Tag: Bruce Lee

I attracted a Kindle for Christmas. It’s the wildly popular device from Amazon for reading books, magazines, newspapers, select blogs, and more without actually carrying anything more than the thin, light device itself.

I’m such a bookaholic that I wasn’t sure I wanted one. But I’m also a gadget nut and curious enough to try it. So I told Santa and he delivered.

The Kindle is light, intuitive, easy to use, and fast.  Mine is the 6″ display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation, which I prefer for all the travel I do, but there is a US only version with a bigger screen (9.7″), called the Kindle DX.

After charging the battery, I turned it on and started using it within minutes. I synced it to my existing Amazon account and wondered what book I should buy first.

Since I had been reading Bruce Lee’s philosophy of living, called Striking Thoughts, I thought it might be cool to have it on my Kindle. I could look at it every day, chew on some Kung Fu (actually Jeet Kune Do) wisdom, and not have to lug the actual book around.

That’s when I discovered not all books are on Kindle. Striking Thoughts wasn’t listed. But a few other books by or about Lee were. I ended up choosing Bruce Lee’s Strength Training Secrets, a booklet by Justin Frost. I’ve always been interested in martial arts (Aikido, Chi Kung) and strength training (Steve Reeves/Hercules), so this would be a good first Kindle download for me.

It cost less than a dollar. I selected it and within a minute it was on my device. While the look and feel of the text on the Kindle was more like a poor quality newspaper, or even an old mimeograph, and the pictures are more like x-rays, the instant gratification couldn’t be beat.  The only thing better might be a direct download into my brain.

Side note: Bruce Lee sometimes trained with a Bullworker, an isometric exercise device I bought when I was sixteen years old — about forty years ago — and still sold today. I still have my original Bullworker, but doubt I’ve ever used it as much as Bruce Lee used his.

I wondered what book I would buy next. I have about $1,000 worth of books sitting in my shopping cart at Amazon. I picked a few of those titles and searched to see if they were available on Kindle. Most weren’t. That was a tad frustrating. But no matter, I was having fun shopping.

I searched again and found the complete works of James Allen (As A Man Thinketh, From Poverty to Power, etc) were ready for download. Called Mind Is the Master, I now have it on my Kindle.

The next book was Keith Cameron Smith’s The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class. This one has some great insights. As I was reading, I came across a line that was so good I re-read it three times:

“Middle-class people talk about things that came from a millionaire’s idea.”

Thanks to a feature on Kindle, I was able to hi-light that line and save it in my “My Clippings” folder. Way cool. I just wish there was a way to email the things in my clippings folder on Kindle to my Twitter, or blog, or email account. To share it with you here, I had to open the Kindle, open the clippings folder, and then re-type the line for you here. Not a tedious process but in this day I would think we could make it even easier.

Side note: Don’t underestimate the power of  Smith’s quote. I told it to Pat O’Bryan and master photographer Rodney Bursiel one evening and their heads reeled as they considered what it meant and I explored the implications out loud. In short, if you want to attract more money, create the products and services that make the middle class talk — and buy.

The next book was Facts Can’t Speak For Themselves: Reveal The Stories That Give Facts Their Meaning by Eric Oliver. This is a book on persuasion for trial attorneys.  It’s about how the mind creates stories out of facts, but often without the ending story actually being faithful to reality. To be sure you communicate what you intend, you have to be aware of how people frame information. If you’ve read my books, such as Hypnotic Writing and/or Buying Trances, you know how important it is to get your message across accurately. Oliver’s book is hefty and expensive (even for Kindle) but, so far, well worth the time it takes to absorb it.

Obviously, I’m enjoying my Kindle. It even seems to assist my focus. Instead of reading a dozen books all at once, jumping from book to book on my desk or night stand, Kindle gently leads me to pick one book and keep reading it until I’m done.

I also like that I have a special Kindle e-mail address that I can send e-books to, which then get downloaded direct to my Kindle.  Amazon mentions a “small fee” for this service, but I can’t find what that charge actually is.

To test it, I emailed the PDF version of my latest book, Attract Money Now, to my Kindle. It showed up just fine. I then went to Amazon, went into my account, looked up my Kindle charges, and saw the transfer cost was sixty cents. I’d prefer free. I later discovered I can put ebooks on my Kindle for free by plugging the USB port from my PC to my Kindle, and then just dragging the ebooks over. Easy.

On Christmas day, I showed the Kindle to a friend. She quickly figured it out, liked it, and even accidentally bought a book on it. She clicked on a book cover and before she knew it she had clicked on the buy-it-now button. She didn’t know the purchase or delivery would be so instantaneous. Fortunately it was a book on Reiki (The Original Reiki Handbook by Mikao Usui) which I wanted to read anyway.

I like my Kindle. It has some features I haven’t tried yet, such as reading books to you, but for what I’ve done with it so far, it’s cool. I’d like to see it have color, improve its screen, and make it less sterile. I still love printed books and still prefer paper, color, and all the other elements that make a book real.

For example, I received two copies of beautiful printed books, one signed by sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury and the other signed by comedian Jerry Lewis. Both came as gifts. Both are hardcovers. Both are collectibles. Kindle will never replace those.

But when it comes to traveling and convenience, the Kindle is great. I’ll be curious to see what the other devices are like, such as Barnes & Noble’s new e-reader, called Nook, which has color and over a million titles to choose from. And geniuses such as Ray Kurzweil are creating ways to read books in full color on any device, with programs such as his new Blio. Of course, I’ll also be waiting to see how Amazon upgrades Kindle over time.

For now, I’ll keep my Kindle. It’s where I can easily find such relevant Bruce Lee gems as this –

“To change with change is the changeless state.”

Right on, Bruce.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS — You can’t yet read my new book Attract Money Now on Kindle (unless you already have the PDF and email it to your Kindle or transfer it over with a direct USB link, as mentioned above), but you can still get the PDF and read it for free by clicking the below banner: