If you ever have a Zoom call with me, you will see an impressive (and color-coded!) array of business books lining the shelves behind me.

And I have never finished a single one of them. 

(Including the book about the messaging framework that changed the trajectory of my professional life.)

I hate business books. 

📦 I do not read them in a box.
🦊 I do not read them with a fox.
✈️ I do not read them in the air.
🤷 I do not read them anywhere.

Until Building a Second Brain. My friend Sandy told me about it during a recent call, and I’d bought it before we hung up.

The book didn’t even make it to my shelf; I started reading the day it arrived.

The Second Brain in question is the result of creating and using a system to organize your files, inspiration, and half-formed ideas — that actually allows you to use them in your creative pursuits, no matter when you pick them back up.

The system is called CODE:

1️⃣ Capture: keep what resonates
2️⃣ Organize: save for actionability
3️⃣ Distill: find the essence
4️⃣ Express: show your work

I’ve got three more chapters to read, then I get to move on to The PARA Method, which details the physical structure that houses your Second Brain: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive.

I’ll be transitioning to PARA over my break between Christmas and New Year’s. Santa’s comin’ down the chimney with sanity!

So…I guess I just wrote a whole email about a book. In part because of what I’m about to confess to you: I MacGyver this email every week.

Monday hits, and I’m like, “Uhh…………weekly email. Need story. Need marketing tie-in. Need rad GIFs. Halp.” 

I. Need. This. 

And if you consider yourself creative in any way — actually, even if you don’t — there’s a good chance you need it too. 

btw, the messaging for this book? So spot on.

🚫 The story isn’t “The internet, man. You’re so scattered, right? Here, I figured out this cool way to organize the overwhelming amount of information in your life.” 

✅ It’s “Curious, creative people too often consume information to the point of overwhelm and never actually apply it meaningfully. I’ve developed a system to help you act on what you’re taking in and be more creative than ever.” 

👉 We’re never selling the thing. We’re selling what it means. 👈

So there you go. A book recommendation and a little lesson tied up with a bow.