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The Observe and Rapport Newsletter
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A weekly guide of my favorite books, articles, products, and lifestyle habits.
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September 1st, 2023 | by Kyle Brennan
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Thought of the Week
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I've read over 50 books in the self-help, growth, and personal development genre. I've been working over the last few months to distill the primary takeaways to create some version of a Sparknotes or Self-Help Cheat Sheet that can help one fast track the answers without having to read multiple books on the subject.
I spent weeks writing a long essay describing the 12 rules of self-help (gratitude, consistency, doing hard things, etc), but last night as Keith and I sat down for our 11th podcast episode, this topic came up.
In the moment I realized that improving one's life really only boils down to two things:
If you say your going to wake up at 6am every morning and exercise, you develop self-confidence by consistently keeping that promise to yourself. If you say you're going to work an extra hour each day to get better, you start building a stack of evidence that you are who you say who are.
But the story you tell yourself is arguably more important. Do you portray yourself as the victim or the victor? If you tell yourself that your shy and don't like socializing, then you'll act accordingly. But if you start telling yourself that your energetic, enthusiastic, and the most outgoing person in the room, suddenly you have a shift in your energy.
When you and the voices in your head work in harmony, your self-confidence soars.
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What I'm Reading
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My dad gifted me a copy of The Go-Giver when I was 19 years old. I read it in three hours. It was one of the most profound books I had read at that point in my life. The message was simple - the more you GIVE, the more you GET.
Told through an allegory of a salesman trying to make his quarterly commission, The Go-Giver tells the tale of successful businesspeople who thrived not through effort and competitiveness but rather through a mindset of service. Your influence, compensation, and authenticity grow tenfold by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
This was my first time revisiting the book since then. It's such an important reminder that success is not a finite game with winners and losers. There is enough to share with everyone, and the more you spread the wealth through giving and serving others, the more it comes back around. It is the ultimate expression of positive karma. But rather than giving with the expectation of receiving something back, the message is to give out of pure love and authenticity for what you are sharing.
You should love what you are sharing so much that you want everyone around you to love and appreciate it just as much as you do - whether it's running a coffee shop, doing real estate, or creating art - your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first.
Rating: 5 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I see clips of @drjoedispenza on IG and TikTok all the time, and I've always been drawn to his idea that humans can tap into energy frequencies to alter our own state of consciousness and even our biology and the environment we live in.
Yeah, I know it sounds "woo-woo" and similar to the law of attraction made famous by The Secret, but it's an idea that I believe is worth entertaining.
Dr. Dispenza's message is valuable and thought-provoking, however, the book fell flat for me. The book tries to be both enlightening and scientific but fails at both. It lacks the depth of spiritual text or the relevance of scientific research and it builds a sense of self-importance by referencing itself or other services provided by the author again and again. This was more of a marketing material for his seminars than an actual good book. I think he just needs to re-write it because there's some great material in it
The one positive takeaway for me was how important it is to live your life presently, with positive self-talk, and a consistent optimistic outlook toward your receiving the future you want. By doing so, you emit a powerful "vibration" that ultimately attracts the world you want toward you.
Save yourself the time of reading and watch his clips for a more succinct version of what he’s trying to convey.
Rating: 2.7 / 5 ⭐️⭐️
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A fun read and a unique story to show us how much we should appreciate the mundanity of our everyday lives by @mattzhaig
Nora is a girl living a boring, dead-end life in the UK. She finally has had enough of the whole living thing and decides to end it all. Only, instead of dying and going to heaven, she’s transported to the Midnight Library, a place where Nora has the opportunity to live all of the other potential lives she could have lived had she made different decisions. By checking out a new book, she gets to experience her life as an Olympic swimmer, a glaciologist, the lead singer of a rock band, a stay-at-home mom, and a worker at a dog shelter.
With a renewed sense of joy from viewing all of her untapped potential, Nora regains a vigor for the people and places she misses the most.
Rating: 4.4 / 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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My Most Recent Blog Post
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In this digital age, we’re constantly bombarded with inputs — most of them negative and/or anxiety-inducing:
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Movie trailers, iPhone alerts, Instagram notifications, billboards, emails, new music, podcasts, and news of the world collapsing around us.
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Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism has called this style of living Solitude Deprivation — a state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.
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Article I'm Reading
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Ruby LaRocca—The Free Press's high school essay contest winner—urges her generation to read old books, memorize poems, and invite senior citizens to parties.
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It's reassuring to see that teenagers are self-aware of the dangers of distraction. Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health. There must be an antidote to the constant anxiety, dopamine, and comparison surrounding today's youth. Ruby describes her personal constitution for creating a more peaceful life as a teenager.
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My favorite line from Ruby's essay:
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Books that are “representative,” that are more easily “absorbed,” undermine the main reason to read them: to push readers beyond themselves in uncomfortable and productive ways.
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Song I'm Working Out To
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Nothing like a Gucci Mane / J. Cole collab to get you through the last set of a tough workout. My eclectic workout playlist features a mix of Tool, Rage Against the Machine, 2 Chainz, Afrojack, Weezer, and Panic! At the Disco.
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Huntington Fire Department Saves the Day
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I wasn't around to go on this call but shout -out to Firefighter Loechner and Lt. Martin of the Huntington Fire Department for reducing a juvenile osprey wrapped in fishing line in a tree up in Lloyd Harbor on Wednesday night. The osprey was untangled and handed off to a representative from Wildlife In Need Of Rescue and Rehabilitation.
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The story got picked up by the press in multiple outlets. You really never know what to expect when you respond to a call.
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Quote I'm Pondering
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"All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."
— Jorge Luis Borges
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Check Out the O&R Podcast!
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Episode #11 coming out next week!
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Check Out My Amazon Favorites Bookstore
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Browse my favorite book selections hand-curated by me. I also earn commissions so if you buy anything, those earnings get reinvested right back into this fancy newsletter ;)
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Kyle's Published Work
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33 Life Lessons on My 33rd Birthday
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Thirty-three was a big one. Mostly because I became a dad. Our daughter was born on New Year’s Eve — a fitting arrival for a kid destined to reset everything. It’s been a beautiful, if slightly sleep-deprived blur ever since. I’ve only been “Dad” for less than ten months, but if I’m being honest, I’ve been preparing for the role for over …
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Depth Over Downloads: Why Spending Time with Books Still Matters
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Everyone wants faster information. But no one asks if faster information leads to better understanding — or a better life. In the age of AI and tweet-sized wisdom, we’ve confused information with transformation. But there’s a massive difference between knowing what a book says and being changed by it. The Delusion of Instant Learning In a recent interview, political journalist Ezra Klein admitted he once believed …
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The Jack Reacher Approach to Never Being Caught Off Guard
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There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.’ Either way, nothing happens.” —Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia I don’t read much fiction, but I’ve always been hooked on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. He’s not your typical …
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