What you fill your mind with is what you become. You can spend your life listening to bubble gum for the brain or stuff designed to stir up your emotions–or, you can fill your mind with positive thoughts and material designed to teach and expand you.
I listen to podcasts. At least an hour a day. I just finished one that is a must-listen. (Of course, other than mine 🙂
This is the podcast of Tim Ferriss (4-hour Work Week, Tools of the Titans, etc.). He just interviewed George Raveling in the most fascinating conversation I’ve heard in years.
Learn about his reading habits and how he takes notes. He gifted Ferriss with a number of books including one of my favorites–Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer-Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. I read it in the mid-60s and the ideas have formed much of my outlook. He wrote it in 1951, but it is just as relevant today.
Raveling was the first black basketball head coach in the PAC 8 (later PAC 10) at Washington State and then the first black head basketball coach in the Big 10 while at Iowa. Later he coached at USC. He became Global Director of Sports Marketing at Nike and was instrumental in signing Michael Jordan and beginning the Air Jordan dynasty.
He was born in Washington, D.C. and essentially orphaned at age 13. He tells the story of getting into a Catholic school, his many mentors, and how he wound up on the podium during Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
For your own personal growth and development, you need to listen to this.
A couple of quotes:
“I’ve always had this theory that, if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll always get what you want.”
“If it has to be, it’s up to me.”
