I Hope You Destroy My Book
I’m writing a book about well made companies and the decisions that make them. My journey as a writer begins with my role as a reader.
For years, I have been a business book junkie. I believe learning from others is the closest thing we have to a compression algorithm for experience. In my quest to be a better business person, I wanted to benefit from everyone else’s experience. It is worth is to plow through some mediocre titles along the way to take away insights I can use.
I read around the house and it seems like the books like to gather most of on my bedroom nightstand. My nightstand has all the trapping of a maker’s space. There are randomly uneven stacks all over the surface, piling high until the bottom of the lamp shade forces a new stack. Some of those mounds look dangerously like they might topple over, which makes me thankful I no longer live in earthquake country. And the most interesting I find the books, the more the stacks contort menacingly.
Why? I am a dog-earer.
Some readers like to highlight, write in the margin, or take a picture for OCR inclusion in a database, but I am old-school. When something strikes my fancy or when I think is inspiring for a new business, a new initiative, or worth sharing in a future blog post or strategy, I bend the page. My favorite books swell in uneven thickness as corners are doubled over in service. I know this is something that a book lover should never do. It’s like the irony that we sadly see in other facets of life: I hurt the books I love. I justify my abuse because more than the books that contain them, I love ideas. I don’t just want to consume content. I want to take action. I want to create and connect ideas to shape them into something new. So, I am hard on books. Damaging a book to preserve an idea is perfectly acceptable.
It is my wildest hope that those of you who dog-ear will find my book interesting enough to destroy. When you get it in hand in August, I hope you find value enough to mark it up, share it, and make it your own. That is something to aspire to!
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