RockneCAST

The Greatest Book in the World by Og Mandino (#252, 3 Oct. 2024)

This past summer, I read Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. In it he talked about the one sentence that changed its life and it was contained in the book Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino.

That's quite a claim. So I ordered the book to see whether it is actually that good.

IT IS ACTUALLY THAT GOOD.

It might just be the greatest book in the world. Ok I might exagerating just a little bit, but it is a really good book that contains some timeless principles if you were willing to tap into them and apply them.

In this episode, I explore these timeless questions, share some quotes and share why this book is so awesome.

Broadcast on:: 03 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

I'm going to share with you the greatest book in the world. If you read this book, you have the chance to totally transform your life. What is this book, it's called "The Greatest Salesman in the World" by Ogman Ditto. I'm going to share with you this life-changing book. I'm going to share with you how I learned about it and has to do with Matthew McConaughey. I'm going to identify one or two different sections of it that are really, really cool. I'm going to read a couple passages that are going to be like, "Oh my God, this is so good. This book is so good. You've got to read it. I've already shared a copy with my daughter. I'm going to give a copy of everyone I know that I truly care about and love. I am going to share it with them. It's that good." Let's talk a little bit about this book and how I learned about it. I was reading this book called "Green Light" by Matthew McConaughey. He was talking about this book that totally set his life on another path, a book that changed his life. He's hanging out at a frat at the University of Texas in Austin. I can just see this frat. When dudes hang out to bed together, there's probably some pizza boxes, the smell of beer, dracarr cologne, axe body spray, coupled with some burnt popcorn, that dorm dude smell. It's kind of pleasant and disgusting at the same time. Slightly hung over, Saturday morning, and there's some dude from Dallas that's in there and Matthew's hanging out, all hung over. And then he saw on the sofa with this book, with the light dabbling on the couch, beautiful day in the fall of University of Texas, Austin, I'm making that up, but staying with me here. He comes across this little book called "Og Mandyno's Book, The Greatest Salesman in the World." And he said that he read this book and it totally changed his life trajectory. He identified only one sentence in this book, and I will share that one sentence with you, and I will share with you some of the other sentences in this particular books. The very first sentence that Matthew McConaughey cited from this book was, "I will form good habits and become their slave." Now, that's a little bit loaded, but yeah, I don't know if you want to use the word slave in too many contexts other than, I guess, if you're making yourself your own slave, that's probably a good thing, but still a little bit of a difficult word in today's world, but you will become bound to your good habits. And you know, many of you know, I'm kind of a habit, the fixed genado. I love reading books about habits and positivity, positive psychology. James Clear's, Atomic Habit. There's a book called About Habits by Charles Doohig, which was one of the books that preceded James Clear. I love the positivity literature, especially from the '30s. Any from from the '30s, it's like made by salesmen, you know, I really, really like, like Dale Carnegie's, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." In the '50s, we had Norman Vincent Peele's "Power of Positive Thinking." These books are so good. I was not aware of Og Mandino, and I have no idea whether his name is pronounced Og or Og, but it's OG, I'm calling him Og, Og Mandino. But it comes out of this time period in the 1930s, where there was a lot of like self-help books to try to become a better person. Now this talks about salesmen, and sales is one of these professions that a lot of people struggle with because it's kind of like you become either really, really rich or you really suck at it and you don't last very long at it. There's a lot of heartbreak in sales. And so correspondingly, there's a lot of literature from successful salesmen as to how they did what they did. And they try to share some of their kernels of wisdom with other people. So this book though, is not only a book about sales, it's a book about life. And I thought after reading that book by Matthew McConaughey, I really love to read books that influenced other great people, think people that have done great things with their life. So I thought, "What the hell, I'll check out this book." I ordered it on Amazon, and I think you can get it for like six bucks brand new. You can get some used copies for like three bucks. I ordered it about probably three or four months ago because I had read Matthew McConaughey's book, Greenlight, which was really, really good. But I hadn't gotten around to reading an Ode Nandino's book until like last week. And I'm still not done. And part is just because of the format of the book in terms of how Ode tells you to actually do the book. But I finally got around to reading it, and I thought I'd share some of the most awesome passages from this book and totally give you my full-hearted endorsement to read this book. This is so important for you, and it's super short. If you want to read this book, you could read it in an hour. I mean, it's that type of book, but that's not how Ode advises you to actually read it. So I've kind of followed Ode's recommendation, but not really. I'm reading basically one chapter a day, and he outlines a different approach. But so I totally advise you to get this book. It is very, very, very good. Now this branch of literature, the question with any advice book, whether you're getting it from someone who's done great things, or someone who has achieved great things in their life, the question always is, and I always think about this whenever I try to share whatever I've learned, is it true what works for me is going to work for you, right? I tend to come down on the side of when you discover certain universal truths, and you tap into them, they will work for you. They're not idiosyncratic to me. I actually happen to believe that there are certain approaches to nutrition that are good for the vast majority of people. I believe there are certain exercise protocols that are right for the vast majority of people. And I also believe that there are wellness principles that are right for the vast majority of people that are universal, meaning they not only work for me, but they will work for you. I think a lot of times people are skeptical of these principles. You know, there's a lot of people, this whole body of literature that came out in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. You know, the 60s, a lot of psychiatrists were like, "Oh my God, this is total bullshit. This is just, these books suck, they're no good at all. All you need to do is you need to see a psychiatrist and start popping pills, or maybe you need to start dropping some acid or LSD, and that's really going to put you on your path, or people that have been beaten down by life that are like, "Oh the hell with it, I can't do anything. I don't have any talents." I don't, I think if Michael Jordan wrote a book of wisdom, I would probably read it. I do think there are some Michael Jordan principles that are transferable to other people. He was a badass worker. He did work really hard as an NBA star. But no matter how hard I try, I'm never going to be able to have a 48 inch vertical lead. I mean, he's literally one of the most gifted athletes of all time. So like Michael Jordan, that's probably why he wasn't a very good manager, not a very good coach. He hasn't done super well-related in life. Did you see that documentary? His eyes are like yellow. He apparently is like pounding alcohol all the time. So greatest basketball player of all time, no desire to learn a book of wisdom from Michael Jordan. But for people like Oak Mandino and Power Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peel, Dale Carnegie, these books are timeless principles. Now, they're not like these 80s and 90s self-help books that are like, "Oh, there's a secret." And if you just like go like squeeze your butt cheeks and spin around three times and just manifest that it's just going to happen, those books aren't going to work. But these books from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, these self-help books, these positivity books, they are positive principles, yes, but in order for them to work, you have to put them into action. You have to develop them as mantras that will totally transform your life. It's like saying, "I can read a book getting into shape without working out. I can be rich without saving money. I can improve my looks without working on my grooming." You've got to put in the time to reap the harvest of what you're going to try to do. And I think this is very important that you convey this, especially if you have some young people in your life. I think I'm going to do a book at some point. I'm working right now at a Wellness book for lawyers. I think I also like to do an advice book for young dudes, like on principles that you can put into life at the beginning of your life so you can avoid a lot of the mistakes that I've made. I've made a ton, but I've learned a lot from them, and I think so I do have something to share. But if you can avoid some of those obvious mistakes, I don't think there's great value in developing a daily drinking habit so you can then realize that you don't want to drink anymore. I don't think there's a lot of value, so if you can avoid that on the front end, you can do a lot more great things in your life if you have a daily drinking habit. So what makes this book so awesome? Well, first of all, it's extremely short, so you don't have the excuse not to read this book. I mean, it's basically the total book from start to finish is like 111 pages, and it's a little tiny book, so the book is really, really good. What's the format of the book? It kind of starts off a little corny. It starts off in the streets of Damascus, and there's some extremely wealthy merchant, and his name is, he's named Hafid, and he has jewels and treasure. And he tells his assistant, his first chief foreman that operates his enterprise. It's time to liquidate my estate, and I'm going to put you in charge of this estate. But my only requirement is that you give away half of this wealth to other people, because I will soon pass, and I'm going to pass onto you something more valuable than gold and treasure. Now, I know a lot of you are going to say like, oh my God, this seems like one of those kind of like bullshit self-help books, oh my God, I got better things to do. This really sucks. I'm not going to read Ohkamondinos, I already got my shit together. So it starts off kind of corny where he's going to pass on something more valuable than treasure, and he's going to share this secret. And then the books gets into Hafid as a younger man, how he learned this secret, and the secrets, and the requirement that comes with possessing this great knowledge. And after this knowledge has passed down, eventually they've been granted to permission to share these secrets with the world. So everyone can now learn these great secrets. It's done that in a form of the lessons that Hafid teaches Erasmus in these scrolls. That's where the book really gets, and if you're super, super busy, you can probably start reading at about page 51 because the first 40 pages are about Hafid and Erasmus. But 51 is where the book really gets into the wisdom contains in the scrolls. What makes the book work really, really well? You know, I did an episode on power of positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peele used Bible verses as mantras, like something to say throughout the day to reinforce positivity. I can do all things through Christ's two strengthens me. If you believe it, nothing should be impossible unto you. I remember these things from having read the book when I was in junior high. Ohkamondinos book, even though it kind of comes out of the same vein of literature, does not expressly Christians, so if some of you have like, "Oh my gosh, well, I'm not very Christian. I don't know if I can read this but I was raised Catholic, but I'm not going to read this particular book because I'm a secular humanist just when I am. I don't read these." Well, this book, if you're a secular humanist, you will still like this book. So it doesn't use Christian mantras in terms of Bible verses, but the format of each one of these little scrolls is essentially one sentence of wisdom that is repeated as a kind of mantra through the chapter. Each chapter is only about three pages, but it is so packed full of wisdom that you just cannot believe how good the wisdom is within the book. What is the format that Ohk encourages you to read this book that you adopt the sentence, read the chapter, and then repeat the one sentence for the next 30 days before you go on to the next chapter? So even though the book is only, there's only 10 scrolls in the book, the total book is only like 110 pages or something like that. Theoretically, it could take you a long time to read the book. Now, I've just done it on a day-to-day basis. So I'm not even finished with the book yet, but I don't need to finish it yet. So I'm doing it by the day, but I'm not waiting for 30 days until I read the next chapter. I mean, who the hell does that? I don't know whether I'm breaking half the needs rule on that, but I've read enough to know how good and of course, I'm going to finish it, but sometimes I think I'm going to start going reviews even to form down with the book so I can share it with you as soon as possible. But here's how powerful this book is and why I actually think it is the type of thing, but if you actually implement it, you really have the ability to totally transform your life. Notice the very first sentence that he says, the first scroll. Think about how cool this is and you can kind of see the overtones of being like a blind against Christian, but the book is not itself expressed to Christian. So if you're an atheist, if you're a devil worshipper, I don't think you should read this book. I don't want devil worshippers to read this book, but if you are an atheist or you believe in other religions, that's okay, or you're a secular humanist, that's okay. And of course, if you're Christians, of course, you're welcome to read this book, but whatever faith you have, this book is for you, but it has kind of Christian overtones, at least I think it does. So the first scroll, he says, "Today I began a new life. Today I shed my old skin, which hath too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity. Today I am born anew, and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is fruit for all. Today I will pluck the grapes of wisdom from the tallest and fullest of vines in the vineyard that were planted by the wisest of my profession who have come before me, generation upon generations. The career I have chosen is laden with opportunity, yet it is fraught with heartbreak and despair, and the bodies of those who have failed were they piled up upon one another, would cast a shadow down upon all the pyramids of the earth, yet I will not fail as the others. For in my hands I hold the charts, which will guide me through perilous waters to shores, which only yesterday seemed but a dream, failure will no longer be a payment for struggle. Just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain, neither has it made any provision for my life to suffer for failure." So that's how it kind of starts, and isn't that good? Isn't that powerful? I think some of you may be kind of a little bit skeptical, like, "Well, yeah, this is just like, I can do it, I can do it." Well, no, it's good, because each one of these distilled principles is very, very powerful. Look at these two sentences. One of them is the one sentence that changed Matthew McConaughey's life. The little one expound on those, two sentences. How can you read a book of two sentences that's so good and a lot of you? In my God, can you get to the point? Okay, I will, at least I'm doing a podcast. It says, "Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Good habits are the key to all success." So those are two sentences, and then he says, "Thus, the first law I will obey, which proceedeth all others, is I will form good habits and become their slave." And then he, and then he elaborates and repeats this mantra throughout this chapter, "I will form good habits and become their slave," and he recites that throughout. But what he also says is, "My bad habits must be destroyed and new for furrows prepared for good seed," that is the good habits to harvest later. Those two things, those two sentences, "I will get rid of my bad habits and I will get on with good habits." I think of, for example, the one bad habit that I had was daily alcohol consumption. One habit, one habit, that's it, one bad habit, it was a bad habit. I still have bad habits, but I'm trying to get rid of them. I don't think as human beings we get rid of all of our bad habits. But daily alcohol consumption, I had a bottle of wine a night. That sounds like a lot, but if you're watching Netflix, it's really not that hard. What's the average cost of a daily wine habit? Financial, at least $7 to $10 a day, we'll do the math on there, how much money that is that doesn't add any corresponding value. In terms of your looks, I'm not saying I'm like Tom Cruise, but when I was drinking every day, my face was super red. When I went to the doctor, she said, "Oh, you have rosacea." I was like, "Oh, that's just because I'm Norwegian." No. It was because I had alcohol puffiness. That is why I had rosacea. My daughter's like, "Oh my gosh, dad, you used to be so red." Well, red on your face, if you have some nationally rosy cheeks, that's good as long as it's healthy, like if you come in from the outside, but if it results from a daily alcohol habit, that is not good. The time that that bad habit costs me, you can't really be super productive while you're drinking an alcohol. The weight gain that it costs, it was a result of at least 30 pounds of pure blubber around your belly does not look bad. There's a ton of other bad habits. It deprived me of early mornings that I could do to focus on my podcast. It deprived me of so many different things. I'm so grateful that I stopped that bad habit. So get rid of your bad habits. You know what they are. You know what your bad habits are. But then he talked about being a slave to your good habits. Isn't this good? Well, one habit that I think is really, really good is I want to try to do a daily rock me cast as much as I can. I can't always do it. But I want to be a slave to all of you loyal listeners that love listening to the rock me cast. That is a good habit. And it's something that sometimes I don't quite feel like, I'm like, "Oh my God, I don't know if I really want to do a rock me cast," or I have other things to do. I do the rock me cast because it's a good habit and I will become a slave to this good habit. Now, again, that's kind of a loaded word, but I'm your slave. I'm slick. I don't really like that word, but yeah. So I'm working hard for you because I love it. The rock me cast is a good habit for me and I love sharing it with you, these kernel of wisdom. But you can apply this to anything else, saving. Every single day, you'll become a slave to your good habit, saving money, putting in the time it works. Every day I try to get in a morning workout or an afternoon workout. I have a little calisthenics protocol that I do and I will become a slave to that good habit, to being positive. So this is just an example of how good this is. Think about that. Two sentences. You apply two sentences to ogmandinos, but a lot of the best principles of wisdom are things that you know, but you don't think about. You know, they talk about, and there was a book that I read, I forget the name, I think it was on the checklist protocol. And they talked about the difference between incompetence and competent, but you mess up. Most of us are more competent than we think, but we mess up. Why? Because we forget what we know. We all know we need to have good habits, and we all need to know we stop that habit. Well, I've become something of a habit expert. I have. Not that I have any magical powers, but a lot of the habits that I've started rocking, doing the rugby cast, doing intermittent fasting, getting up early in the morning, getting to meditate 30, I don't become a slave to the habits in the sense that I do them just to do them. Take a day off and I even still have an IPA occasionally, so I still occasionally do that. But I keep them very, very consistently because they are really the key, I think, to living and being the best version of you. Like, for example, getting in shape, you cannot get in shape unless you work out frequently or you walk frequently, like use it or lose it. That's true with so many different things. You cannot be financially resilient, let's learn how to save money and get rid of debt. You just can't do it. So you're in the best position to figure out what are those habits that you do, get rid of the bad ones and be consistent on the good ones. It's really that simple. And OAG gives you a lot of those sorts of illustrations of what it needs to be a slave to good habits. Are you tracking me? And I'm not really doing it justice. You got to actually read the book. But I also wanted to read with you a little other one that is really good. It's the second scroll, and a lot of you're going to be like, "Well, this is kind of like Lucy Gusey. Like, I don't know if it's really good, but I think it's really good." And when you approach it this way, you just can't help but be transformed in terms of how you really think about things. Here's the second one. This is another little taste. You got to actually read the whole book so that you can read it on your own. The second one is in the scroll, the set of magical scrolls is, "I will greet this day with love in my heart." Isn't that good? Think about if you give every day that is a gift that you love it. You love the good things. You love even the bad things. And then he says, "For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. All can split a shield and even destroy life, but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of men, and until I master this art, I will remain no more than a peddler in the marketplace. I will make love my greatest weapon, and none on whom I call can defend against its force. My reasoning they may counter, my speech they may distrust, my apparel they may disprove, my face they may reject, and even my bargains may cause them with suspicion, yet my love will melt all hearts to the sun whose rays soften the coldest play. I will greet this day with love in my heart, and how will I do this henceforth? I will look on all things with love, and will be born again." That's kind of Christian, but he's not explicitly Christian. "I will love the sun for it warms my bones, yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way. I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will love the happiness for it enlarges my heart, yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for their my do, yet I will welcome obstacles for their my challenge. I will greet this day with love of my heart, and he goes on to have additional ones on this. Like, are you tracking me on this? This is so good. Love what has already happened to you. Love it, because you're here, and it happened. Love it. Isn't that good?" And, you know, I think the greatest probably devastation that has been given to the world are so many of the cynics and the negative Nellies out there in psychiatry in the mental health space that is based upon negativity. I think the critique of positivity is that you become oblivious, that you become just kind of untethered from reality, you can just kind of like squeeze your butt cheeks and click your ears twice and spit around and everything's going to be changed. No, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is, is that it's the necessary first step to move, to believe, to have the power that you can align your soul with your body and your spirit to serve your purpose. That's what he's saying. It's impossible not to do it if you don't believe. Belief is the first thing. You know, for a long time, the medical profession kind of curiously looked at the placebo effect, which was, if you believed that a medicine would work, it actually had healing properties just the belief, and it was considered kind of, well, it's kind of interesting. We've noticed this. There's this little benefit you get when you believe. But now people are really trying to figure out, well, wait a minute, what happens when you do believe, what are the positive manifestation in terms of your hormones, your body, your relaxation, relaxation, your tranquility that arise from a positive mental framework? Among other things, you're more relaxed. You don't have as much stress hormone. You have good self-care. You can look at something that has happened that's difficult to you, and if you love it, you know, sometimes law can be a very, very stressful experience. When I was earlier in my career, I nearly buckled under it. I nearly buckled under it. I was so stressed out, and there are still months that I get anxious, that I get stressed. But when you start looking at stress, I used to look at stress as just something I experienced. But what if you look at it with love? Well, the stress is making me stronger. The stress is providing the salt to my soul. The stress is making me more resilient. The stress is making me more powerful. It's like saying you can work out without a certain amount of stress. This is the concept we call hermesis. Don't terribly subject in yourself to small doses of stress so that you can recover and become even stronger. So I am now at peace with law, and I love serving my clients. I love not avoiding stress, but embracing it. Now, it is true that I do not like non-stress. The kind of stress that breaks you down over time, it's like working out every single day. You need to have microdoses of stress, but you also need recovery. So these are all of the things that we've learned. These are all of the lessons that you can learn. All of these principles are literally distilled to 10 sentences. But I can nearly guarantee you that if you read each chapter, you will feel so good because it's such a positive refrain of how you live your life. You know, my mom has a lot of platitudes, but one of the things that I do not do justice to it, but it's something along the lines of the three bricklayers, there are three bricklayers that were asked what they were doing for their career. And the first said, "I'm laying brick," and didn't seem too happy. The other one was like, "Well, I'm constructing a structure so that people can have warmth and healing and that type of thing." And the third one said, "I am constructing a house of the Lord and allowing lives to be transformed through the work of laying brick." And what was the one that had the greatest satisfaction, obviously the one that believed he was constructing a house of the Lord, that he was giving himself purpose. You know, I'm so interested in this topic of transformation and allowing people to become the best version of them and to avoid unnecessary suffering, sometimes we can't avoid it. Sometimes things happen, but once it's happened, all you can do is love what's happened. It's one that sort of comes out of the stoic principles. Once something's happened, I think of Chris Norton, who's a football player at my alma model, Luther College, and he broke his neck. Well, obviously, I think if he were to think about it, even all the good things that have happened to Chris Norton after that, he still probably wishes he didn't break his neck. But it happened, it happened while he was playing football. And as a result of that, he's become world famous, a movie was made out of him, he's drafted a book, he's married a wonderful young woman. I think they've even had kids, I mean, so he has done so many great things, and he just loved it. Once it happened, all he could do was just love it. So I hope I've given you kind of a sense of how awesome this Oak Mandino book is. It definitely lived up to its billing. It really is, it's titled The Greatest Salesman in the World. But I think I should call it the greatest book in the world. It is one of the greatest books. I think it's so good, you've got to read it, it is that good, and share it with someone else. Now, in order to do it, it's not self-executing, so you do have to apply it, right? And so if you're in a really bad space, at least apply it as it's written, don't shortcut it like I'm going to do, I've already got it through a couple, I'm reading a chapter a day, you don't probably have to wait for 30 days, but it's just absolutely beautifully written, and it contains 10 sentences that I'm going to share with my daughter. I hope you can share a lot of people that you love in your own life, because it is so, so good, and the most important thing is it has the power to transform you. So that's it for this episode of The Ratby Cast. I hope you will put into practice all the things that I've shared with you, I will hope you continue to be a light and that you will share what you've learned on The Ratby Cast. Until next time, you and I see each other on The Ratby Cast. [BLANK_AUDIO]

That's quite a claim. So I ordered the book to see whether it is actually that good.

IT IS ACTUALLY THAT GOOD.

In this episode, I explore these timeless questions, share some quotes and share why this book is so awesome.