#andy stanley

…shhhh. If you would like to cheat and get all the wisdom of the books I have read without reading my blog, just scroll to the bottom of the page where the list starts. Buttttttt if you want to make me smile a little bigger, start right here!

December of 2019 was the first year I ever had a goal for the number of books I wanted to read in that time frame. Yes, I did indeed grow up doing summer reading at the local library. I probably lied then just like I lied in high school about actually doing the reading. What can I say, the free Wendy’s frosty prizes as an 8-year-old were too good to pass up, but too little to do the actual work for. I was probably spending my time training for the Guitar Hero competitions that that same local library put on. That’s where people thought you were cool. Not book club. 

The goal for 2019 was 12 books. One book a month. If I am being super honest, I think I had probably read, front to back, maybe, MAYBE 10 books total in my life up until this point. And I know… Mrs. Anthony (my favorite high school English teacher aka lil’ Trish) is not going to be happy about this but reading just was not my thing. It was way more fun to slam some Mountain Dew Voltage and play COD or take the bikes around the Briarhood than it was to sit and read. However, those ten books I did read? Loved them. Hunger Games? Come on. There was no way that Katniss Everdeen wasn’t a total babe. Jennifer Lawrence proved that. I will admit that it was pretty cool to be able to answer the questions in English class about the book having actually read them even if that was a rare occurrence. The dread that washes over you when you get called on to answer something and you only barely skimmed the sparknotes ten minutes before class. Those moments were no doubt, the most stressful part of my high school days. 

Fast forward to December 26th of 2019. That year I wanted to read one book per month. HA. I had read 8 books and it was the 26th of December. 4 books to go with 5 days left in the year. And if you are doing any sort of mental math here.. My stats for the year would have been completing one book every 45 days. So.. a little behind schedule and a little crunched for time. Odds of reading one book in 5 days are not good at all but odds of reading 4 books? Practically impossible. And I can hear it already. “I read 60 books last year, 4 books in 5 days on vacation should be easy” and to that I say kick rocks. Think this guy reads a million words per minute? No chance. I was however optimistic on the way to Mexico that I brought 5 books. Did I bring 5 of the shortest books in my arsenal? Yes, I did. Did I read 4 and hit my goal? I did not. I read 3. Yes. I was bummed. I really wanted to read 12 books, but did I really want it if I didn’t make it enough of a priority? Anyways. In between that fake surfing machine on the pier and drinking who knows what at Señor Frogs, I managed to sneak in more reading in those 5 days than I did in most of the year. 11 books, one year. I was fairly proud of that. 

But if you know me, you know when I set a goal that I do everything I can to accomplish it. And in that year, I did not accomplish it. I also did not do everything I could to accomplish it. So, the next year was easy to make the same idea of 12 books the goal again. Was that year 2020? Hahaha yes it was. Was that year arguably one of the easiest years to have time to dedicate to reading? Also, yes it was. Like a lot of people, the ‘rona pandie was a shock to my extrovert system. I found myself with a lot of time on my hands (and for those of you who have read my blogs in the past you know this was the time I was living at home after getting my master’s not really knowing what would happen). I will save you the expectation of thinking I read like 30 books that year and let you know I read 15. 3 more than the original goal! I was pumped up about it too. I had been invited to join a book club with a good chunk of guys. A lot of whom I knew from playing sports in high school against them and mutual friends. We read “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo together. It was my first experience as a part of a book club, and I loved it. Getting to chat with guys who had the mindset and desire to grow was so inspiring. Unfortunately, that club dissipated after the first book not because a lack of value, but logistics for getting 7+ people together for a weekly call was really difficult. 

That’s when one of my best friends from growing up, Kyle, reached out and asked if I wanted to read a book called “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman. I said absolutely and we were off on what was, and still to this day might be, the brainiest book I have read. It had a lot of great content, but for my amateur reader mind, I struggled through it. It was hard honestly. Some books are like that, just super up there in the sky for the brainiac people. Kyle is one of those guys. So fricken’ smart. But not just the book smarts. Heck, he’s reading a book on emotional intelligence as well! I think we would both agree it was not our favorite book, but it did start a bond that would develop big time in the coming months. After that book, we decided to keep going. To start another one. Coincidentally at this time I had been catching up with a good friend of mine from college. Honestly, I think Mike and mine’s relationship really started to grow after college. Mike had reached out asking if we could catch up on a call and we finally were able to make it happen. We FaceTimed and got to talking, and it may have been just really good timing because Kyle and I had just hung up the FT on our last meeting for the Emotional Intelligence book, so it was super fresh in my mind. After some really good conversation, it was really clear to me that Mike would one, be a great addition to our club, but two, was just as hungry to grow and learn as Kyle and I were at the time. And boy did this spark a fire that would last until the fat lady sings as they say. I invited Mike to the club, asked him to think about it and see if it could be a good fit. Boom. Club member number three was on board and arguable now we were actually a book club instead of just two dudes reading a book together. We were three. That’s a club if I ever knew one. I chose the next book or first book however you would like to look at it and we all agreed to the best gift exchange ever. The person picking the next book, which would rotate each time, would purchase that book for everyone. There is something about a package showing up at the door from someone else that makes you smile right? This allowed for a little mystery and joy each time we got a new book. And just as a sidenote * financially I am pretty sure we are all really close to, if not spot on even on what we have spent on books for the club. Books are pretty fricken’ cheap.

We decided to meet weekly, and that decision was one of the best choices we made early on. It meant that club had to be a priority. It also meant that we had other guys holding us accountable to both doing the reading AND showing up to the FaceTime. It likely would have been much easier to meet once a month and talk about the whole book, but easy isn’t the goal. Deep relationships with guys who want to grow as people was the goal. So, we met weekly, Sunday nights, from then on.

I will spare you the book-by-book analysis, but what I am continually blown away by is the commitment of Kyle and Mike to show up to club every week. And by every week, I mean all but one week since January 2021 we have met together either in person or via FT to talk about our weeks and the book. The sacrifice of time and willingness to be flexible around each other’s schedules is wild. If this was a love language it would be mine. Maybe it falls under Quality Time? In any case, I know that being a part of this club is a choice and when we get on a call every Sunday and sometimes Monday or Saturday night, I feel that love from these guys. No distractions, phones away, notifications turned off. I like to think I am a pretty reachable guy, but in book club, it wouldn’t matter if my own house was on fire, you would not be able to get me on a call. We start by sharing how the week has gone. And not like “Yeah, I had a good week, how about you?”, no no no, we get detailed about how the week has gone. Day by day analysis. Unhurried, unrushed. It takes the better half of our time, and I wouldn’t trade it. Doing life together (the name of a book we read on our first ever book club retreat) is often and should be about the people in which you life physically close to (yes I meant life. Could be live I guess but life sounds so peotic). There is an importance to knowing your neighbors, co-workers, and others that you see on the daily simply because they live close to you. That’s called community. Luckily with FaceTime and a weekly gathering for a couple hours, I really feel like these two are a part of my community from afar. I know that every week I am able to lay my burdens down in front of them without fear of judgement. I know that every week I can show up in a good mood or bad mood and be loved on either way. I know that every week I have people in my corner praying for me during that specific week. I know that every week there are other people hungry to grow in the lives through the power of reading. This is why I do book club. After weekly recaps we start chipping through the section of book we read that week and talk about the lines or sections that stuck out to us. The further into book club we got, the more we were able to connect one line from a book here to another line in a book there. Some ideas have been talked about at length over several books, some have come up once and not heard of again. All with the hope that they, if powerful enough, would shape into how we live.

I get to do life with these guys. That’s only half of the fricken’ equation too! We also READ! HAHAHA. Like Book Club, duh of course you read. Wow has my perspective on reading changed. I really do think for most people who hate reading, there is a ton of relief when school is finally over because reading was forced throughout all of school. And rarely did we decide what it was we were reading. But once that weight is lifted, and you get the choice to read what you want to read? Get outta town. The opportunities are endless. Quite literally. There are SO MANY BOOKS in the world, it’s absurd. Any topic you can think of. And guess what? Each book, in my eyes now, is someone’s best set of ideas and contributions to the world. Like someone sat down and put effort into getting their most important thoughts that they have about whatever it is they are passionate about out of their brain and onto paper just in hopes that it might help one other person. THAT IS INCREDIBLE. Do you not feel the weight in that? Someone’s best ideas and thoughts on paper. What an honor it is to read what they have to say.

This blog might be a little all over the place but the things I really want to say here is how cool it is to have people in your life that love and care for you so well. That looks like a lot of different things to me. The every once and a while catch up with old friends, the best. The FT in the middle of the workday from my parents, the best. The comment on an Instagram post engaging with the content instead of just scrolling past, the best. The getting together with old friends back at home or anywhere for that matter, the best. Getting to do life together with two dudes who are hungry for what the Lord has for them in life, who want to love other people well, who want to grow as men, quite literally the best. It’s. The. Best.

I could not recommend starting your own book club enough. If you want to read a book, do it. Ask someone if they want to join you. Unfortunately, if you ask me to read something with you the answer will most likely be no. Not because I don’t want to or think it wouldn’t be beneficial, but because I learned the importance of boundaries in a book we read on boundaries and I know saying yes to everything will take away from the things I have already said yes to. Schedule a time with your club to talk about what stood out to you. Have conversation about it! Do it together. Life is better together. The one riverbank I might put on this is to keep the group relatively small. Three people can already be hectic to try and find two hours every week to schedule together. That only increases in difficulty the more people you add to book club. This is not to say that I do not think all the time about how cool it would be to have more people in this thing. But I do think the value would start decreasing the more and more people are added. People’s voices become quieter, the loud ones lead every conversation, it just gets harder. To quote one of our most recent book club finishes, “Abundance destroys value. -Simon Sinek”. 

We have experienced a lot of life together now. Mike, Kyle and I. These dudes have seen me in really really high moments in life. They have also seen me deeeeeep in the valleys of struggle and despair of life. We have cried together, we have laughed together, we pray for each other together. We share this experience of life together and that might be the most beautiful part about it. My dad and I were having a conversation about book club one night and he said something along the lines of this thing (being book club) being one of those gems in life I will look back at in 50 years at as one of the most pivotal things I have committed to. And frick he is so right! This is a GEM! I hope in 50 years we are still doing this book club. I hope I have just a massive library of books in my home. And any of the books I have read? I want you to take! I am serious! Come to my place and pick one out. Seriously though if you want one of the books, it’s all yours. They say if you lend someone a book, don’t expect to get it back and boy is that true haha but I would love nothing more than for you to fall in love with reading like I have. It has literally changed and continues to shape how I live. And I am not saying that just so lil’ Trish loves me more than she already does. It truly has reworked the way I think about so many of life’s big questions.

Below, I have listed out every single book we have read in book club, and my at least one if not more favorite quote(s) from each book. We read 22 books together in 2021. This year we have read 18 books and it is only October. It really is not about the number of books, but the value we are digesting through them with each other. We have hard conversations with some of these books. We break down and cry with some of these books. We laugh hard with some of these books. We get challenged by some of these books. Experiencing these emotions allows us to experience life more fully! 

My advice? Start reading now. If you need some recommendations, I have put an * next to my all-time favorites that we have read on the list. Mark those books up too! Mike is going to hate that I say this, but I find I retain things best when I write them down. When a line sticks out to me, I underline it in the book with a pen, I dog ear the bottom corner of the page, and I put that quote in a note on my phone, so I have it forever. That also allows me to give that book to another person and keep my favorite parts of it without losing them forever.

Anyways, below are my favorite quotes from each book in order of how we read them. Thank you for reading this blog. As always, I am so grateful for you. I love you. I mean that. I hope this has made you think just a bit. Frick, if this is just a little note that just my mom reads, that would be enough. She is an absolute rock star. I love you, Mom! Be good.

1

Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman

“The best formula for a complaint is “XYZ”. When you did X, it made me feel Y, and I’d rather you do Z instead.”

2

Think Life a Monk – Jay Shetty

“The more your personal spaces are devoted to single, clear purposes, the better they will serve you...in your mood and productivity.”

3

Dare to Lead – Brené Brown

“Trust is choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.”

4

*The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer

“Hurry kills joy, gratitude, appreciation; people in a rush don’t have time to enter the goodness of the moment. It kills wisdom; wisdom as born in the quiet, the slow. Wisdom has its own pace. It makes you wait for it-wait for the inner voice to come to the surface of your tempestuous mind, but not until the waters of thought settle and calm”

“Remember: the question we should be constantly asking as followers of Jesus isn’t actually, what would Jesus do? The more helpful question is, what would Jesus do if he were me? If he had my gender, my career, my income, my relationship status? If he was born the same year as me? Lived in the same city with me? To follow Jesus is to ask that question until our last breath.”

5

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man – Emmanuel Acho

“Everyone, and I mean everyone, has biases. It’s the job of empathetic and considerate people not to let them dictate actions that harm others.”

6

*Cry Like a Man – Jason Wilson

“As men, we must take care of ourselves by truthfully expressing ourselves with other men we can trust.”

7

*Boundaries – Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

“As iron sharpens iron, we need confrontation and truth from others to grow.”

“Don’t leave things to chance with people who matter to you.”

“Forgiveness is something that we do in our hearts; we release someone from a debt they owe us. Only one party is needed for forgiveness: me.”

8

single. dating. engaged. married. – Ben Stuart

“Dating is not a status to dwell in, but a process to move through.”

9

Love Does – Bob Goff

“When people realize there’s no agenda other than friendship and better understanding, it changes things.”

10

Disappearing Church – Mark Sayers

“Salvation does not come as a work of self-improvement, but as a divine shock, an undeserved gift given.”

11

Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom

“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

12

*Don’t Give The Enemy A Seat At Your Table – Louie Giglio

“Developing this kind of “even though / I will” faith changes the temperature and trajectory of your life. When the pressure mounts, this kind of faith doesn’t deflate. Instead, it actually inflates. It becomes bolder. More resolute and undaunted. More robust.”

“Sure, Jesus is holiness personified, but the Holy One invited you here. Booked the table. Prepared the meal. Sat down to join you. And this reservation cost Him everything.”

“Lingering with the Almighty is the best defense against the enemy who’s trying to get at your table.”

13

The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis

“…the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

14

Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets – Andy Stanley

“Everybody ends up somewhere in life, I recommend you end up somewhere on purpose.”

15

Make Your Bed - Admiral William H. McRaven

“Find someone to share your life with. Make as many friends as possible.”

16

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

“I resolved to treat all my paperwork as patients, and not vice versa.”

17

*The Gospel Comes with a House Key - Rosaria Butterfield

“Love the sinner and hate your own sin.”

“It was important, though, to resist the idea that love and approval go hand in hand.”

“Hospitality is necessary whether you have cat hair on the couch or not. People will die of chronic loneliness sooner than they will cat hair in the soup.”

“This is not complex. Radically ordinary, daily Christianity is not PhD Christianity. The gospel coming with a house key is ABC Christianity.”

18

Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

“The self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of human; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleared from, and cast below, mankind.”

19

Jesus>Religion - Jefferson Bethke

“It puts a whole new perspective on life when you realize even the ability to get out of bed in the morning is a wonderful extension of grace by our creator.”

20

*Garden City - John Mark Comer

“We need to think of work as a good thing. When God was done working, he sat back and said, this is really good. That’s how we should view our work.”

“Nothing about creation says that God is a tight-fisted, utilitarian, bean-counting pragmatist; God is a lavish, opulent, extravagant artist, and creation is his beauty on display.”

“When we’re down, one of the best things we can do is serve somebody else. It’s the backdoor to joy. And it’s always unlocked.”

“If your dreams are all about you, then your dreams are way too small.”

21

outdated. - Jonathan “JP” Pokluda

“Feelings would sometimes fail, but since love is an action, you can always love someone regardless of how you might feel at the moment.”

22

*Searching for Enough - Tyler Staton

“And when Jesus prays, when he talks to God, a certain homesickness arises in me. I want what he has. And is it like someone who’s had it before, maybe only for a moment, and I forget what it feels like most of the time, but when I slow down long enough to actually consider Jesus, there is a vague familiarity that gives way to longing. He actually believed what God said.”

“What is God like? If you’ve never thought long and hard about that question, you should. Because whether you realize it or not, you will always live in response to your answer to that question.”

“To minor on sin is to minor on love because sin constricts the capacity for love. Sin is a big issue to God because love is a big issue to God. If I pretend sin is a minor issue for me, I am intentionally making love a minor issue for me too.”

“Because the God who Jesus revealed is big enough to paint the stars across the sky with a single word from his lips and personal enough for an unhurried conversation with a single individual.”

23

Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey

“The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us - the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things - the sooner we get better at them.”

24

Battle Cry - Jason Wilson

“A man can endure a slap in the face, but a wounded heart causes him to guard his love forever.”

25

Creativity Inc. - Ed Catmull

“Trust doesn’t mean that you trust that someone won’t screw up - it means you trust them even when they do screw up.”

26

*The Second Mountain - David Brooks

“Real listening, whether to others or yourself, involves that unexpected extra round of questions, stretching the asking beyond what feels natural.”

“The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.”

“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have...they are scanning the social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for.” - John Gottman

“Gratitude is a soil in which egotism tends not to grow.”

27

*Gentle and Lowly - Dane Ortlund

““Christ is love covered over in flesh” Picture it. Pull back the flesh on the Stepford Wives or the Terminator and you find machine; pull back the flesh on Christ and you find love. If compassion clothed itself in a human body and went walking around this earth, what would it look like? We don’t have to wonder.”

“Every friend has a limit. If we offend enough, if a relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out. The walls go up. With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumè items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required - first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until we are with him upon death.”

“Your gentlest treatment of yourself is less gentle than the way your heavenly Father handles you. His tenderness toward you outstrips what you were even capable of toward yourself.”

“It means on that day when we stand before him, quietly, unhurriedly, we will weep with relief, shocked at how impoverished a view of his mercy-rich heart we had.”

“Reject the devils whisper that God‘s tender heart for you has grown a little colder, a little stiffer. He is not flustered by your sinfulness. His deepest disappointment is with your tepid thoughts of his heart.”

28

The 5 Love Languages Singles Edition - Gary Chapman

“Love is not an island of emotion, but rather an attitude that corresponds with appropriate behaviors.”

29

Joyful - Ingrid Fetell Lee

“A party without cake is just a meeting.”

30

*The Stranger in the Lifeboat - Mitch Albom

“I never considered what I would do if I called for the Lord and He actually appeared before me.”

“It takes so much to make you feel big in this world. It only takes an ocean to make you feel tiny.”

““…when people leave this Earth, their loved ones always weep.” She smiled. “But I promise you, those who leave do not.””

31

Life Together - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with the setting concerns for the days work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him whom our whole life belongs. “Awake, you who sleeps, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Ephesians 5:14)”

32

The Relational Soul - Richard Plass and James Cofield

“Be an explorer of the hearts of those you love.”

33

Atlas of the Heart - Brené Brown

“We agreed that we’re very careful and don’t use sarcasm and irony to express emotions and thoughts that we’re afraid to talk about... sarcasm and irony are reserved for playfulness only.”

34

Love People Use Things - Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus

“Sincere people don’t care what kind of car you drive, where you live, or the brand of the clothes you wear.”

35

Glad You’re Here - Walker Hayes & Craig Allen Cooper

“Their hands were dirty. They didn’t watch from afar and just think about us or pray for us. They met us where we were.”

36

Scandalous Witness - Lee E. Camp

“Remember too the primary posture of the church in the world is constructive instead of critical. Our task is to be salt and light; these days, the world may not need more critics.”

37

*When Invisible Children Song - Dr. Chi Huang

“It changed me so much that it is my desire to live a godly life even if it is at midnight on a Friday night. That spirit lives inside me and continues to change me. Because of this, I am just trying to do what Jesus asks: to serve my neighbors. That's you.”

38

*The Ragamuffin Gospel - Brennan Manning

“A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God” - Thomas Merton

“Something is radically wrong when the local church rejects a person accepted by Jesus - when a harsh, judgmental, unforgiving sentence is passed on homosexuals; when a divorcée is denied communion; when the child of a prostitution is refused baptism; when an unlaicized priest is forbidden the sacraments. Jesus sat down at table with anyone who wanted to be present, including those who were banished from decent homes.”

“Human love will always be a faint shadow of God‘s love. Not because it is too sugary or sentimental, but simply because it can never compare from whence it comes.”

“Christianity happens when men and women accept with wavering trust that their sins have not only been forgiven but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Thus, my friend the archbishop Joe Reia says, “A sad Christian is a phony Christian, and a guilty Christian is no Christian at all.”

“All we have to do, the parable says, is appear on the scene, and before we get a chance to run away again the Father grabs us and pulls us into the banquet so we can’t get away.”

“We have to stop being afraid to make room for love.”

39

*Can’t Hurt Me - David Goggins

“Motivation changes exactly nobody.”

“Doing things - even small things - that make you uncomfortable will help make you strong. The more often you eat uncomfortable the stronger you’ll become, and soon you’ll develop a more productive, can-do dialogue with yourself in stressful situations.”

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

“The sole reason I work out like I do isn’t to prepare me for and win ultra races. I don’t have an athletic motive at all. It’s to prepare my mind for life itself.

All of us can be the person who flies all day and night only to arrive home to a filthy house, and instead of blaming family or roommates, cleans it up right then because they refuse to ignore duties undone.”

40

Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek

“My favorite definition of love is giving someone the power to destroy us and trusting they won’t use it.”

“All the perks, all the benefits and advantages you may get for the rank or position you hold, they aren’t meant for you. They are meant for the role you fill. And when you leave your role, which eventually you will, they will give the ceramic cup to the person who replaced you. Because you only ever deserved a Styrofoam cup.”

“Trust is not formed through a screen, it is formed across a table.”

- The entire fire drill is so damn funny.

- The safety course where they’re singing stayin’ alive

- Dwight ripping off the practice dummies face

- “Barack is president! You are black Stanley!”

- The boom roasted scene is chefs kiss

- The office roasting Michael

- “No arms or legs is basically how you exist right now Kevin, you don’t do anything.”

- Michael trying to make the matter not all that serious at the corporate meeting

- Michael singing I Will Survive instead of Stayin Alive

- Creed checking if the dummy has a wallet

- “And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.”

- The random Jack Black film Jim, Pam, and Andy were watching.

- Dwight trying to make people sign the apology

-Michael trying to have them meditate

- “I consider myself a good person, but I plan on making him cry.”

- Oscar roasting Michael in Spanish

- Dwight roasting Michael when he called him an idiot

- Michael forcing Toby to sit down before he got roasted.

Today’s Autistic character of the day is: