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    Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus
    Unavailable
    Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus
    Unavailable
    Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus
    Audiobook7 hours

    Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus

    Published by Hachette Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Equal parts memoir and road map to living a less stressful and more vibrant life, bestselling author Jesse Itzler offers an illuminating, entertaining, and unexpected trip for anyone looking to feel calmer and more controlled in our crazy, hectic world.

    Entrepreneur, endurance athlete, and father of four Jesse Itzler only knows one speed: Full Blast. But when he felt like the world around him was getting too hectic, he didn't take a vacation or get a massage. Instead, Jesse moved into a monastery for a self-imposed time-out. In Living with the Monks, the follow-up to his New York Times bestselling Living with a Seal, Jesse takes us on a spiritual journey like no other.

    Having only been exposed to monasteries on TV, Jesse arrives at the New Skete religious community in the isolated mountains of upstate New York with a shaved head and a suitcase filled with bananas. To his surprise, New Skete monks have most of their hair. They're Russian Orthodox, not Buddhist, and they're also world-renowned German shepherd breeders and authors of dog-training books that have sold in the millions.

    As Jesse struggles to fit in amongst the odd but lovable monks, self-doubt begins to beat like a tribal drum. Questioning his motivation to embark on this adventure and missing his family (and phone), Jesse struggles to balance his desire for inner peace with his need to check Twitter. But in the end, Jesse discovers the undeniable power of the monks and their wisdom, and the very real benefits of taking a well-deserved break as a means of self-preservation in our fast-paced world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMay 29, 2018
    ISBN9781549168529
    Unavailable
    Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus

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    Reviews for Living with the Monks

    3.5/5

    28 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Couldn't put it down! The author is a great storyteller, and pulls you into his world easily. In this book, he goes to upstate New York to live in a monastery, in order to "unplug" and find some peace in his life. The author writes with a great deal of humor, yet manages to describe his discoveries quite well. He finds several lessons that he can apply to his life (and yours), and that you do not have to go live in a monastery to enact them into your own life. I burned through this book fast, as I found it to be very interesting. I surprised myself, taking notes throughout the book with things that I want to try myself.
    • 3/5
      practical take aways from this book that I really love are the ideas that: 1. When I am doing a task like doing the dishes, instead of rushing through them and trying to focus on rushing through it and anticipating how many are left, instead focus on just doing the one dish in front of me. Then, when I see weeds in my lawn, I can just focus in on just the one weed to pull out instead of being overwhelmed by all the weeds that need to be pulled out. 2. The monks did only one task at a time. 3. They planned their days the night before. 4. The monks pray and sing and also eat in silence. 5. Itzler shared that the monks were training the dogs and just like they need to train the dogs not to be distracted, we also need to try our best to stay focused. 6. The monks where Itzler stayed with, had minimal internet connection and only had one emergency landline, which means that they had large blocks of time to think and thus it would be so good if we could have large chunks of time to think without interruption.
    • 2/5
      [Living with the Monks] was not what I expected. I thought this book would be about the monastic life and one man's spiritual retreat at a monastery. Instead, it reads like a business book, full of cute little life maxims. It is an "all about me" kind of book, in that the author talks about his stay at the monastery as one of his "bucket list" events, something he can now cross off as "Hey, I did this. Move on to the next thing." It was also full of profanity, which is in contrast to the spirituality of the monks. In some ways, I felt as if he was mocking the monks, which did not sit well with me. I guess I should have chosen more carefully, since the author bio tells me that he is an entrepreneur, adventurer, and former rap singer. This book was like something that would form the basis for a stand up comedian. This one goes in the discard pile. Not recommended. I did finish the book.
    • 2/5
      Generally, I have found that when an author reads his own works, they are improved. Itzler is the execption that proves the rule, I suppose. His voice is simply .... well, can I say it didn't "resonate" with me? The actual story of his living with the monks was interesting and would have made a nice addition to the Sunday Style section. Instead we got to know he has 4 children (though he only really spoke about his oldest), his wife invented Spanx (kudos to her!), he and a partner began a private charter plan service which was to become NetJets when bought by Warren Buffet, he spent 30 days with an ex-Navy Seal (or was that a buff trainer named Seal?), and he has a book editor.