Pushed myself out of my "comfort zone" and learned some sh*t (2024)

As someone who swore off non-fiction a long time ago, I decided to challenge myself to read… Well, the plan was one book.

Then, I fell down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos recommending books and I ended up with three.

Forcing myself to push through the initial boredom was worth it though, because I did learn quite a lot.

So, here’s my top 3 lessons, one from each book:

Lesson 1: Accentuate

accentuate

/ăk-sĕn′choo͞-āt″/ (transitive verb)

To highlight, stress or emphasize; intensify.

Learn to play to your strengths and accentuate what you’re good at.

Author Vanessa Van Edwards shows us exactly how to do this with an example: Harry S. Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States of America.

He’d always been shy; he’d even been bullied for it.

Everyone knew he was not going to ace public speaking and he knew this too. But he also knew that his real strengths lay in one-on-one rapport building.

All day, his team pulled delegates into “Room H” for him to talk to.

The con-hall was hot, full of heavy breathing hom*o Sapiens and humidity. It was stifling.

But the second the delegates stepped foot into Room H, they breathed a sigh of relief. They listened to what Truman had to say and before anyone knew it, he had won by a vast margin.

Now I have no idea how this person was as a President, all I know is that he did the single most important thing that made him win the elections that day: He played to his own strengths.

Pretty rad imo.

Also, the book is called “Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with people” if you wanna check it out.

Lesson 2: Obliterate

obliterate

/ə-blĭt′ə-rāt″, ō-blĭt′-/ (transitive verb)

To remove or destroy completely so as to leave no trace. synonym: annihilate.

When author Jim Qwik was faced with the limiting belief that he couldn’t do sh*t with his life because he was “The boy with the broken brain” he stared it right down by teaching himself how to learn.

He used to be bullied for the learning difficulties that were a result of his traumatic brain injury.

But he played to his strengths, taught himself the tedious process of “How to Learn”, and he used that to educate millions. Now think about where he would be without obliterating his limiting belief.

Probably nowhere.

Not only is the book awesome, the author is such a unit for being able to stand up to douchebags and not let his self esteem take a hit in the long run.

Love to see it.

Lesson 3: Obituate

obituate

/ahw-bitch-you-ate/ (transitive verb, probably. I should ask my mom *)HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DRUGS.

To get up off your ass and read obituaries

This one is from the book titled “Show Your Work! 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered” by

.

One of the best pieces of advice he gives in the book is to read obituaries. He observes how many people dramatically change the course of their own lives after a near-death experience.

Now if you’re like most people, you should probably not seek near-death experiences to remind yourself of how fragile your life is.

Instead, the author found you a cheat code: read an obituary. Do this and you’ll train your brain to recognise and empathise with someone else who’s died. Not only this, you’ll train yourself to take more risks and do better than wasting away in the digital trends of endless scrolling. We get to use this knowledge of our mortality to aide us in stepping out of our comfort zones and putting ourselves out there.

Now truthfully, I picked this book up before I started posting here and it’s partly what inspired me to start something. It’s an amazing book, would highly recommend.

Each of these books have more to them than what I mentioned and you’ll probably benefit from reading them on your own.

Still, I hope this was insightful and that you can find use cases for some of this advice in your own life.

Now that I think about it, this article was me applying everything that I learned in those three books I mentioned.

Alright that’s enough pushing myself out of my comfort zone for now, time to go back to my hole.

Next article’s gonna be about something from my comfort zone.

Thanks for reading.

Feel free to leave a comment coz they make me jiggle jiggle and fold smile.

*My mom is an English teacher so she would know