Book Summaries

By Simon Sinek

• Happiness comes from what you do but fulfillment comes from why you do it.

• Most of us know what we do, but we do not know why we do it.

• Money is not what drives most people, there’s a purpose that drives them. 

• Loyalty is not based on the benefits, it is based on something much deeper.

• The what determines the how, but the how is determined by the why.

• Every employer wants to hire people that believe in their company, but how can they if the employer does not know the what and why. Knowing your why is the secret for hiring to fit.

• The why is an origin story. 

• If you can narrow down your why statement into one sentence, you will be more likely to remember it and to act on it. 

• A why statement is “To __________ so that __________” 

• The why is connected deeply to feelings.

• The why is to aspire to be who we truly are.

• People don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it.

• Gather stories that explain your why. The more specific the story is, the better. 

• When you live your why is when you’re most fulfilled. 

• You cannot have two why’s. If you are one why at work and another why at home, you are lying in one of the areas.

• Everyone has a why, the question is if you will be open enough with yourself to find it.

By Richard James 

• If you asked one hundred different entrepreneurs why they started a business, you’d probably get one hundred different answers, yet the common theme would be their passion. 

• If you had all the money you needed, what would you do with your time? What do you really love, what is your passion? 

• You must need a business plan to know who you are targeting what is your purpose. 

• Working from a fear of failure will give you a setback mindset. Many times it can become a self-proclaimed prophecy because you’re waiting for it to happen. 

• The initial startup of a company requires a lot of energy. 

• Starting a business does require finances, but it also requires a will to get the ball rolling.

• Pay more attention to the money going out than you do to the money coming in. If you only see what’s coming in, you will likely spend unwisely, and it will catch up to you.

• Live from your budget, not your income. 

• If you overextend yourself for too long, you will eventually burn out.

• Many people thrive at the beginning, but everyone has a breaking point.

• How do you know when to delegate? When you have so many things that take up your time that you cannot focus on your main responsibilities, you know it’s time to delegate. 

by Franz Martens 

• We end up worshiping the ministry of God rather than the God of Ministry!

• Missionaries and Pastors are especially susceptible to this problem. Dysfunction, and ultimately burnout, is the result.  

• Missionaries and pastors especially need to find safe people and places where they can rest, learn and grow. When we don’t have the right people in our lives, the potential for failure rises dramatically.

• Personality conflicts are very real and magnified in a mission context.

• Ministry is really about God’s work and our co-laboring together with Him. How do you measure how God is doing when the results are truly up to Him? When we try to do so, pressure mounts as predictably we fail.

• A missionary is often surrounded by people all day long and sometimes late into the night, yet meaningful relationships are often in short supply.

• It has been my experience that missionaries who make deep connections with co-workers or fellow believers in their host countries stay in the work much longer than those who remain lonely.

• We are the hands and feet of the Great Commission.

• Often those in ministry focus on their work and forget that it should be on Jesus Christ. Ministry flows out of relationship.

• It is in our moments of darkness that we somehow forget to rest in Christ.

by Ryan Holiday

• Your worst enemy lives inside of you. 

• Ego tells you what you want to hear when you want to hear it.

• You can think big without living and acting big.

• The attitude of being a student stops the ego.

• False ideas about yourself will destroy you. You must keep learning.

• The attitude of being an eternal student will keep you humble.

• Ego is the enemy because it lies and disconnects you from reality.

• Ego screams for you to indulge it. Do not let it distract you. 

• Ego causes you to be a victim of yourself. 

• Ego causes you to stop growing and learning.

• You cannot keep learning if you think you know everything. Ego wrecks you.

• Knowledge puffs up.

• You must manage yourself to maintain your success.

• Your ego might not cause you to fail, but it will prevent you from moving forward.

• Don’t let stubbornness make a bad situation even worse. 

• The bigger the ego, the harder the fall. 

• Ego usually causes the crash and stops you from improving. 

By Brandon Black & Shayne Hughes 

• Ego can be explained as a constant preoccupation with your self worth. 

• Avoiding and not telling the truth is not because we want the best for people, rather an ego issue of what we want people to think about us. 

• Offering security to those you work with will illuminate the ego factor. 

• Address issues openly and without judgment. 

• Being right is like a surge of electricity to a lightbulb. We like it so much that any collateral damage is worth it.

• Instead of defending, decide to learn more.

• Working on your ego is the highest act of leadership.

• When we make others good, we build a momentum of trust and inspiration.

• Think about contributing more than winning.

By Liz Elting

• No matter who you are, and where you are on your journey, there is always someone out there that can help you.

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No one gives you something for nothing.

• Circumstances are temporary, but your attitude is permanent.

• No one will value you if you don’t first value yourself.

• Having a passion for what you do is very important.

• Passion releases creativity.

• A business or product name should be sticky (memorable), short, functional, and have a story behind it.

• You control your outcome by the amount of hours you put into work.

• Treating every client like your only client is the way to loyalty.

• Without risk, there’s no reward. You cannot win if you do not play.

• When in doubt, list it out. Write down the pros and cons to help you make life choices.

• Startups are worth the risks, but they are not worth your life.

• 82% of businesses fail because of cash flow problems.

• There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. – John F Kennedy

• If you want to dream big and win, you must grow and continue growing. Maintaining the status quo is never sufficient.

• You can’t reach a goal if you never set one.

• A Stanford study showed that those who wrote down their goals succeeded ten times over those who just had goals. 

• Most people get stuck on goal-setting. Goals do not work unless you have a plan of action and deadline. You must keep yourself accountable to achieve the goals.

• If you are going to win big, you must put in big effort. There’s nothing pretty about it.

• Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment – Jim Rohn

• Goals and accountability are half sides of the same coin. 

• When it comes to goal: say it, set it, do it, and then do it again.

• The moment you stop improving is the moment you stagnate.

• Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. — Muhammad Ali

• Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. – Henry Ford 

• If you stop taking risks, you abandon your potential growth. 

• Dress like the job that you want, not the job that you have. 

• Attitude is just as important as aptitude; maybe even more important. 

• Everyone encounters obstacles, but the most successful see them as opportunities to learn and grow.

• Taking ownership is one of the most sure ways to succeed. 

• You may have the greatest product on the market, but if you cannot sell it, it does no good.

• A goal is a dream with a deadline.

• As you grow, you must remember to work on your business and not just in your business. Learn to delegate to focus on the big picture. 

• In leadership, you must learn 

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Passion.
            2. Prioritize.
            3. Pivot.
            4. Proactive.
            5. People. (Leadership can be boiled down to getting people on board)

• Attitude is as much, if not more, important than experience. 

• Hiring someone with integrity is not optional, it’s a must. 

by R. Kent Hughes 

• The Discipline of Purity 
  • • • A poll showed 1 out of 8 pastors have committed adultery. 
      • The statistics are shocking when it comes to pornography and sexual sins in ministry. If these statistics are amongst pastors, how much more so amongst the congregation? 
      • If holiness is so absent in ministry, no wonder we are losing our power and influence. 
      • King David’s sexual sins desensitized him from God’s influence in his life. 
      • When lust takes control, reality of God fades. 
      • 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 — it’s God’s will to be holy. Lev 19:2
      • Enlist help from accountability and prayer from others.
      • Job 31:1 — make a covenant with your eyes. If Job were alive today, how would he handle TV, surfing the internet, or phone usage? 
      • Don’t flirt, even in jest. It’s better to be considered rude than to give the wrong impression or give way to temptation. 
      • Don’t be so blind thinking you could never fall.

• The Discipline of Marriage 
  • • • Marriage love claims everything. Death to self and giving up all you have to your spouse. 
      • Prayerful intercession is needed for your spouse. 
      • Is your spouse more like Christ because of you or in spite you? 
      • We are commanded to love our wives as we love our own body. 
      • Marriage is a discipline of commitment. If there’s a thought in your mind that you could end things, you do not have the discipline of commitment. 
      • Marriage is a discipline of communication. You must schedule time to communicate with words and emotions. 
      • Are you working on the second most important relationship in this world, your marriage? 

• The Discipline of Fatherhood 
  • • • If we as saved men do not help our children and others, what hope is there from the world? 
      • Fathers that criticize their sons often bring them to discouragement. 
      • Don’t be overstrict with your children. 
      • Inconsistency exasperates your children. Don’t make promises you cannot or will not keep. 
      • Favoritism exasperates your children. 
      • Your children need tenderness. You’re more manly when you show tenderness than when you do not. 
      • Don’t leave the discipline to your wife. 
      • Excessive busyness cannot always take precedence. We must have constantly evaluate our time, our children will not be at home forever. 

• The Discipline of Friendship 
  • • • One study says 10% of men do not have friendships. 
      • You need your wife as a friend, but you also need other male friends as well. 
      • Friendship is loving and encouraging.
      • Place yourself in ways to find and have friendships. 

• The Discipline of Mind
  • • • There are too many Christians that don’t think Christianly. 
      • Philippians 4:7-8
      • Psalms 101:3. We should consider our TV viewing. 
      • You cannot have a Christian mind without reading regularly the word of God. The way of a Christian mind is through the word of God.

• The Discipline of Devotion
  • • • Prayer bends our will to God’s will. 
      • To meditate on God‘s word means to mutter it. Memorize a verse or passage and say it over and over to yourself.
      • There can be no discipline or devotion without confession. 
      • Unconfessed sins makes it feel like heaven is shut up, but confession opens the pathway to commune with God.
      • Reverence is needed for the discipline of devotion.
      • Sing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs back to God.
      • The reason many do not have a special time of devotion is because they have not planned for it.
      • Are we men enough to meditate, adore, submit, and confess?

• The Discipline of Prayer 
  • • • Pray in the spirit. Ask Him to help you, using the strength and continuance of the Holy Spirit. 
      • Pray continually. 1 Thes 5:17
      • Praying continually is not an amount of time but a body posture of the heart.
      • Persistent prayer. Moses, with his hands up in Exodus 17. The widow before the ungodly judge, and Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
      • Do we pray for our families, our lives, our congregations, the lost, and others?
      • Do you have a prayer list? Use one to remember, to not neglect, and to not become distracted. 
      • You need a quiet time. We wake up to a noisy world, go to work with noise around us, and rarely have a time to think or be in silence. 
      • You need the practice of prayer, a place for prayer, privacy for prayer and list for prayer.
      • The busyness of life will crowd out your prayer.

• The Discipline of Character 
  • • • Character and integrity lack today. There is a character crisis in our world today. 
      • Companies pay a large percentage of loss yearly because theft of employees. 
      • Integrity is one of the greatest needs in the church today. 
      • If you have a clear conscience, you can weather the storms in life. 
      • Deception becomes a habit. 

• The Discipline of Tongue
  • • • The tiny tongue is a fire and has awesome potential for destruction. 
      • James 3:3-5. Control the rudder and you control the ship. 
      • Gossip is subtle but it does great damage. 
      • Flattery works ruin.
      • Criticism hurts and cuts down many. 

• The Discipline of Work
  • • • Christians should be the best workers wherever they are. 
      • Work with excellence. Work for the glory of God. 

• The Discipline of Perseverance 
  • • • Keep your focus on Jesus.
      • Keep your focus on His focus. 
      • Consider our Lord. Run the race he has for you.

• The Discipline of Church 
  • • • God uses the church in a Christian’s life. 
      • Some men ask if they have to go to church to be a Christian. The answer is no. You also do not have to go home in order to stay married, but it would sure help your marriage.
      • Men, you will not grow if the church is not part of your life. Do not be a hitchhiker church member, going from one place to another and never belonging anywhere. 
      • Commit to give to your church, pray for your church, be involved in your church And love your church.

By Ryan Holiday

• Practice over a long time will turn something into second nature for you. 

• We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to the level of our training. 

• We don’t get anywhere in life without work.

• No one does their best in their robe, so get up, shower, and get dressed whether you leave your home or not. 

• While the world is unpredictable, we can take care of ourselves. 

• The person who becomes comfortable with being uncomfortable is the person who understands discipline.

• One that has not learned to govern self is not qualified to govern.

• Nothing unchecked will last long.

• The best way to master your mornings is to master the evening before. 

• Instead of expecting things to be easy, prepare for them to be hard.

• We think we can make up for things with creativity, but what we need is commitment.

• We will be given a million reasons to stop and quit, but we must continue forward.

• We choose the hard way because in the long run it is the best way. 

• Greatness is not just what someone does, but also what they do not do. 

• A leader cannot act upon impulse, they must be controlled by something deeper. 

• The secret to success in almost any area is blocked times of focus without distraction. 

• No one can achieve the anything without the discipline of keeping the main thing. 

• In a world of distractions, staying focused is a superpower. Most people do not have the discipline to stay focused.

• Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet. Patience is the primary evidence of a genius. 

• The graveyard of lost potential is filled with people who had time to do something later.

• Losing is not always on us, but being a loser is. You do not have to give up.

• Someone else’s lack of self-control is not an excuse to abandon our own.

• You can have passion, but no one should be a slave to it.

• Success many times depends on judicial constraint.

• If you think you have room to grow, you do. If you think you know everything, and cannot learn more, that is true as well.

• Everyone is going through something, but some people choose not to vomit their issues on everyone else. The strongest people keep themselves in check. 

• Do your best, even if you are despised for doing it.