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You're Too Good to Feel This Bad, by Nate Dallas
āAggressively defend against things that steal your time, energy, and potential.ā
Matt Karamazov
July 28, 2023 ā¢ Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes
YOUTUBEĀ šĀ THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGEĀ šĀ PATREON
š Hey, good evening!
One of the best things about reading is that incredible surprises are just waiting for you on every single page of every single great book.
Sometimes, a book comes along that you donāt even expect to like, and yet you end up recommending it all the time.
Todayās book, Youāre Too Good to Feel This Bad,Ā is one of those books.
I guess you shouldnāt judge a book by its cover or its title, because after caving in to peer pressure and reading the book, I found myself implementing all kinds of new practices into my life to help me sleep better, breathe better, perform better, grow my business faster, and more.
The author, Nate Dallas, packs a ton into this book, and I only have space here to get into a tiny part of it, but yeah, I can see why everyone on Instagram couldnāt stop talking about this one.
Below, I share a short summary of Youāre Too Good to Feel This Bad, as well as my complete book notes, along with some additional recommended reading.
There are lots of incredible insights to be found in this book, so letās get into it!
If youāre looking for a book to help you address virtually every aspect of personal development, and help you optimize your performance and contentment in every area of your life, then you might likeā¦
This book covers a huge amount of ground, and Nate touches on everything from sleep, breathing, nutrition and exercise, to human needs, pattern breaking, mindset, meditation, money, work, systems, relationships, and more.
Itāsā¦a lot.
In the full summary and notes below, weāll get into some of the key takeaways, but hereās a great quote from the book which will give you some idea of what youāre in for:
āI am not such a dreamer as to think that this material is for every person who picks it up. Itās not. This is a manual for proven doers. Itās for those people who sincerely hunger for growth and donāt require extra external motivation every day to do demanding work.
Most people have goals, but the majority donāt attain those goals. What most people do get is their standards. The three-word, simple takeaway from this book may be: raise your standards.ā
Iāve certainly found raising my standards to be key in my own life!
You get what you tolerate in life, and everything changes when you change what youāre willing to accept.
As always, my book notes and summary for this book are available on my Patreon, as well as my personal notes from more than 1,150+ other books. Updated monthly.
The support Iāve received on Patreon over the years has been nothing less than incredible. It honestly just started out as a way to make some extra money, but itās become so much more than that.
First off, I want to mention two of my biggest supporters by name, Jeremy Steingraber and Paul Phillips!
Everyoneās support helps, of course, but to have someone believe in me and my work to the extent that they do is justā¦I canāt even put it into words without swearing haha.
I appreciate the hell out of everyone who supports me on Patreon, which is basically what Iām saying, and I want to help you out too by sharing my best book notes and summaries on there for you to enjoy and profit from.
There are plenty of other cool rewards available too, but the main thing is that you get more than 1,150+ summaries and thousands of pages of book notes for just $1!Ā
Theyāre updated monthly with all the new books Iāve been reading and taking notes on, but I do have to say that my earliest book notes need to be updated, and Iām working on that.
Just to be fully upfront with you guys.
I mean, theyāre very good, but my notes from 2020 onwards are much more in-depth and complete than the ones from, say, 2015.
Back then, I was taking notes just for myself, but now I have to go back and make sure that other people can navigate them easily as well!
I should have them all updated by the end of the year, though, and my latest reads are updated monthly.
That was kind of a long explanation, but again, thank you to everyone for either supporting me on Patreon or even considering doing so, and you can click here for my complete notes from todayās book and more than 1,150+ other books too.
Happy reading!
I was originally put off by the title of this one, even though it was blowing up on Instagram and it seemed like every Bookstagrammer I follow was recommending it heartily.
My initial thoughts were, āBut I donāt feel bad! Why do I need to read this? It soundsā¦whiny andā¦weak.āĀ
However, after blazing through it myself, Iāve found itās pretty much the opposite. And now I recommend it heartily!
The ideal reader here is the high-achiever, or wannabe high-achiever, who is already doing relatively well, but who endeavors to go further.
The book starts off with some fairly simple ā but important ā foundational stuff that many successful people seem to struggle with, like breathing properly and getting enough sleep, and then it moves on to mindset, career success, and money, before finishing on a high note with respect to relationships and love.
So yes, Nate Dallas covers quite a bit of ground in a fairly short book, and it certainly wasnāt written to be the ādefinitiveā book on any of these topics. But itās rooted in Dallasās invaluable personal experiences getting to the top of the Career mountain and realizing that heād neglected important parts of himself along the way. Thereās an element of ceaseless self-questioning in this book that would be a wonderful skill for all of us to develop more fully.
A recurring theme here is the large impact over time of small choices that we are in control of. Simple, obvious stuff like breathing from the diaphragm and prioritizing sleep is well within our loci of control, and once we do regain control of these elemental life processes, a whole lot of other things are going to start falling into place as well.
Also important ā and Iām so glad he references them repeatedly ā is the raising of our standards. We donāt rise to the level of our goals but rather fall to the level of our standards, and in my own life, raising them has been a huge part of my success.
You get what you tolerate in life, and if you tolerate getting 4 hours of sleep and working 70 hours a week for a salary thatās barely enough to live on, thatās exactly what youāre going to keep on getting. Ed Mylett calls this your inner thermostat, and if the temperature of your thermostat is set to some ācomfortableā level, youāre never going to achieve what youāre truly capable of achieving. You have to turn up the heat.
My whole life changed when I started raising my standards ā in all areas of my life ā and this is one thing that this book is uniquely suited to help you do.
Itās also extremely quotable, and heāll hit you with ideas that stay stuck in your head, like when he points out that ābrands are for livestock, to show who owns them.ā Do you own your car, or your handbag, or whatever, or do they own you?Ā
As I said, this book isnāt the āonlyā one you need in order to level up. You should totally read and apply 100 more great books in each area and watch your life upgrade before your very eyes. But itās a wonderful resource, written in a friend-to-friend style thatās both encouraging and helpful, and frankly, youāre too human not to read this book.
āThe problem is that we genuinely have no idea of what lies outside of the mediocrity. We donāt even question the possibilities because we are ignorant of them. Our measuring scale is inadequate. We compare our lives to those of sick people, not to the people that are thriving.
I was one of the healthiest and happiest people I knew, but only because I measured myself within the median range of sick, unhappy, stressed, depressed, angry, broke, bored, unfulfilled folks. I am now functioning as an anomaly, several standard deviations away from the mean.ā
āSmall decisions do influence dramatic transformations.ā
āThere was a time in my not so distant past that I would brag about not needing much sleep. Like so many other foolish entrepreneurs and high-energy creatives, I thought I was a unique breed that could operate on little sleep with no consequences.
Looking back on it now, it would be like me bragging that I could still do my work while intoxicated. As far as brain activity goes, thatās precisely what I was doing: functioning with only a fraction of my capacity. Look at my neat circus trick! I can stumble around in a foggy stupor and still file taxes for three corporations on time. For tomorrowās show, you can watch me forget what my wife asked me to do as I locate my misplaced keys!Ā
Sleeping five or six hours a night didnāt make me a her; it only reinforced what an idiot I was for enduring needless suffering.
The fact that I ignored such fundamental knowledge and kept sleep on the back burner for as long as I did still perplexes me ā and thinking about what those choices mightāve cost me is infuriating.ā
āDo we even care what type of fuel we are burning in the only body that we have?ā
āWhen we know what is necessary, but cannot do it, our desire must be questioned. Itās possible that that thing is not very important and can be dismissed from our obsessive thinking. But often, it is worthwhile, and we have not fully considered the risks and benefits of both outcomes. Asking what the pain will be next year, in five years, or ten, if we remain unchanged and do nothing, is a worthy exercise.ā
āThe refreshing thing about mindset changes is how rapidly they can occur. Once you take action on a particular thing, you are no longer someone who hasnāt done that thing. If you jump out of a plane, you are no longer someone who would never skydive.ā
āWhen we begin to think in new ways, we quickly become someone else.ā
āMinimalism should be standard, not radical. It shouldnāt even have a name. What average people today are unconsciously doing should be labeled as āexcessivism,ā āconsumptionism,ā or at least a form of addiction.ā
āEliminating 90 minutes of hidden inefficiency every day creates an entire day of freedom by the end of the week.ā
āIf you have a newborn child, and you want to leave her a million-dollar gift one day, it only costs you $15,000. You can deposit $3,000 into their account each year for the first five years of their life, and then stop, never adding any more funds. Simply allowing that $15,000 to compound at 8% as we discussed earlier, magic happens. That little account will be worth a million at age 60.ā
āEarn aggressively, spend intelligently, and invest patiently.ā
āEven a single outstanding relationship can make life wonderful. Strong relationships stimulate growth, provide opportunities for play, and connect us on the deepest level through suffering.
When tough times arrive, the right relationships make many events easier to endure. Allowing someone into our inner circle is therapeutic, but so is being allowed into theirs. We need people and also need to be needed.ā
āI cannot begin to explain the amount of peace that filtered my life when I proactively started trying to level up my love.
I wasnāt a monster before. Most people would have probably classified me as a pretty good fellow. But I wanted to live in a different state, whether anyone else understood it or not. I wanted freedom and peace and believed that love was the prerequisite for it.
That meant I needed to control more of my actions and surrender more of the outcomes.ā
āWho do you want to be? The answer to that question determines what comes next, and what intensity you need to bring with you. There is only one person who can answer the question and only one person with the agency to bring it to fruition.ā
Currently, I donāt have a complete breakdown of Youāre Too Good to Feel This BadĀ published on the Stairway to Wisdom (my library of expert book breakdowns), but below Iāve listed some similar breakdowns that you may enjoy instead.
When you become a member of the Stairway to Wisdom, youāll gain access to more than 100+ book breakdowns like these ones here, as well as a premium weekly newsletter that will help you build the kind of life for yourself that youāll love living.
āEvery little action you take toward your Future Self enhances your level of commitment and knowing. Every little action toward your Future Self is the evidence of your faith. Every little action toward your Future Self is you more fully being your Future Self now."
46-Minute Read | 12,300 Words
From a jail cell at age 19, charged with felony grand theft, to running the largest personal development website in the world (with more than 2 million monthly visitors), Steve Pavlina has come a long way. This book contains the collected wisdom of a lifetime of exponential growth.
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This book will make you stand up straighter with pride in humanity, as Dr. Kaufman uses the latest research from humanistic psychology to show how we are valuable beyond measure.
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Thatās it! I hope you found these book recommendations helpful, and Iāll be back with even more books for you very soon!
Mere āinformationā is everywhere today, but whatās going to separate you (and give you the life you desire) is consistent, meaningful action, backed up with the most powerful ideas from the greatest books ever written.
Thatās what I aim to provide you with.
Iām also putting in just as much work as Iām encouraging you to put in, and if youād like to work together,Ā we can talk about that.
You can apply to work with me directly on this page right here.
Together, weāll look at where you are now, where you want to go, and how you can achieve your yearly goals in the next 90 days.
If thatās something you find intriguing, talk to me here.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:
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