Today is a pretty big day for me :)
Dream Small, TED talk, and *not* my birthday
Hi friends,
Today is kind of a big deal. But I’ll get to that…
First, I want to talk about this author, Fredrik Backman, whom I’m obsessed with. But in case you don’t make to the back half of this email…MY NEW BOOK IS OUT!
Ok, now on to Mr. Backman.
A passage to show why I can’t get enough of Fredrik Backman
Nicole, one of my partners at Ripples Media, gave me A Man Called Ove as a holiday gift. I don’t know if she’s psychic or has some special I-know-exactly-what-kind-of-book-will-change-your-life kind of talent, but either way, this book crushed me. In a good way.
And now I can’t stop reading his books.
Ove was so good that I created a new 6-star rating in Notion for my book reviews. And it’s the only book with that ranking so far.
I use the app Readwise to store my highlighted text from the books I read, and I thought I’d share a passage from Backman to give you a taste of his writing.
There are simply some things that all normal people understand that you must never under any circumstances do. You mustn’t tell lies, you mustn’t steal, you mustn’t kill and you mustn’t throw stones at birds. We all agree on that.
Except maybe swans, because swans can actually be passive-aggressive little bastards. But apart from swans, you mustn’t throw stones at birds. And you mustn’t tell lies. Unless…well, sometimes you have to, of course, like when your children ask: “Why does it smell like chocolate in here? ARE YOU EATING CHOCOLATE?” But you definitely mustn’t steal or kill, we can agree on that.
Well, you mustn’t kill people, anyway. And most of the time you mustn’t even kill swans, even if they are bastards, but you’re allowed to kill animals if they’ve got horns and are standing in the forest. Or if they’re bacon. But you must never kill people.
Well, unless they’re Hitler. You’re allowed to kill Hitler, if you’ve got a time machine and an opportunity to do it. Because you must be allowed to kill one person to save several million others and avoid a world war, anyone can understand that. But how many people do you have to save in order to be allowed to kill someone? One million? A hundred and fifty? Two? Just one? None at all? Obviously, you won’t have an exact answer to that, because no one does.
Let’s take a much simpler example, then: Are you allowed to steal? No, you mustn’t steal. We agree on that. Except when you steal someone’s heart, because that’s romantic. Or if you steal harmonicas from guys who play the harmonica at parties, because that’s being public spirited.
Today is quite a day.
I’m not sure I’ve had many days like today.
First, it’s my birthday. Kinda.
I was born on Leap Day and have been in a lifelong battle with my mom, trying to convince her that, in non-Leap Years, my birthday is Feb 28th. She insists it’s March 1st. She’s as wrong as the day is long, and that’s that.
And we Leap Day babies have to find a way to overdo it on our non-Leap Day birthdays due to our incredible insecurity about being birthday-less 3/4 of our lives, so I’ve decided to layer today up with two biggies:
I’m giving my first-ever TED talk at TEDx Atlanta. I’m very much looking forward to it as I’ve been a massive fan of TED events for so long, with Simon Sinek’s purpose talk inspiring me to this day.
And my latest book is out today - Dream Small. I’m really excited to see how people react to this one, as it’s been a concept I’ve wanted to write about for a long time. I’ve heard some good things so far, but let’s be honest; those pre-readers are some of my family members and closest friends, so they might just have been saying nice things to protect my ego. But I think they meant it 😊
I hope you’ll check it out, and hey, it’s short, which means it’s a) an easy, quick read, and b) cheap. Like, $11.99 cheap.
Oh, and it turns out I'm not the only one that appreciates a shorter book. Maybe I’m on to something…
The point
I hope you’ll consider checking out Dream Small. And I hope that by the time you read this, I haven’t already fallen flat on my face while walking out for my TED talk.
Although, maybe that will give it a better chance of going viral…🤔
As always, I hope you're happy.
