By 
The 8 words that every child fears when looking at a plate of broccoli:
“Finish your dinner or there is no dessert for you.”
It is a solid lesson.
Sometimes you have a knuckle down and only eat the green stuff, and even mushrooms, if you want to get to ice cream.
But despite what people say, I don’t think ice cream tastes better for the effort.
I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated ice cream more for having to swallow my mom’s attempt at a full meal.
I certainly do not agree with people who tell you that nothing worthwhile in life is easy:
A friend of mine was given a house once, I’m pretty sure it was worth having.
Also, a good beer deal is easy to come by.
And what about travel insurance? That was easy, I just filled out a form and paid for it, and it literally saved my life the last time I was in Thailand…
So no, sorry, not all amazing things are hard to come by.
But I’m all for eating your greens to get the nutrients, or else you’ll end up malnourished, plagued with preventable diseases, and most likely unhappy or unstable if recent research on the gut biome is anything to go by.
There’s a reason it’s called a hunch, right?
Anyway, this whole eating your vegetables before you get your pudding thing is why I made a pact with myself that next year I’ll buy zero more books…until I finish the ones I have left.
This is what is currently unfinished on my desktop:
- wrestling 22
- This is Seth Godin marketing
- Carol Dweck’s Mindset
- The Most Dangerous Man in America (spoiler alert: it was Timothy Leary)
- The courage to not like
- Tales from the Crypt of Customer Support
- Chomsky – What kind of creatures are we?
- And the third volume of Sandman – Dream Country by Neil Gaiman.
- Then there’s the kindle…
But like most human animals, I derive a great deal of pleasure from buying books, especially information-packed books that promise a desired result.
I make the emotional decision to buy a book based on a dream of what the book will give me, without taking into account the time and energy I need to extract the good things from books…
So they sit on my shelf (or desk if they’re lucky), collecting dust.
While the next day there I am buying another book… and so on… and so on…
I’m trying to go straight to the ice cream, without eating the broccoli.
With the exception of Steam selling if you are a PC gamer, there is no worse niche for this behavior than the internet marketing niche.
Shiny Object Syndrome is not just limited to books, but also to e-books, reports, courses, training, forums, widgets, plugins, apps, software – all of these things sound great until you have to put in the effort and actually read them, learn them, or use them.
Look at your hard drive.
Look what you bought last year.
How much of that is giving you value today?
How much is there unused, unread, unopened?
What were your goals for a certain course? Why specifically did you buy those books? Are they still relevant? Can you still extract value from them today so you can eat your ice cream tomorrow?
If so, congratulations, you just saved a ton of cashola from the future!
There is a caveat to all of this for anyone who writes a copy, or wants to…
Buy and read fiction backwards. If it sucks, buy more, keep switching books until a book appeals to you, then devour it.
Because fiction is 100% ice cream that nourishes you like broccoli, and will directly influence your writing, your ability to communicate and even conjure up ideas out of thin air.