What's Mrs. Gaston reading?

p. 12 "But the truth is we all make habitual, self-limiting choices. It's as natural as a sunset and as fundamental as gravity. It's how our brains are wired, which is why motivation is crap.

"Even the best pep talk or self-help hack is nothing but a temporary fix. It won't rewire your brain. It won't amplify your voice or uplift your life. Motivation changes exactly nobody. The bad hand that was my life was mine, and mine alone to fix.

"So I sought out pain, fell in love with suffering, and eventually transformed myself from the weakest piece of s*** on the planet into the hardest man God ever created, or so I tell myself."

p. 13 "There will always be the 1 percent of us who are willing to put in the work to defy the odds."

pp. 35-37 "We stayed with my grandparents for the next six months, and I enrolled in second grade - for the second time - at a local Catholic school called Annunciation. I was the only eight-year-old in second grade, but none of the other kids knew I was repeating a year, and there was no doubt that I needed it. I could barely read, but I was lucky enough to have Sister Katherine as my teacher. Short and petite, Sister Katherine was sixty years old and had one gold front tooth. She was a nun but didn't wear the habit. She was also grumpy as h*** and took no s***, and I loved her thug a**.

"Annunciation was a small school. Sister Katherine taught all of first and second grade in a single classroom, and with only eighteen kids to teach, she wasn't willing to shirk her responsibility and blame my academic struggles, or anybody's bad behavior, on learning disabilities or emotional problems. She didn't know my backstory and didn't have to. All that mattered to her was that I turned up at her door with a kindergarten education, and it was her job to shape my mind. She had every excuse in the world to farm me out to some specialist or label me a problem, but that wasn't her style. She started teaching before labeling kids was a normal thing to do, and she embodied the no-excuse mentality that I needed if I was going to catch up.

"Sister Katherine is the reason why I'll never trust a smile or judge a scowl. My dad smiled a h*** of a lot, and he didn't give two s**** about me, but grouchy Sister Katherine cared about us, cared about me. She wanted us to be our very best."

pp. 41-42 "... and while there are proven interventions on the best way to teach and manage kids who suffer from toxic stress, it's far to say that Ms. D didn't get those memos. I can't blame her for her own ignorance. The science wasn't nearly as clear in the 1980s as it is now. All I know is, Sister Katherine toiled in the trenches with the same malformed kid that Ms. D dealt with, but she maintained high expectations and didn't let her frustration overwhelm her. She had the mindset of, Look, everybody learns in a different way and we're gonna figure out how you learn. She deduced that I needed repetition. That I needed to solve the same problems over and over again in a different way to learn, and she knew that took time. Ms. D was all about productivity. She was saying, Keep up or get out. Meanwhile, I felt backed into a corner. I knew that if I didn't show some improvement I would eventually be shipped out to that special black hole for good, so I found a solution.

"I started cheating my a** off.

"Studying was hard, especially with my f*****-up brain, but I was a d*** good cheat. I copied friends' homework and scanned my neighbors' work during tests. I even copied the answers on the standardized tests that didn't have any impact on my grades. It worked! My rising test scores placated Ms. D, and my mother stopped getting calls from school. I thought I'd solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance."

p. 43 "Challenge #1

"My bad cards arrived early and stuck around a while, but everyone gets challenged in life at some points. What was your bad hand? What kind of b******* did you contend with growing up? Were you beaten? Abused? Bullied? Did you ever feel insecure? Maybe your limiting factor is that you grew up so supported and comfortable, you never pushed yourself?

"What are the current factors limiting your growth and success? Is someone standing in your way at work or school? Are you underappreciated and overlooked for opportunities? What are the long odds you're up against right now? Are you standing in your own way?

Break out your journal - if you don't have one, buy one, or start one on your laptop, tablet, or in the notes app on your smart phone - and write them all out in minute detail. Don't be bland with this assignment. I showed you every piece of my dirty laundry. If you were hurt or are still in harm's way, tell the story in full. Give your pain shape. Absorb its power, because you are about to flip that s***.

"You will use your story, this list of excuses, these very good reasons why you shouldn't amount to a d*** thing, to fuel your ultimate success. Sounds fun right? Yeah, it won't be. But don't worry about that yet. We'll get there. For now, just take inventory.

"Once you have your list, share it with whoever you want. For some, it may mean logging onto social media, posting a picture, and writing out a few lines about how your own past or present circumstances challenge you to the depth of your soul If that's you, use the hashtags #badhand #canthurtme. Otherwise, acknowledge and accept it privately. Whatever works for you. I know it's hard, but this act alone will begin to empower you to overcome."

p. 61 "Everything I did was to get a reaction out of the people who hated me most because everyone's opinion of me mattered to me, and that's a shallow way to live. I was full of pain, had no real purpose, and if you were watching from afar it would have looked like I'd given up on any chance of success. That I was heading for disaster. But I hadn't let go of all hope."

pp. 64-66 "The second sign that I needed to change arrived with a postmark just before school let out for the summer after junior year. My mother was still in her emotional black hole after Wilmoth's murder, and her coping mechanism was to take on as much as possible. She worked full-time at DePauw University and taught night classes at Indiana State University because if she stopped hustling long enough to think, she would realize the reality of her life. She kept it moving, was never around, and never asked to see my grades. After the first semester of our junior year, I remember Johnny and me bringing home Fs and Ds. We spent two hours doctoring the ink. We turned Fs into Bs and Ds into Cs, and were laughing the whole d*** time. I actually remember feeling a perverse pride in being able to show my fake grades to my mother, but she never even asked to see them. She took my d*** word for it.

"We lived in parallel lives in the same house, and since I was more or less raising myself, I stopped listening to her. In fact, about ten days before the letter arrived, she'd kicked me out because I refused to come home from a party before curfew. She told me that if I didn't, I shouldn't come home at all.

"In my mind, I had already been living by myself for several years. I made my own meals, cleaned my own clothes. I wasn't angry at her. I was cocky and figured I didn't need her anymore. I stayed out that night, and for the next week and a half I crashed at Johnny's place or with other friends. Eventually the day came when I'd spent my last dollar. By chance, she called me at Johnny's that morning and told me about a letter from school. It said I'd missed over a quarter of the year due to unexcused absences, that I had a D average, and unless I showed significant improvement in my GPA and attendance during my senior year, I would not graduate. She wasn't emotional about it. She was more exhausted than exasperated.

"'I'll come home and get the note,' I said.

"'No need for that,' she replied, 'I just wanted you to know you were flunking out.'

"I showed up on her doorstep later that day with my stomach growling. I didn't ask for forgiveness and she didn't demand an apology. She just left the door open and walked away. I stepped into the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She passed me the letter without saying a word. I read it in my room where the walls were papered over with layers of Michael Jordan ad special ops posters. Inspiration for twin passions slipping through my fingers.

"That night, after taking a shower, I wiped the steam away from our corroded bathroom mirror and took a good look. I didn't like who I saw staring back. I was a low-budget thug with no purpose and no future. I felt so disgusted I wanted to punch that m*****f***** in the face and shatter glass. Instead, I lectured him. It was time to get real.

"'Look at you,' I said. 'Why do you think the Air Force wants your punk a**? You stand for nothing. You are an embarrassment.'

"I reached for the shaving cream, smoothed a thin coat over my face, unwrapped a fresh razor and kept talking as I shaved.

'You are one dumb m*****f*****. You read like a third grader. You're a f****** joke! You've never tried hard at anything in your life besides basketball, and you have goals? That's f****** hilarious.'

"After shaving peach fuzz from my cheeks and chin, I lathered up my scalp. I was desperate for a change. I wanted to become someone new.

"'You don't see people in the military sagging their pants. You need to stop talking like a wanna-be-ganster. None of this s*** is gonna cut it! No more taking the easy way out! It's time to grow the f*** up!"

"Steam billowed all around me. It rippled off my skin and poured from my soul. What started as a spontaneous venting session had become a solo intervention.

"'It's on you,' I said. 'Yeah, I know s*** is f***** up. I know what you've been through. I was there, b****! Merry f****** Christmas. Nobody is coming to save your a**! Not your mommy, not Wilmoth. Nobody! It's up to you!'

"By the time I was done talking I was shaved clean Water pearled on my scalp, streamed from my forehead, and dripped down the bridge of my nose. I looked different, and for the first time, I'd held myself accountable. A new ritual was born, one that stayed with me for years. It would help me get my grades up, whip my sorry a** into shape, and see me through graduation and into the Air Force.

"The ritual was simple. I'd shave my face and scalp every night, get loud, and get real. I set goals, wrote them on Post-It notes, and tagged them to what I now call the Accountability Mirror, because each day I'd hold myself accountable to the goals I'd set. At first my goals involved shaping up my appearance and accomplishing all my chores without having to be asked.

"Make your bed like you're in the military every day!

"Pull up your pants!

"Shave your head every morning!

"Cut the grass!

"Wash all the dishes!

"The Accountability Mirror kept me on point from then on, and though I was still young when this strategy came through me, since then I've found it useful for people at any stage in life. You could be on the cusp of retirement, looking to reinvent yourself. Maybe you're going through a bad break-up or have gained weight. Perhaps you're permanently disabled, overcoming some other injury, or are just coming to grips with how much of your life you've wasted, living without purpose. In each case, that negativity you're feeling is your internal desire for change, but change doesn't come easy, and the reason this ritual worked so well for me was because of my tone.