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A Different Kind of Awareness
In Compass & Grit, you help readers rebuild their lives using two concepts centered around a clear sense of direction and disciplining themselves to keep showing up even when their confidence wanes. Why was this an important book for you to write?
This book, in many ways, came out of my own experience. There was a point where I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. I had goals, I had direction on paper, and I was showing up each day and putting in the work. From the outside, it would have looked like things were moving forward in the right way. But underneath that, there was a different feeling that kept coming up. I couldn’t quite ignore the question of what all of it was for. Not in a dramatic sense, but in a quieter, more persistent way. Why this path, why these goals, and where was it all actually leading? There wasn’t a clear answer, and that was the part that stayed with me. It felt less like a problem to solve and more like something you keep returning to over time. A kind of ongoing search rather than something you figure out once and move on from. The more I sat with that, the more I realized that a lot of men experience something similar, even if they don’t always put it into words. That’s where the idea for the book began. I wanted to write something that could meet a man in that space without overwhelming him. Not with big claims or the idea that he needs to start over, but with something steady and practical. A way to think about direction, and a way to keep moving even when the answers aren’t fully clear yet.
The book speaks directly to men in midlife facing loss or disorientation. Why did you choose to focus on that audience?
It’s a stage of life that doesn’t get talked about much, even though many men quietly go through it. When you’re younger, there’s a sense that everything is about discovery. In your twenties, you feel like you know what you want. You set goals, you move toward them, and there’s a kind of forward momentum that feels clear and natural. But as time goes on, that certainty starts to shift. You begin to realise that some of the things you once thought you wanted don’t quite fit anymore. Priorities change, perspectives change, and the path that once felt obvious becomes less defined. Then midlife brings a different kind of awareness. You start to lose people or things that you love. You start to see change happening around you in a more permanent way. And with that comes a clearer sense that time is not unlimited. That’s usually when the questions become harder to ignore. Not just what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it, and whether it still matters in the way you once thought it did.
What I’ve noticed, both in my own life and in the people around me, is that while we may not always know exactly what we want at this stage, we become very clear on what we don’t want. And for many men, one of those things is the feeling of moving through life without a real sense of purpose. It’s something I’ve seen in friends, in colleagues, and in people I’ve known for years. On the surface, everything can look fine. But underneath that, there’s often a quiet question of whether this is all there is. That’s the space I wanted to write into. Not to provide perfect answers, but to give some structure to that experience, and a way to start making sense of it without feeling lost in it.
You emphasize small, concrete actions over grand reinvention. Why is that approach so effective?
I think most people have big goals at some point. You want to make a certain amount of money, get into great shape, travel more, and build something meaningful. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, having something to aim for matters. But the challenge is that those goals are often so big that they feel far away. I remember when I was younger, we had to run 2.4 kilometres for a fitness test. That’s six rounds on a standard track. At the start, you feel fine. You go out strong, your energy is high, and everything feels manageable. Then you hit the third round, and it starts to feel different. By the fourth, you’re not just running anymore, you’re thinking about how much further you still have to go. Each stretch feels longer than it actually is. The distance ahead starts to feel heavier than the distance you’ve already covered. And that’s what big goals can feel like. They’re so far out in front of you that your focus shifts from moving forward to thinking about how far away you still are. Small actions change that. Instead of trying to cover the entire distance in your head, you focus on what’s in front of you right now. The next step, the next rep, the next decision. It’s the same with something like getting in shape. You don’t get there all at once. It comes down to what you do each day. What you choose to eat, what you choose to avoid, how consistently you show up, even when it feels routine. Or even something as simple as saving. A small amount, done consistently, builds over time into something meaningful.
These things seem minor on their own, but they add up. And more importantly, they give you a sense of progress that you can actually feel. You begin to see that you can follow through, that you can build something step by step. That creates a different kind of momentum. It no longer feels like a huge leap that you may or may not reach. It becomes a series of manageable steps that you can continue taking. And that shift matters. It gives you a sense of control and a sense that change is not out of reach. It’s something you’re already in the process of doing. In the end, it really does come back to something simple. You begin with one step, and then you take the next.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Compass & Grit?
If there’s one thing I hope stays with them, it’s that they don’t need to have everything figured out before they begin moving forward. I think a lot of us, myself included, spend a lot of time looking for certainty. We want to know that the step we’re about to take is the right one. That if we do this, it will lead to exactly what we want. That there’s some kind of guarantee behind our decisions. But the truth is, there isn’t. You can feel sure in a moment, but in reality, none of us fully knows how things will turn out. Life doesn’t really work that way. There are too many variables, too many things outside our control. And at some point, especially in midlife, that becomes very clear. You start to realise that time is finite. Things can change without warning. And that waiting for perfect clarity can keep you stuck longer than you expect. So part of what this book is about is learning to move forward even when things feel uncertain. To rebuild your footing, to find your direction again, and to stay with it, even when it’s uncomfortable. Because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Most people don’t like it. But it’s also part of being alive. There’s a kind of discovery in that, if you’re willing to step into it.
On a personal level, I’ve had my own moments of being knocked down, of not knowing what comes next, of having to start again without a clear answer in front of me. And what I’ve come to understand is that it’s not about avoiding those moments. It’s about how you respond to them. You take the hit, and you keep moving forward. You adjust, you learn, you keep going. That’s where direction starts to come back. That’s where you rebuild your sense of self. So if there’s one thing I hope readers take with them, it’s this. You don’t need perfect clarity to begin. You just need to take the next step and be willing to keep going from there.
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You keep showing up. You keep going.
But you are no longer certain where you are heading.
If you have been asking what comes next, without a clear answer, this book was written for you.
Compass & Grit is a grounded guide for men in midlife who feel capable but off course. It is not about motivation or fixing yourself. It is about restoring direction when pushing harder no longer works.
Drawing from lived experience and practical frameworks, this book helps you:
Rebuild discipline in a way that is sustainable
Clear mental noise when life feels crowded
Create simple habits that actually hold
Reconnect with purpose in a way that fits your real life
This is not advice from a finish line.
It is written from the middle, where most men actually are.
If you have been carrying a quiet weight, or moving through your days while sensing that something underneath has shifted, you are not alone. Direction does not return all at once. It returns through steady steps, honest reflection, and consistent action.
This book gives you a place to begin.
Compass & Grit
Compass & Grit is a book about rebuilding a life after it has quietly, or catastrophically, fallen apart. Author Wolfgang Nelson frames rebuilding around two linked ideas: “compass,” meaning a clear sense of direction and purpose, and “grit,” meaning the steady, unspectacular discipline to keep showing up even when confidence has collapsed. The book is aimed largely at men in midlife, especially those reeling from divorce, job loss, physical decline, or a more private erosion of self, and it moves from immediate triage into identity repair, habit formation, emotional work, relationships, the body, and finally legacy.
What I liked most was how often the book insists on small, concrete acts over grand reinvention, whether that’s the image of the author sitting numb in his car outside the gym, Greg’s seven-day post-divorce triage of sleep, walking, and one honest text, or the later push toward a modest but meaningful “legacy project” like a mentorship circle for men in midlife.
I appreciated that the book has real emotional sincerity beneath its coaching-manual structure. Nelson writes in a voice that feels authentic, and the strongest parts of the book come from that bruised intimacy. When he describes identity collapse not as melodrama but as a man slowly ceasing to feel useful, legible, or necessary to his own life, the book sharpens. I also liked that he doesn’t romanticize stoicism. The sections on “identity bankruptcy,” shame-driven isolation, and the difference between rewriting your story and merely denying your pain are among the most compelling in the book. His idea of the “compact origin story,” reducing the next step to something as plain as “I lost X, I learned Y, and I will try Z for 90 days,” is simple, yet it has a bracing honesty to it.
I found the book to be persuasive in its practical wisdom. Nelson leans on frameworks, studies, checklists, and coined phrases like “micro-sovereignty,” “body as anchor,” and the warning against “brutalist grit.” He argues that discipline without adaptation can become another form of self-harm, and he ties recovery to sleep, strength training, daily walks, and the unglamorous dignity of keeping promises small enough to keep. The book wants to turn every human struggle into a named model. Even so, I never found it cynical. The ideas are earnest, grounded, and often useful, particularly in the chapters on emotional work and relationships, where he urges men toward tactical journaling, better apologies, trust rebuilt through consistency, and support networks that are neither macho pantomime nor group-therapy parody. The book’s real strength is that it understands recovery as rhythm, not revelation.
I came away feeling that Compass & Grit is a generous and deeply felt book. It has the slightly rough-edged conviction of something written because the author needed it to exist, and that gives it a seriousness I respected. I would recommend it for its steadiness, its compassion, and its refusal to confuse healing with hype. I’d especially recommend it to men in their forties and beyond who feel disoriented after loss, and to readers who want reflective, actionable guidance. It’s a book for someone trying to put themself back together.
Pages: 191 | ASIN : B0GF8MXGQM
The Architecture of Excellence: Habits, Virtue, and the Making of a Life Worth Judging
The Architecture of Excellence, by Craig Wright, treats a human life like a building project. Not a mood, not a vibe, a structure. The author lays out an “architecture of excellence” that ties together old-school virtue, modern habit research, and a central tool he calls the Ledger, a daily scorecard for character and conduct. Each chapter follows a clear rhythm: a vivid scene that shows drift or discipline in action, a tight explanation of the idea, a breakdown of common self-sabotage, and then concrete practices and exercises. By the end, the argument feels simple on purpose. A life you can respect comes from small, repeatable behaviours, tracked honestly, across work, health, relationships, and moral courage.
I found the writing to be sharp and controlled. The voice is firm and at times downright severe, yet it stays clear and readable. I liked the way the author weaves in Aristotle, Jordan Peterson, and Ayn Rand without slipping into academic fog or online ranting. The prose carries a lot of punchy lines and tight images, and that gave the book a steady energy that kept pulling me forward. At the same time, the intensity barely drops. The book keeps its foot on the gas, and I felt that in my body.
The structure works well. I appreciated the repeating pattern of “concept, traps, methods, exercises” because it makes the book easy to navigate and revisit. The Ledger idea is the strongest element for me. A simple grid of virtues and behaviours, filled in every day, used as a mirror for who you actually are, not who you say you are. I felt a mix of dread and excitement as I read those sections. Dread, because I could see exactly how my own patterns would look in those boxes. Excitement, because the system is practical and does not rely on hype or motivation. Some arguments get repeated in a slightly different dress. But I understand why, as repetition helps the message stick.
The book lands hard on personal responsibility, honest self-audit, and the danger of drift. That part resonated with me. I liked the claim that your “real self” is the moving average of your behaviour over time, not your feelings on a good day. The blend of virtue ethics and simple behavioural tools works better than I expected. It gives the book both weight and usability. The moral stance can be demanding. The author acknowledges hardship, but the spotlight always swings back to individual agency. The Ledger can be a strong tool for growth, and it can also become a strict inner judge if someone leans that way already.
I see this as a serious and well-built book for readers who want discipline, not comfort. I would recommend it to ambitious professionals, students standing at a crossroads, and anyone who feels stuck in vague self-improvement loops and wants something more concrete than “believe in yourself.” It will also fit people who already enjoy thinkers like Aristotle, Jordan Peterson, or Ayn Rand and want a more applied, day-to-day framework. If you want someone to look you in the eye and say, “Here is what a life of excellence would actually require from you,” The Architecture of Excellence will be worth your time.
Pages: 86 | ASIN : B0GDQS5SJ5
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Nonfiction
The Literary Titan Book Award recognizes outstanding nonfiction books that demonstrate exceptional quality in writing, research, and presentation. This award is dedicated to authors who excel in creating informative, enlightening, and engaging works that offer valuable insights. Recipients of this award are commended for their ability to transform complex topics into accessible and compelling narratives that captivate readers and enhance our understanding.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
A Story Worth Sharing
We All Want To Be Happy, Volume 3 follows your brother John through the mid- and late-sixties as he searches for peace through army life, factory work, fiery revivals, marriage, and the uneasy space between faith and fulfillment. Why did you decide to devote an entire volume to your brother John’s early adult years?
Every person experiences challenges in becoming an adult; however, those challenges were multiplied by the early death of his mom, his dad’s rather unique approach to fatherhood, as well as his way of dealing with losing a second wife. I observed firsthand my brother’s courage and journey and believe his journey is both inspirational and educational, i.e., worth sharing with the public.
Looking back, what do these years reveal about growing up in the 1960s South?
The 1960s were a volatile time in the South, particularly in the rural South where we attempted to determine “our” place. The older generation, such as John’s father, born in 1895, was uncomfortable with and afraid of the changes. Rock and roll and integration were among the areas generating fear, and that fear created a greater gulf between parents and children, even more so in rural areas.
How does the idea of “peace of mind” evolve across the volume?
As John encounters each obstacle, he fully embraces and studies the opportunities attached to the “possible” ladder out of his instability. Each time, he is reminded of his mother’s teachings and takes another step toward realizing that peace and happiness are his responsibility.
What does happiness mean to John in this volume? Do you think he finds it?
Yes, John does find peace, or at least the road toward peace and joy. He learns that it is not something to find outside oneself, but rather an acceptance of who you are. Once he stops looking outside of himself for the source of contentment, he finds it. He learns: “If you want someone to make you happy, look in the mirror.”
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
As I spend more time with others, particularly young people, I find many are unable to find the bright side of what seems to be a tragedy, a mistake, or a bump in the road. A lack of maturity and experience often creates the inability to look beyond the surface. Some people get lost in what didn’t happen, rather than see the blessings of what did. It may be a normal human reaction, yet as we age – another blessing of getting older – we realize unexpected outcomes result in the most valuable life lessons.
In Volume III, my goal is to share experiences that I observed in my brother’s life. He has been kind enough to allow me to share pertinent times in his much younger years. His memories, as well as our conversations, provided me a deeper look into and understanding of his life. Perhaps the stories will remind you of your own experiences, or those you have witnessed, or provide a laugh, a tug at the heart strings, or a reason to rekindle a friendship.
I WISH YOU JOY AND PEACE OF MIND.
WE ALL WANT TO BE HAPPY VOLUME 3
We All Want To Be Happy, Volume 3 follows the author’s brother John from Thanksgiving 1963 into the mid and late sixties, as he hitchhikes between army posts, small Louisiana towns, and Dallas, chasing work, women, and some kind of peace in his own skin. We watch him drift out of the military, land in miserable factory jobs, fall under the spell of fiery revivals, marry Ruth, and throw himself into Bible reading and lay preaching. The book moves in episodes rather than a single big plot, and each one shows John wrestling with family, faith, money, and that quiet longing for “peace of mind” that sits at the heart of the volume.
I felt pulled in most by the way the writing handles scenes. The hitchhiking trips, the tin roof at Grandpa’s, the Resistol hat factory full of “toads,” the Davis Street auditorium with its bluegrass band and healing line, the Stratton Cleaner sales meeting that feels suspiciously like a revival meeting, all of that felt sharp and specific. The dialogue rings true and carries a lot of weight, especially between John and the older men in his life. I noticed how often the author lets a joke land flat in the moment, then uses that silence to show John’s insecurity. The prose itself is plain and direct, which fits the world. Sometimes scenes run a bit long, but the voice never feels fake. It reads like someone who has lived close to these places and these people, and that authenticity resonated with me more than once.
The book is not just about religion; it is about how a hungry soul can latch onto anything that promises meaning. John throws himself into Pentecostal revival life, studies the Bible every spare minute, works in a hat factory while trying to save coworkers and even a confused cop at White Rock Lake, then slowly realizes that zeal does not automatically equal peace. The tent revival scenes with Brother Gene Ewing, the healing spectacles, the baskets circling for offerings, all raise hard questions without turning the story into a sermon. I felt both moved and uneasy in those chapters, which I suspect is exactly the point. The book keeps circling this tension between genuine spiritual hunger and human ego, between being “saved” and being honest with yourself. By the time John gets pulled into high-pressure sales culture with Stratton, the echo between religious hype and commercial hype feels deliberate and pretty biting.
I came away feeling that We All Want To Be Happy, Volume 3 is a thoughtful portrait of a young man trying to grow up without losing his soul. It will suit readers who enjoy memoirs and biographies set in Southern or Southwestern life in the sixties, working-class families, and evangelical church culture with all its beauty and contradictions. If you are curious about how faith, work, and family pressure shape a person over time, and you do not mind sitting in some emotional discomfort while he figures that out, this book is a good fit.
Pages: 122 | ASIN : B0GGDZW6CK
The Ripple Effect
The Ripple Effect is a memoir that follows Teresa Baglietto from a golden childhood in Aspen through the shattering loss of her father, a steep financial fall, sexual assault, three marriages, motherhood, multiple cancers, aneurysms, strokes, and a brutal round of money crises. It is structured as a series of storms and partial calms, each chapter moving from vivid scenes to “Core Lessons” and reflective “Breakout Questions” that spell out what she took from each season of her life. The through line is her belief that we can meet even the worst moments with a mix of radical honesty, small practical steps, and a stubborn inner voice that says, “Not today, life.”
This is an emotionally stirring book, in a good way. Baglietto writes in plain, straight-talking language, and she leans on concrete details, like the feel of the swimming pool at the country club, the smell of the barn blankets, and the exact sound of the walker with tennis balls scraping along the hospital floor. Those moments pulled me in and made the medical scenes, in particular, feel painfully real. The structure of the story, followed by “Core Lessons” and “Breakout Questions,” gives the book a coaching flavor, which I mostly liked because it kept nudging me to think about my own life instead of just watching hers. The lessons felt like a keynote talk captured on the page, but the scenes before them are so specific and emotionally charged that the summaries usually landed as earned rather than preachy.
Emotionally, the book hit me hardest when it dealt with compounded trauma and how it lands on family. The way she describes rape, then silence, then the armor she builds over years, is blunt and unvarnished, and I felt my stomach drop reading it. Later, when she writes about her sons watching her cycle through diagnoses, treatments, relapses, and new crises, I could feel how much she carries in her body and in her mind at the same time. Her central idea is that resilience is not magic, it’s a series of small, strategic choices: pushing for a mammogram when the system drags its feet, speaking up when something feels wrong in the hospital, sitting down with the numbers when the money is gone, letting people bring food when pride wants to say no. I appreciated that mix of emotion and practicality. The constant framing around strength and comeback felt relentless, leaving little room for simply being wrecked, but she does show those cracked, exhausted moments, and that kept the message from sliding into toxic positivity for me.
I would recommend The Ripple Effect to readers who are living through serious illness, caregiving, grief, divorce, or financial upheaval, and to people who walk alongside them, including clinicians who want a grounded sense of what this kind of life actually feels like from the inside. It’s not a light read, and there are passages that may be triggering for survivors of assault or those in the middle of cancer treatment. For readers who are ready to sit with hard stories and still look for something sturdy to hold onto, this book offers both a personal testimony and a set of simple, workable anchors for getting through the next wave.
Pages: 159 | ASIN : B0G2Q4WCVB
Mind, Body & Spirit
Who Trains, Wins is a personal guide to growth through martial arts, written with a mix of tough love, lived experiences, and clear admiration for the warrior path. You describe martial arts as a blueprint for living. When did that shift happen for you?
When I was young, I was living by trial and error. I could be told what to do, but many times I needed to learn the hard way. I found that when I was training regularly and spending the majority of my time with those who were focused on self-improvement, I was consistently getting better all around results in my life. When I wasn’t putting in work on my spiritual/physical side, I would move backwards, and my general life results became poor quickly. I am a slow learner, but around age 26, it eventually became ridiculously obvious. I found the rhythm for my success required continuous work in mind, body & spirit – all three equally. If I slacked, I paid in kind.
Was there any story you hesitated to include but ultimately felt needed to be there?
Such an insightful question. In writing this book, I wanted to focus on the reader and where they want their life to go. Originally, I included many, many personal stories that seemed to be relevant as examples in each section. Ultimately, I cut 98% of them as they were just that, personal, and weren’t broadly relevant to a wider audience. I didn’t want to drown out, drone on, and hijack a success formula self-help book, to instead make it an autobiography. The martial arts is a very personal journey and each person should start “tabula rasa” – as a blank slate, and let the martial arts principles and their discipline bring them where they need to go. I didn’t want to inject any bias or limit the scope of what’s possible for those in completely different circumstances to my origin. So the stories I told I felt were just enough to make a connection with the reader, and I tried to leave lots of room to write in their own story and personal comparisons.
How can someone with no martial arts background start applying these principles immediately?
A self-assessment is the place to begin. Identify your ideal experience in this human form that you think is achievable for yourself. We don’t need to be talking lofty goals. Just a few simple improvements. Are you on the path to getting there? If not, why not? I believe many people don’t realize life can be navigated with more success if you first draw up a map for where you want to go. That map needs to include a regime to shore up 3 areas: 1. Spiritual, 2. Physical, 3. Mental. These three separate systems must run at peak potential simultaneously for quick results. If they are optimized, backed by a plan, a road-map of who you want to be and where you are going, the world will make way for you, and you will get much further than you can imagine.
How do you help readers stay motivated when progress feels slow or invisible?
This is the secret sauce and one of the hardest questions we all must face. Love is the key. Love for your pet, your grandmother, love for yourself. The motivation, love, and joy bring are boundless. I cannot instill work ethic or push you, you need to want to be there. Love feels scary to give unconditionally, but if you love yourself, then you will want what is truly best for yourself. We live in a society that makes food and cars and sex about self love. Those can quickly become traps and negatives. True self love means staying healthy, focusing on positive things, helping those in need. Giving of yourself and your time is empowering and uplifting. So find and hug your grandmother today, time is limited for those. Go outside and smile at a stranger, the rest of their day they will remember that. Look in the mirror and say I love you three times out loud, and see if you don’t all of a sudden look just a little more attractive. I’m smiling just thinking of you doing that. That’s the key to staying motivated – love.
Imagine taking on your biggest challenges with the mental fortitude and unshakable confidence of a seasoned fighter. This isn’t reserved just for black belts or elite athletes. Anyone can apply these principles to daily life and see real results.
The truth is, you already have the tools inside you. You just need to sharpen them through deliberate practice. Like a fighter perfecting their stance or a martial artist drilling their forms, success in life requires consistent training in the fundamentals. Use the same proven martial artists techniques for any challenge you face.
This book will guide you to the core essentials that separate those who achieve from those who simply dream. Through the same discipline, mental toughness, and strategic thinking that masters have used for centuries, you’ll develop the warrior mindset that makes unlimited success inevitable.
Who Trains Wins reveals how martial arts discipline translates into wealth, success, and fulfillment—not through shortcuts, but through becoming the complete person capable of achieving any goal.
This isn’t theory. It’s a battle-tested roadmap.
YOU’LL LEARN:
• How to choose the right martial art, school, and master (and what red flags to avoid)
• Training regimes broken into achievable daily steps
• How to master emotions, conquer fear, and build unshakeable self-respect
• Ancient philosophies adapted for modern success
• Nutrition and physical optimization for peak performance
• Spiritual practices including meditation and energy work
• The warrior’s path from student to teacher to master
Train your mind. Hone your body. Transform your life.
The path is clear. The methods work. I’ve walked it, and so can you.
Join me in training to WIN.
About the Author;
(Drawing on decades of training across multiple disciplines—from Tae Kwon Do to BJJ, from close protection operations to high-risk contracting—author Matthew Black distills the martial wisdom that transformed his life into practical tools anyone can use.)
