Book Review How to Stop Worrying and Start Living Dale Carnegie LinkedIn:
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How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.
The real takeaway for me in this book, if I had to choose one thing, is to work more. That is the takeaway. When I was done reading this book, I ultimately felt like the solution for not worrying about things is just working more, and it's true. It's silly, but if you're able to accomplish things and be productive, your mindset changes. You've accomplished something. It makes it easier to go to sleep or whatever it might be, or calm down, or easier to clear your mind, knowing that you're doing the best that you can. It's those times when you know that there's something you've been procrastinating on, you get a little bit stressed out perhaps.
And if it's something like not being able to sleep, there's a specific chapter on that. The chapter is How to Keep from Worrying About Insomnia. And in the example, he gives a story of a lawyer that has his entire life with insomnia. And instead of having it ruin his life and make it this terrible thing, he would just read for most of the night, wake up at 5:00 AM, start dictating letters, and be much more productive than his competitors because he was working while they were sleeping. And it was just a part of his life. While I'm sure he wasn't happy about it, he didn't necessarily complain about it and make it a thing that controlled his life. He just continued to work through all of the troubles that he was going through.
This book is full of stories and specific examples of tactics that you can deploy. That is what's so fun to read about it is there's great stories of specific examples and things I can apply right to my life to help me with times when I'm worrying. And it's very motivational in the fact that he's trying to get you to stop talking about and worrying about something and take action to solve something.
He has a multiple step process to try and reduce worry for business owners. He asks himself four questions: What is the problem? What is the cause of the problem? What are all possible solutions of the problem? What solution do you suggest?
That's really about controlling your mental state, controlling your environment you live in. If there's a terrible situation, and you answer all four of those questions, you're going to know very quickly if what the outcome you want to have happen is or what the worst possible outcome to have happen is. And you can mentally prepare for that and other solutions that go beyond that or situations that go beyond that. It's one reason that Tim Ferriss will oftentimes just eat rice and beans for a few days to help him say to himself, "Is this the condition I so fear?"
This is what this little example or situation of four questions poses to those of us reading the book. What is the worst that can happen? Now, okay, I understand that's the worst that can happen. Is that so bad? Or if that happens, is it going to kill me? And how do I move forward from there? It's just about trying to suppress the anxiety feeling, the worry that comes up within us, because oftentimes the worry is worse than the actual events.
There are many absolutely spectacular quotes in this book. Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "When I can't handle events, I let them handle themselves." Charlie Chaplin has said, "You cannot find a rainbow by looking down." Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worry will not solve your problem. That's the quote that this whole book is about and what tactics you can deploy to try and actually solve the problem of worry, different ways of looking at situations, actual applicable suggestions for getting through a worried mindset.
I really enjoyed the book. I highly recommend the book. It is How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. That's another book review. My name's Bobby Dietz. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next one.
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