E602 | 3 Books I'm Reading Right Now

In this episode of the podcast, Doc Danny discusses the significance of books and audiobooks in the pursuit of personal development. He shares his experience of reading his first book in this category, The Go-Giver, and how it took him months to finish.

Doc Danny also explains how he found audiobooks easier to work with, but if a book was more tactical in nature, he would prefer to get the physical copy. He emphasizes that the quality and implementation of the information are more important than the number of books one reads.

Moving forward, Danny recommends three books for personal development. First is Atomic Habits by James Clear, which focuses on habit formation. The second is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, which highlights the importance of stoicism. Third is Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, which is the speaker's favorite and emphasizes finding contentment and stillness.

Danny stresses the importance of finding a balance between complacency and ambition. He notes that entrepreneurs often become so focused on their businesses and financial success that they neglect other aspects of their lives, such as relationships with family and friends.

He shares the inspiring story of a mechanic in his 90s who maintains a sharp mind and physical health due to pursuing a job he enjoys and a passion for.

Ultimately, the Danny emphasizes the importance of constant learning and growth and suggests that finding stillness can lead to contentment while still striving for more.

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: Hey, real quick before you go, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and I would love it if you got involved in the conversation. So this is a one-way channel. I'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to get you into the group that we have formed on Facebook. Our PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group has about 4,000 clinicians in there that are.

Literally changing the face of our profession. I'd love for you to join the conversation, get connected with other clinicians all over the country. I do live trainings in there with Eve Gigi every single week. And we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside of that group. So if you're serious about being a PT entrepreneur, a clinical rainmaker, head to that group.

Get signed up, go to facebook. com forward slash groups forward slash PT entrepreneur, or go to Facebook and just search for PT entrepreneur. And we're going to be the only group that pops up under that name.

So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't want to see 30 patients a day, who don't want to work home health. And have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about. This is the question and this podcast is the answer. My name is Danny Mattei and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on everybody, Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast. And today we're talking about books. Books that I'm reading, books today. And.

Something that I don't do all that often, but you get a lot of questions about just reading and what are you reading? What should I read? It's probably one of the more common questions that I get in the mastermind, especially with people that are just Starting out and they're like, Hey, what are your top three reads?

And that's a difficult thing to answer because I think it depends on the person. It depends on where they're at in their life and their goals. And but I'm a huge believer that books and audio books and, the right content can really help shape. You as a person and your mindset in a positive way and help you progress towards becoming the person that you ultimately want to be.

And I think if you're listening to this, that's you probably fit in that. Books, like I said, I think are one of the best. Return on investment vehicles that you could possibly have. It's just a matter of implementation is what I I think people get stuck with and it's, I used to actually think it was like, oh man, I had this mentor one time and he told me he had no business experience formally before he started a business.

And he had read like 300 business books at the time that I had talked to him. And I was like, oh my gosh, 300 books. This guy, it's like a genius. Okay. I, I can think of two or three books that I actually read until I was out of grad school, until like I literally, until I was in my mid twenties I would say.

And the same mentor that told me I'd read all these books, he actually gave me a book to read, which is the first sort of personal development book I ever read, which is called the go giver which is a great. Great book, very easy read and even that book, that tiny little book, it took me months to read.

I finally sat down and forced myself to read it. I just, I get distracted very easily and so for me reading is a reading is hard. I'm very slow reader audio books. I found I do much better with, so you have to figure out your learning style. The thing that I've found though, with audio books is if I really want to get something out of it, if I'm listening to it and it's like a cool story and there's some relevant things that I want to be able to share with other people, I can listen to that.

But if it's very detailed, tactical things, I cannot and if in that. Case, I will get the audio book and I will read the physical book at the same time. So that way I'm listening and I am. Reading at the same time, and that helps me actually really digest and retain information much better.

Back to the 300 books, did you need to read 300 books? No, you don't. Because most likely. You can't even implement the information in 300 books. It's hard to implement the information in one book. And I've changed my approach from consumption quantity to really quality fewer things, fewer books, fewer audio books, and really trying to think about what you're learning from those, apply what you're learning from those.

And and really get something out of it to where it's not. It's not just a number, right? It's just a silly number of who cares if you read 300 books. Like I know people that are, they've only maybe read five business books in there, but they've implemented the crap out of all of them.

And they're very successful in their own right. So for me, I'm going to share three with you guys today that that I've really. I've enjoyed, I'm actually rereading two of these and and I just finished the other one. So I'll talk about these, but for me, this is not, maybe not going to apply for everyone for where they're at.

And this is why it's hard to say, Hey, what's, what do you recommend? What should I read? What books should I read as an entrepreneur? It's just so hard to say, cause I don't really know what you need help with. And it, I do like to talk to people about that and then give them a book recommendation based on what they're working on.

I actually find that really fun. It's just piecing together this sort of personal development puzzle. I had a commander whenever I was in the, in the army, whenever I was at the 25th infantry division, our brigade commander was a prolific reader and gifter of books, love to give books out to people.

He had a book club. But he would not in all circumstances, but in certain circumstances with certain soldiers that he had or officers, if he got a chance to talk to them and maybe it was like a development moment or something like he would. end up giving them a book on a certain topic that he thought was was relevant to them, and I like that as well because it's, it can be really helpful if people actually read it. That's the only , that's the only challenge is sometimes you give people a book and they're like, I don't have time to read this. And they don't, they actually read it. But the three for me that I'm reading they really, a lot of them have to do with just honestly mi I don't wanna say mindset.

Being happy, I guess is a good way to put it. And that might sound weird, but I have found with myself and with most entrepreneurs that I work with, that they are very ambitious people. They're very competitive people, which is one of the reasons why they gravitate towards entrepreneurship. But one of the challenges for someone who's very ambitious is.

It's very hard for them to become content. And this is something that we constantly talk about within PT Biz. And it's this concept of being content without being complacent. It's a very hard thing to achieve. Something that, that I can't say I've mastered at this point. Maybe who knows, maybe never, but being content.

Without being complacent is for me, that is the goal. That's the direction that I'm trying to head as just a human being, just as a person in all aspects of my life. And I don't, you don't want to lose that. To want to grow and build things within your business to, to grow the business, to improve as a person, to improve in all these other areas, but also like, how do you find that?

In knowing that you have enough as well, enough, whether it be financially, whether it be career wise, whether it be in your relationships or with your kids family, your health, and not be so hard on yourself. Cause I think most of us that are very ambitious type. I don't want to say type a, I'm like a type B plus very not, I don't have type a but type B plus to type a people that are hard charging.

They're pushing to do more and more. It's hard for us to turn it off. And in a lot of ways that creates so much stress for us and something that for me, it's, this is years and years of me just working through my own mind and trying to figure out how I can create this.

Position of being content without being complacent. And a lot of that for me has come down to mentors. It's come down to working with, professionals that are in, in mental health and better understanding myself and, but reading and books have been a big part of that. And one thing as an entrepreneur, you might be listening to this and you're like.

Danny, just tell me how to sell more shit. Okay. Plenty of episodes that you could listen to about that. And maybe you do need to do that in the business, but I can tell you this. If you do not create a healthy place for yourself mentally, and as you grow, like you're. The, whatever problems you have, whatever limitations you have, whatever baggage you're carrying with you along the way, it get, it becomes more of a problem as your business grows because you have more stressors.

You have more people relying on you. There's the stakes are higher. So if you can create this calmness for yourself along the way. It's so much better in a lot of ways, so much better for yourself and for everyone around you. And I've been in I've been in positions where, I just was. It's on paper successful, having plenty of success.

People would look at, Oh man, like visibly, if you looked at what I was doing, you'd probably think, man, it's awesome. Like he's doing great. As far as business is concerned, as far as career is concerned, whatever, like on paper, but just being just a miserable person to be around unhappy, always stressed out short with the people that mattered the most to me completely compartmentalizing myself from friends and family, because I.

In my mind, I was too busy to do any of these other things that, that really are, a huge part of life. Get, hopefully you can listen to this and you can say that sounds like it sucks. I don't really want to go there. And I hope that you don't, but in some cases you probably have to, I did.

And the perspective of what I felt like and what the people around me felt like versus where I am now, it's very different. And a lot of that is just because of working on different aspects of my own. Mindset and my own perspective with business and life. So the three books that I'm reading right now and rereading, I should say, and I like to actually read multiple books at once.

I probably shouldn't do that. I know I get it. But like for somebody that I'm sure has some sort of undiagnosed learning disability that whatever I struggle to focus on one thing I'm okay, I can read like two, three books and I just jump back and forth until I get to a point where I finish one or somebody to finish them roughly around the same time.

So I'm going through three right now. I just finished the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. It is the name of the book. It's hard to miss. It's a giant orange and a orange book with black and white letters. That's John Comer. That's a book that a friend of mine recommended that's a pastor. This is a very this is a book I almost didn't read because I'm not a very religious person, but I am a strong believer in just.

There's many things that are bigger than me that I can't explain and so I I try to stay away from very specific sort of I don't know, religious perspectives. This is very much a Christian perspective, which I respect, and I thought this book was actually awesome. And it really comes down to realizing just how.

Unimportant. Some of the things that we think are super important are, and this idea of hurrying to accomplish something and hurrying to to. I don't know, establish ourself as a professional within our career, our business, whatever, and realizing just like how much stuff you're missing along the way.

And and being able to focus on that is huge. And it's something that I actually really liked. This this book, it's not one that I would have picked up for sure. But I trusted my buddy. I like the recommendation and I've actually recommended this book to a handful of people in our mastermind that I think are struggling with being overwhelmed and not even realizing it, just taking on too much and not realizing it, and we're really not designed for that, we're not designed to just take on so much that we don't have a free moment to think or to decompress or, just to, to.

Let our mind relax. So that book was really good. I really liked it. The ruthless elimination of hurry. If you feel like you struggle with relaxing a little bit with taking a step back with just trying to realize that you can be a little more content that would be a great read for for you.

The second book that I am going. Back through, I've read this book once, I'm actually rereading it. A second time is the almanac of Neval Ravikant. And this, the backstory for this book is this guy is a, he's like an angel investor, Silicon Valley guy. And he's been involved in startups, mainly in the software world, tech world.

And he became really popular on Twitter. He had a bunch of tweets that sort of blew up and the author, Eric Jorgensen, he actually turned it, those in those tweets into a book with Neval. So it was like co wrote it, I believe. And the first half of the book is about wealth. And the second half of the book is about happiness.

And it's very interesting. It's a very, it's a very sort of bullet point. It's what you think a tech entrepreneur would write about wealth and happiness. And it is interesting. I think his perspective is interesting. I think of it as. Tech bro philosophy, in a way entrepreneurial philosophy is the way that I would state that book is set up, but I do like how it is very, it's very short chapters.

It's very actionable things. A lot of it is common sense, right? You're like, okay, I get that. That makes sense. But some of it is not, and some of it is very unique sort of perspective on on this. And, the thing with. What I thought was interesting with the ball, with his backstory is, he grew up in a really poor, rough part of of New York city.

And his, I believe his mom, he was a single parent, his mom raised him and she didn't basically, it was such a bad spot that she just didn't want him going anywhere besides school and then to the library. So he basically his. After school program was the library every day and his mom would pick him up from the library.

And so he just was a prolific reader from a young from a young age. So a lot of his perspective is very well rounded. It's very interesting where, he. Ties different things together. I've seen this with certain people and it does take quite a lot of reading and a lot of just people that are very introspective and they have time to think about this stuff.

I've noticed this with with Kelly Sturette as well. He's a very well read person from, like health and wellness books and perspective like that, obviously, but huge sci fi kind of fantasy fan somehow we'll tie things in from Dune with, movement and the things that he's talking about.

He reads architectural books, he reads all kinds of stuff that just seems like it's outside the domain of what he's primarily teaching. But this rounded perspective and, superficial knowledge of many different areas. It's interesting how they can tie things together in a way that you normally wouldn't be able to, if you just solely focus on one area, but it does take a lot of time and it takes also a super smart person to be able to make those connections and make them logically make sense to someone else.

I've only run it, run into a couple of people that I think can actually do that. And as I read this book I realized, Hey, Naval is a kind of this autodidact, self taught Sort of genius as well. And it's a really good book. Very rarely do I reread a book.

But I'm rereading that one. I think it's great. If you're interested in the financial side of it and cool, then you can read that half of the book. If you're interested in more in the happiness. And it's so funny because like happiness is such a subjective thing. And I feel like people that chase happiness are just unhappy in general.

For the most part, that's how I felt as well. And it's just can you just feel this way? And it's not really like a state. It's just working towards the right things and also stopping yourself from thinking the wrong things is. What I found, it comes down to, and a lot of that is what he expresses in in this book.

So if any of that interests you, I think that's a really a really good book to read as well. And then the last one for me, and this is actually my favorite author. My favorite author is Ryan Holiday. I love Ryan Holiday's stuff, man. I can't get enough of it. I just, I like the way that he writes. I like that the books are relatively short.

The chapters are short fits my brain. I just like his perspective and it's not all, he's made stoicism interesting again. Whereas it's almost don't even like to tell people that, that I'm reading anything has to do with stoicism because I think it's I don't know.

It's definitely overplayed a little bit in terms of what people. I don't even the best way to put it. I guess they signal it. They're the stoic person, but I don't know, are they actually applying those things or do they just want to make themselves sound like they're into personal development and they're whatever.

They're trying to make themselves sound cooler than they are. I'm definitely not trying to make yourself sound cool. I barely understand it. I, I have to read these things multiple times. It takes me a long time to think about what the heck are these guys talking about? Even with, things like with Ryan holiday, the summary of things that, that he brings up after he talks about key points, but I love the stories that they that they have, or that he puts in his books and stillness is the key is the the book that I'm rereading.

This is actually the third time that I'm rereading this book. I've given this book now to probably half dozen people. And for me. This is, I would say this is my favorite book that he's written. He's written a lot of books. He's a prolific author. I can't even keep up with all of the books that he's read.

I haven't read them all. I've probably read most of them. But he writes comes out. The new book every six months is crazy. But stillness is in, in stillness is the key, is essentially what it sounds like. , how do you find this place of stillness, this place of con contentment is the way I look at it.

It's no different. I think you could rename it content. Is the key, right? If you can become content with your life and be content with where you're at while still striving for more, that is such a difficult thing to do. How do you balance that effectively? So difficult.

You have to be totally fine with where you're at, but. Interested in developing yourself more interested in having more financial stability, interested in helping more people, interested in whatever it is, interested in doing something else. Because I think that in my time in the clinic, and maybe some of you, probably all of you can relate to this.

I think this is something that is a huge advantage that we have as clinicians. We get to work with people, not just in a. One off capacity, like a surgeon or something, like that. Or even like a general practitioner where they get very little time with people, we get to work with people for extended periods of time and develop relationships with those people.

And what I found as I worked with people in all kinds of different demographics, ages the people that were the oldest, that seemed the happiest and that seemed like they were the most mentally. They're still, still very sharp mentally. They were the people that were still learning.

They were the people that were still growing. There were the people that were still involved in something that they enjoyed, a passion that they had. There were maybe still working in a capacity. They still really enjoyed. I remember I had this patient whenever I was an intern in. New Braunfels, Texas.

This is a big retirement kind of area, or at least it was at the time. I don't know if it's still like this in Texas, but there's a, we had a lot of retirees, I've seen a lot of Medicare population and there's a guy that came in and he was like in his early nineties and he had a, I would I consider like a minor injuries, a shoulder injury.

But he was a mechanic and he owned a mechanic shop, had owned that mechanic shop for. Decades. He worked with his sons and even I think one of his grandsons at this point and he still went in and he worked five days a week. Every day he would go in to his shop. And he couldn't do as much as he used to be able to, but he could still, turning wrenches and running the business and all the things that he needed to do.

And I just remember being really impressed with this guy because he was physically still really in solid shape. He was in his nineties and his grip strength was probably. Stronger than mine, it was crazy, but what was really impressive with him was just how mentally sharp he was, he had no cognitive decline that, maybe he did, but if he did, he was real smart before that.

And I remember I asked him, I was like, man, you just seem somewhat ageless. What do you think that, what do you attribute that to? And he told me, he goes, everybody needs a job. Everybody needs to work. You just need to make sure what you're working on is the thing that you really like.

And then it's, it doesn't really feel like work. You're, it's like your hobby and he loved cars and he loved running his business and being around his his kids and his employees. And and I was, I always thought that was fascinating, and this is, I'm like in the army at the time, right?

Like I'm. I'm not even thinking about anything business related. I'm just interested in this guy because he just seemed like such an outlier to me. And, constantly learning, I think is something that people have to do. So when people become complacent. I think that's when we start to trail off both physically and mentally.

And if you can be content, that's different. Content is one thing, but still wanting to learn and grow and use your mind and use your body. That's something that just doesn't go away. So this idea of being content or being able to find stillness, and they bring us up in the book in different ways and.

It's such a good read, at least for me, like I said, look, these, for me, this is what I'm learning about now. When I first started as a, as an entrepreneur, I was mainly learning about finance and sales, things that I just didn't understand things that I knew I needed to improve. If somebody had given me stillness is the key when I was.

If you gave me this book in July of 2014, it would have just collected dust somewhere because I wouldn't have read it and I probably wouldn't have been able to apply anything that they were talking about and understand what the heck, why that this is neat, this is even important, right?

But. At this stage of my life, at least this book has been super impactful on me, probably the most impactful book that I've read in the last couple of years. And it's why I'm reading it again for a third time and really going back through and giving some thought to the different the different chapters that are in the book, and really understanding the idea that the idea of having enough.

It's not a bad thing. It's that fine line where we tiptoe between complacent and content. And that's something that for me is really the biggest goal that I have is to be able to find that balance, maintain that balance and still be a very ambitious person, but not burn everything down.

Around me in the process, which is so common. It's just so common in the entrepreneurial world. I thought it was bad in the military. Like the divorce rates, super high in the military. There's just it's a tough lifestyle, really hard to move every few years. And it's a lot of young relationships that end up not going very well.

But when I look at entrepreneurship, my friends that are entrepreneurs, many of them are, they're on there. Second, third marriage. A lot of them have poor relationships with their kids because they're just so obsessed with their business and they're working so hard and on paper they have a lot of financial success.

Like they're sure they're wealthy people, but I think overall they're. They're not winning the game of life. I think they're losing in a lot of ways. And I don't know if they care to change those or maybe they feel like they're too far down a path that they can't change.

I don't know, but I know for me, I didn't, I don't want to try to do something of it.

I love the personal development side of it. I love the ability to build a team and work towards a future vision. And I sure as hell don't want to hit the finish line alone, with no relationship with my kids, with no relationship with my family and, with with no spouse that started the entire journey with me when we were 21 and 22 years old, in order to be able to do that, it just comes down to working on the right things. So if you fall into a category that sounds similar to that, and this is something that interests you as well, this idea of, being content without being complacent, I've got three great books for you.

And this is what I'm working on right now. And I said, I'm rereading these as I listened to the audio books. And that's how I learned the best. I don't know. Maybe you don't need that. Maybe you can just like a normal person, just read it, or maybe you can just listen to it and you can remember everything.

That's cool too. You got to figure out how you learn best, but for me, that's my strategy. And I want to share that with you guys, cause I get this question a lot. If you're in that stage of life or if any of these interests you go for it. I really like all three of these, totally recommend them and hopefully they help you as much as they've helped me as always.

Thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you next week. Hey, peach entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with. That is our PT biz part time to full time five day challenge. Over the course of five days, we get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you.

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