This book was okay
Travel to Transform, a playbook for becoming a global citizen. Freeman Fung takes you on a reflective journey through his adventures, weaving in thought-provoking questions to help you apply the lessons to your life.
Having read many self-help books, I didn’t find many groundbreaking ideas at the start. However, I was caught off guard by some compelling insights in the latter half, particularly on dreams and limitations.
Would I reread this? Probably not. There wasn’t anything super groundbreaking, but rather good reminders to potentially dive deeper into. It’s more of a breadth of many different topics rather than a subject matter expertise in one.
Freeman Fung’s mission to spread a global citizen identity does speak wonders. It’s an important mission in this ever-connected world and continues to grow substantially.
There were ~20 chapters and it was a thick read. These were the chapters that made the most impact along with some notable quotes:
Ch. 10: Ideas Worth Spreading
A good reminder of the importance of mindset.
“Whatever we set our brain up to look for, it begins to find. It’s unstoppable! It’s like when you tell yourself you really want to buy a specific model of car – a red one.
”“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs, American Co-Founder of Apple
Ch. 12: Unveiling Money Illusions
It made me rethink money and my direction in life.
“Money will only make you more of what you already are.” – T Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
I loved this quote and wrote a blog post to dive deeper into it.
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Commonly Attributed to Saint Augustine of Hippo, North African Roman Catholic Bishop
Ch. 14: Lessons from Suitcases
This chapter builds on Chapter 10, delving deeper into shifting perspectives.
“We think we’re experiencing reality, but we’re actually experiencing our thinking..In other words, we think we have a reality problem, when in reality we have a thinking problem. And the more time we spend trying to ‘improve reality,’ the more real our thinking appears to us.” – Michael Neill, British Transformative Coach
“Suffering does not happen when an event occurs. Suffering begins at the instant you label that event bad.” – Dr Srikumar Rao, Indian, The Happiness Guru
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” – Yoda, Unknown Race and Nationality, Jedi Master
Rating
Each tier will be either 0 (sucks), 0.5 (ok), or 1 (fascinating – surpasses):
Entertainment: 0 (stories were okay but not particularly engaging or memorable)
Insights: 0.5 (some useful & new tidbits, especially in the latter half)
Storytelling: 0.5 (immersive and could see what was happening)
Relevance: 1 (rise in digital nomad landscape & traveling)
Clarity: 0.5 (good messaging throughout, reflection questions benefited well)
Overall: 2.5
