up and just going with C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling for their fiction and calling it a day.
Link to book: https://amzn.to/43LvH4V
💬 Quote — “The fact that you ‘can’t do’ something can be embarrassing. But if you are ‘learning to do’ something that is admirable. There are only tiny baby steps between can’t and learning.” - Kevin Kelley
This quote hit me at the right time when I started taking writing seriously about 9 months ago. I got caught up in what I lacked versus what I needed to learn. With that simple mindset shift, I’ve grown tremendously in what I’ve been able to do for my craft.
Not because of anything I did, but just because of the perspective shift in learning.
📚 Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry — I grew up watching Friends so much that I could practically quote every joke of every season. My favorite character was Chandler (Matthew Perry). He was zany, funny and brought a ton of energy.
He recently released a memoir about his 35 year struggle with drugs and alcohol. In this book, he talks about all the days through Friends, his career prior and his life currently. It’s intense, emotional and really gets you thinking.
If you can take a second — pause reading the Sunday Six and pray for one person in your life that struggles with addiction. Pray for their health, future and spiritual well being… as well as the strength to break free.
Great book. Worth the read. Worth praying for people.
Link to book: https://amzn.to/3NBprqI
☕ The V60 Technique by James Hoffman — What better reading companion than amazing coffee? I recently added the classic V60 coffee setup to my arsenal for my early rise cup of coffee. It’s a perfect little setup for a one-cup pour. It’s simple enough to use daily and manual enough to let you dial in that perfect cup.
I’ve, of coursed, dialed in the James Hoffman method. This is the smoothest cup I’ve made in a long time. Enjoy.
Link to my V60 Kit: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/36QAIOQLP4YZM?ref_=wl_share
🎙️Tim Ferris Interviews Greg McKweon — Greg is the author of Essentialism, a wildly popular New York Times Best Seller, and Tim is the author of 4-hour work week and loads of other New York Times Best Selling books.
This is an old podcast but I specifically searched for it. I’ve been finding myself at a crossroads nowadays in the tension of opportunity and time. In my 20’s — I jumped at practically every opportunity I could get to learn, grow, explore and better understand what I am wired to do.
Without trying to be cliche — my 30’s has given me significantly more opportunities than I simply have time for and now I am finding myself having to make incredibly tough decisions for what needs to go from life and what needs to grow in my life (ooo — that’s good. You can take that.)
This podcast had some nuggets that guided me. Here are a few:
“Good now is better than perfect later.”
“Nobody does moderation well. You’re either in or you’re out. Moderation means you have to make a decision every time.”
“Just because it was the right thing for you to pursue in the past doesn’t mean it’s still the right thing to pursue today”
“Multiply everything by pi (3.14). Everything you do takes significantly more effort than you think it will.”
🎸 Gibson Les Paul — 6 years ago, I sold one of my dream guitars. I’ve always regretted selling that one guitar. I started playing guitar at the age of eight and always sought after a Gibson Les Paul.
I grew up listening to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Guns n Roses, Blink 182, Fall Out Boy, The Devil Wears Prada — you get it. I ended finally getting that incredible Les Paul I always wanted. In a season of temporary financial turmoil I had to navigate — I sold that guitar.
Today, I ordered that Les Paul. Unfortunately, not the same serial number exact guitar — but the closest freaking thing to it. Same color, pickups, neck style, case, wiring — the whole 9 yards.
I couldn’t be more inspired or excited to enjoy it. Anything that inspires you creating something meaningful is probably worth the investment.
Here’s a video of somebody playing this guitar way better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/XH9pa8tOQmw
Thanks for tuning into this week's Sunday Six!
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