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Opportunity All Around

Reader Joe Geneva sent this to me via email, I thought it was quite good and he kindly let me share it -

Hi Sebastian, just wanted to remark upon something I've seen lately. The sheer amount of opportunity around me.

In any given day there's more opportunity then you will ever have time for, probably more then anyone one person can use. Yet we don't use it. We procrastinate or rationalize, we make excuses for ourselves and for others, and talk among ourselves about why we can't achieve things, or put ourselves down. We never truly seem to recognize how much sheer opportunity there is to be taken.

I often hear people remarking about being bored. This irritates the hell out of me, especially when I'm somewhere where i know for a fact there's 20 easily found activities to do. Why do people seem totally oblivious to this... do they have no motivation to improve themselves, or think they are already perfect or something.. It seems a bit mystifying why people don't constantly look for ways to get better at things.

Now after all this criticism its time to talk about myself a bit, and touch on another subject. Why is it so hard to improve ourselves? I don't mean improve our productive time or finding things to learn, i mean why is the desire to get better so hard to achieve, and especially see the big picture. For example, if you give it some thought, you can take any problem, break it into its basic components, figure out what you need to learn, then Google it. It's that easy (for those of us with internet). Yet we don't do it nearly as much as we should. I could list about 20 things off the top of my head to Google right now, information that might alter my life immediately. Yet its really hard to go through with it... As though we were actively holding back ourselves.

Must-Read's For Creative Builders: 10 Books That'll Change Your Life

I read an asininely large number of books. I probably open or start 300 to 500 books a year, finish 50, read substantial parts of 50 more, and listen to another 30 to 70 on audio. I tend to "fast read" books - which is where I skim until I hit a particularly good part, and then slow down for comprehension. When I read a book that's highly tactical, I try to go through it slowly over a couple months while implementing and testing the tactics.

The following isn't my list of favorite books, nor the best books written, nor even the most important to me. Instead, it's my picks of "must reads" if you're doing "creative building."

That's where you're simultaneously trying to invent/innovate while growing and diffusing your inventions and innovations. It's what entrepreneurs do, but not entrepreneurs only. The following list would be useful to someone trying to proliferate their writing, become prominent in fields ranging from music or journalism, and possibly even governance and politics.

There'll be a mix of philosophical, strategic, and tactical books on the list. Let's begin:

1. Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa - If you're talented and get frustrated with stupid people, you have to read "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I mean, you have to. Musashi was one of the greatest swordsmen in Japanese history, invented a new Japanese longblade/shortblade mixed style of swordsmanship, and at one point fought himself out of an ambush when he was attacked by over 30 men. He was undefeated in over 60 duels, including defeating arguably the second best swordsman in Japan at the time while fighting with a wooden oar he carved into a rough swordlike shape. Yoshikawa writes his story about getting into conflict with mainstream society and all of the friction before finally finding a way to hone his craft without unnecessary conflict - and thus reach an even higher level of perfection. A brilliant philosophical read, but also a hell of a swashbuckling story. If you only read one book on this list, read this one.

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