The Book of Better Review

I read the The Book of Better: Life with Diabetes Can’t Be Perfect. Make It Better* almost a whole year ago now. Maybe not that long ago, but it was definitely  a long time ago. I was sent a copy when it first came out and I read it right away, but never posted my review of the book. Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the ideas and concepts in this book lately, and not just in regards to diabetes, but in life in general, so I decided to finally write this damn thing.

In a very short summary, this book is about one concept. You may not ever be able to be perfect, but you can always do something just a little bit better. Let’s use an example from my life. I am trying to cut out fast food from my life. Well, I may give in to the urge every so often, but instead of getting 3 burgers, fries and a soda, I can do better by getting just 1 burger a side salad and a drink. It’s not the perfect choice, but it’s still better than the original option.

In the book, Chuck uses a common theme of learn from the idiot and the mistakes from the idiot. A lot of times, I find myself to be the idiot, and I don’t always learn my lesson from these mistakes that I make. Some times it takes me about 4-5 different times of commiting the same mistake before it finally hits me.

Chuck also talks about the fact that diabetes is not easy, but nothing worth doing is easy. So if you want to do diabetes right, and I’ll let you decide what “right” means, but, it’s not going to be easy. If it is easy, than there’s probably some improvements you can make. I take this same concept in my life in general too. Living off a budget and having financial peace is not easy, but it’s worth it.

Being a sports fan and an athlete my whole life from little league football to playing in college, I have always idolized coach Valvano. I always use the phrase, don’t give up, don’t ever give up. Chuck speaks about this in the book as well. You may have 5 consecutive blood sugars of over 300 after exercising, but don’t give up. Make a better improvement. Maybe next time, you’re at 260, then at 240, then next thing you know, you’re blood sugar is around 120 after exercising.

The way this book is written is great. There are a lot of great images that break up the reading and with the way my attention is when I read, it’s perfect. With different size fonts and colors, it grabs and keeps your attention. Great idea for a book. The book also includes a lot of real-life definitions of words. Not like the doctor speak or what you find in a medical diabetes book.

There is so much more to this book than what I have put in this review, so I strongly encourage you all to read it if you haven’t yet. Christmas will be here soon, so you may not be able to get it delivered before than, but it’s a great book with the New Year coming up. Don’t just think about the stuff in this book about your diabetes management, I use a lot of concepts from this book in my business management as well.

Enjoy.

*This link is an Amazon Affiliate link, meaning that I get paid a commission if you click on this link and purchase this book. I use these links because each person from Amazon that uses my affiliate link, I donate 3% to diabetes research or a diabetes charity of your choice.

**Disclosure – I was not paid to write this review. The review above is my own. These are my thoughts and opinions of the book.