5 STAGES TO BRAWL YOUR WAY TO AWESOME [BOOK REVIEW]

"What do you do when all the excuses you used to not chase your dream are gone? What do you do then?" ~Jon Acuff, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters

Age is no longer the primary factor that determines where you are on the road to awesome. Life is now less about how old you are and more about when you decide to live. This book helps you mustard the energy to kick down the door of purpose and start traveling the road of awesome. Jon Acuff is wildly hilarious in his writing and he teaches from his personal experiences and failures which make his books so easy to relate to.

Overall I give the book a 4.5 out of 5!

This book drives depth into the 5 lands (aka stages) that every awesome life has to travel through: Learning, Editing, Mastering, Harvesting and Guiding. Here is the book trailer where Jon explains it best:

My Key Learnings From Each Land:

Land of Learning: Fake your death. Build a small plane in your head and then crash it. Then ask yourself one question: "If I died today, what would I regret not being able to do?" Try new things. Take new risks. Explore new passions.
Land of Editing: Learning is about addition. Editing is about subtraction. Be brave enough to have fun with whatever you whittle down in your life. Always play to the size of your heart, not to the size of your audience.
Land of Mastering: "A dream you don't have to fight for isn't a dream - it's a nap." If you are attacking your true awesome, you won't back down from a fight. Mastering = a time to throw some elbows. We reach awesome by doing reps. Add hustle to your talent.
Land of Harvesting: Ask a farmer if harvesting season is easy. Don't confuse this stage with retirement, vacation or the end of the story. Don't fear or fight the harvest. Lean into it and know that in many ways your adventure in awesome is just beginning. And….don't be a jerk.
Land of Guiding: Nobody ever feels ready to guide but guide anyway. If you don't share what you've learned with other travelers and head back to the land of Learning with a fresh start, yesterday's success will start to define your today and tomorrow. Start again.

Other Top Takeaways:

Joy is an incredible alarm clock.
You and I can be more awesome, more often, a whole lot faster today than ever before.
The shortcut to greatness isn't a shortcut at all. You just start earlier than everybody else.
At some point we will all say, "How did I get here!" The only difference will be the punctuation.
The opportunity and speed with which we can reach awesome has never been greater. Thanks to these 3 things:
1. Death of Retirement: In 2011, 20% of new entrepreneurs were between the ages of 55 and 64. This is the dawn of more "encore careers."
2. Hope is Boss: Gen X and Y are inspired and empowered to change the world.
3. Anyone Can Play: People are building empires on Pinterest. The barriers to build, reach and impact have never been lower.