The Most Influential Book In My Life

There are books in life that you read and you kind of forget more or less the next day and there are books which you read and not only they stay with you for your rest of life but also it kind of changes your life entirely. Basically, you know, those books are super influential in our lives and I wanted to share about the book which I consider to be most influential in my life. Obviously, I read quite a few books and quite a few of them were influential but some of them, you know, you read and they kind of change something in your psyche and you don't always even recognize it. Each book I feel influences you in some way. But the one which influenced me in such a way where it was noticeable, I just felt the changes right away and I explored the presented subject for months and months if not years and that stuck with me. It's actually a book called Always Start With Why by Simon Sinek and now Simon Sinek is quite famous especially in the business world. He now wrote a number of books but then when I got a hold of the book, I don't think he was yet as famous. I didn't necessarily know, you know, what I'm getting into but I found the book in a bookstore and at the day, I was still running my martial arts yoga and meditation school and there was a kind of dilemma or a tricky situation I was facing. I think it was probably like the third year of me running my professional school and at that moment, I felt a bit confused and a bit lost for a number of reasons but one of them was because the first year when I opened up my martial arts school, my business, everything was flowing. People were extremely happy with it. They were very loyal, very devoted. There was just so much good stuff happening and the vibe was so great and the community was so tight and if you know my story, you know already that I was only 22 when I opened my dojo which is crazy. When I think back about that, it's like holy crap and I remember people were surprised like oh you're only 22 but from the other day, it seemed like normal. I didn't have anything to compare it with but now I understand. Yeah, that was pretty cool but that still doesn't remove the fact that I was lacking life experience. I didn't know that much. I haven't experienced that much. I knew more about the subjects which I was presenting than my students but a lot of it, I was winging it from a very intuitive place and so the main aspect of this story is that when it was about third year of me writing my Aikido school, I started to notice that things were just not the same. The enthusiasm was dropping and the students weren't as devoted and the vibe wasn't the same. Something was off but I could not put my finger on what it was and kept exploring. I kept trying new things but I just couldn't get a hold of what changed and as I said now I realized there were a number of things but one of the most influential things which that's where the book comes in. I always start with why. I took the book and I read it and the premise of it is really interesting and Simon Sinek states and argues that too many of us we focus on the what and how and we forget the why and usually the why is more evident in the beginning like the reason of why you're doing this, the reason why are you creating this product, why are you taking this action and his argument is that our brain, I don't remember the science behind it but kind of I think the reptilian brain, it's driven more by that intuitive reasoning of why and when you deliver something and you do something with that deeper why people connect with it, people feel it and they become more involved and it touches them on a deeper level and then things just roll so much more smoothly. There's so much more enthusiasm but then as he continues to elaborate in his book it's not uncommon that the more you get into whatever you're doing it kind of becomes automatic and you start to focus very much on the how and what. So basically how are you presenting or how are you giving your product or practice and what that practice is and you're starting to kind of deviate from and forget about the why and Simon Sinek he went through that himself. He shares his story how he forgot his why and his business started to go down. I think it was marketing business and when he rediscovered his why and he tapped into it just things started to pick up and I read the book and I kind of I really felt like there's truth to it. It resonated with me and I realized that was my case. You know I was not connected to my why anymore as much as I was before. It was somewhere there somewhere kind of in the back but the why when I started my Aikido school it was huge. I was so deeply connected with my why. It was my driving force to inspire, to motivate people and to make a difference and I remember clearly as I learned Aikido or I became an Aikido instructor primarily in Switzerland and as I was making my trip back to my country where I opened my school Lithuania I was going with the bus for like 32 hours or so. So I had a lot of time with myself and I remember I was just so inspired and I was writing down in my journal the reason why I'm coming back and what I want to do because of that. So the why was very evident and I recognized that yes that why was really driving people to follow my teachings, to follow what I do, to get involved. It kind of brought something up in them and there are some other reasons why that fell apart. I mainly discuss and explore that in a video called why how my Aikido all my martial arts students abandoned me. But this reason that I'm describing to you right now was definitely a big one as well and when I started to get a hold of it and I started to question okay so why am I really doing this? So many different solutions, so many different answers started to come up and I was able to kind of make some changes happen in my dojo, in my martial arts school. I started to perceive things differently, I started to make different decisions and express myself in different ways and I started to see how the membership again started to pick up and people became more enthusiastic as well and I kind of became obsessed about digging into the why of things. I started to notice that it matters so much and another thing that happened while reading the always start with why Simon Sinek introduced many stories of Steve Jobs and Apple because he was very much a why person. Why is there music? Okay please shut up. So why Jobs was very much a why type of person and then I went on to read or listen to the other book of Steve Jobs biography which actually is kind of my second most influential book in my life but I'll probably speak about that another day in another video. But coming back to you know the main narrative here, so I also read you know Steve Jobs and I saw how why, how much, how he asked always he was like obsessed about why as well. It was like why am I buying this furniture and not that furniture? Why do I want this washing machine and not this one? And that why was also obviously went into his business Apple and that I recognized that that made such a big difference in how he functioned and I perceived that that's one of the reasons why Apple was so successful especially when you know he was running it and especially the second time. But coming back to myself I started to become obsessed about that too and I started to ask myself about my why's everywhere like so why like I was teaching kids classes as well and and I was asking so why do I ask my kids to do this or you know why am I using this sentence? Why am I using this word and not that word? You know why am I doing a class at 6 30 and not like 6 45 and I went nuts or you know why am I eating this and why am I not eating that? And now I in retrospect I recognize that that really developed my started develop my critical thinking which is a superpower that I consider like that's such an important aspect of of life and I started developing that and now I cherish critical thinking helped me so much and I think that was one of the first moments where my critical thinking started to bloom and that's eventually what led me to question my my martial art Aikido because I started to ask myself you know why do I believe that this is true? Why do I believe that you know why do I think that Aikido works as a self-defense martial art for example big question that I like it's my life was for years about that and that just changed everything and later that still stuck with me till today I keep coming back to the why and I feel it's such a game changer but all of that started with reading the book always start with why so that's kind of a short short version of the story of my most influential book how it was most influential and why it was most influential but also I made I wanted to film this video to get you involved as well and to ask so what was what do you consider to be your most influential book you know what was it how it changed you why it's your most influential book so let me know in the comments I really want to hear that you know let's let's connect up there and let's explore the subject together so looking forward to see your answers and I'll see you again soon