Earlier in the month I got a random email from a gentleman by the name of SJ. I thought it was quite the coincidence because I was in the middle of writing an article about my little thought experiments in SEO. I mentioned SJ in the article because he was consistently ranking for something that I was also trying to rank for. I took the opportunity to ask him what his strategies were regarding ranking videos.
The reason that he emailed me wasn’t to talk SEO though, it was to send me his new book he wrote called Becoming a Lion Among Sheep. I was interested in reviewing the book because I had just finished a month of doing 30 Days of Discipline and was interested in someone else’s take on the subject.
I started to really get into his book but got sidetracked by various side businesses and the holidays. I finally got around to finishing the book and I wanted to give a full review on it.
Life Guide
This book isn’t so much a challenge or things to do to get more done, it’s a way of life. SJ spends the first 15 pages going into his background, introducing the concept of the book, and going into how humans work in regards to habits. He goes into the reasons why people procrastinate and what to do to change it.
Each of these sections are small and to the point and serve to set the stage for tackling the habits he lays out later in the book. It’s important that he puts this information in here because if you had no idea what the problem was to begin with, it would be hard to start implementing habits immediately. It also is important that he gives his own story because it serves to inspire you to follow in his footsteps.
Habits
After going into the mindset, SJ jumps right into the daily habits to partake in. This takes roughly 100 pages and is packed with great information. When I say he talks about habits I mean he goes DEEP. He breaks the habits down into a couple different categories. They are:
- Diet
- Body
- Wealth
- Inner Circle
- Knowledge
- Happiness
- Productivity
- General Success
For each category, SJ lists about 8 different habits to undertake. For each habit, he goes into the reasoning behind each habit, his own experience doing the habit, the time required to perform the habit, and how often you should repeat the habit.
If you are thinking that this is just a really long blog post converted into an ebook, think again. The level of detail on each habit is impressive and shows that SJ really put time into actually performing the habits before talking about them.
He does mention that you shouldn’t get too caught up in having to perform all the habits, and I agree. Doing all these habits every day may make you go insane. You may come out the other side with superpowers, but it’s unrealistic. The point here is to pick up the habits you like the most and run with them.
This isn’t my first rodeo with the self improvement world, so a lot of the things listed were old hat to me, but there were a number of habits that I read about that really surprised me. My favorite habits are as follows:
- Deload: Essentially you should take a week off from your normal routine of lifting like a savage and have a light week at the gym or not at all. This will help your body recover from lifting for months on end. This gels with what I would do when I would go down the Jersey Shore on vacation every year. I wouldn’t lift for that week and I was pleasantly surprised that my strength would actually increase.
- Yoga: When reading this I totally forgot that I wanted to get into yoga along with weight lifting. I did karate back in the day and wanted to get back into being the flexible high kicker that I used to be. I recently started a yoga class at my gym that is free with membership and I can absolutely agree that it kicks ass.
- Build or Join a mastermind group: I have recently been experimenting with the idea of starting a mastermind group with a couple people who are in the same boat as me in terms of business goals. It’s easy to get sidetracked when you are working by yourself all day. Once you start having to present to other people your progress you are more apt to get work done.
These are just a small sample of the great habits in the book. The other habits are also really great but don’t apply to me as much as I already have implemented a number of them. However, everyone should get something different out of this book as everyone is on different paths and at different points on that path.
The habits portion of the book is the real meat here and SJ did a really great job with it. I appreciate the layout of this section as I can just skip to whatever part of my life I want to work on the most and read about what to do.
Carrying out the habits
SJ spends about another 15 pages going into how to actually apply the habits to your life. He goes in detail about the strategies used to make a habit something you do every day without thinking about it. He also talks about the common pitfalls people get caught up in when trying to change for the better.
After this he goes into how you should focus on your faults in life and how to take those faults and improve on them. He goes into exactly what a typical day of routines is for him just to get an idea of what it actually looks like to be SJ. Finally he concludes by summing everything up and giving a quick pep talk to get you started immediately.
My take
Like I said earlier, I’m pretty familiar with the self improvement niche so a lot of this material gets old to me. The thing about self improvement is that eventually you just have to sit down and apply the concepts. You can’t just keep going on reading about stuff you need to do over and over again. With that said I tried to read this book from the perspective of someone who is looking to turn their life around and needs help.
Becoming a Lion among Sheep really stood out in that regard. The great thing about this book is that there’s so many different ways you could go. Looking to make more money? Give this a try. Looking to get into better shape? This book helps in that area as well. The beautiful thing is the synergistic effect that takes place when you start applying different habits from multiple categories at one time. For example, you go to the gym, crush a weight lifting routine, and find yourself with less stress. Now that you have less stress, you decide to figure out a budget to get rid of your debt and make more money.
I’m really impressed with the amount of detail SJ went into with each habit. Every question or concern for each habit is answered by him.
Bottom Line
This book will absolutely benefit you if you are needing help and looking to turn your life around. I’ve been there before bored out of my mind working an absolutely mindless 9-5 job. I drew upon various websites and books I’ve read to push myself to change, and I still don’t have it completely down. It’s nice to have everything in one place so I can easily reference it when questions arise.
If you are finding yourself in a similar rut, give this book a try and start applying the habits that SJ talks about. This isn’t a book about specific techniques to make money online, but everything else is covered so that you can stay on task with whatever you are doing and generally have a kick ass life.
If you are someone like me who is already on a path of self improvement, I’d still recommend this book. There’s a bunch of things that I haven’t thought of that I picked up by reading this book. There’s a lot of time I waste during the day to be honest, and using some of SJ’s habits, I was able to fill this time with some positive activities.
Build new habits, start implementing systems in your life, and become happier overall.
Pick up your copy here: Becoming a Lion Among Sheep
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