I rarely review shortish free e-books, but when I thought about it, I realized there is no real reason behind. In fact, is that a problem that a book is shorter than a 100 pages? Value should not be tied to length. If you think about my book on How to use consts in C++, it's less than 50 and... Ok, I'm kidding here, but even Jason Turner's C++ Best Practices is about 130 pages.

But getting back to the length. Do you know why a real book should have at least so many pages? Because otherwise the title wouldn't fit or would not be legible on the book spine and it would be more difficult to put them on the shelves of a bookshop. That's behind this requirement.

That is definitely outdated and many books could be distilled into a much clearer form if socially it would be more acceptable.

This book from the Dan Sullivan, founder of the Strategic Coach is only 84 pages including all the cartoons and the necessary clutter and by the way it's for free - well, you need to give him some of your personal data. You can download it from here.

The 4 C's formula is about the formula that always leads to personal and entrepreneurial breakthroughs even when we are not aware of this process. By recognizing it we can find strength in our struggles, we can plan our progress and eventually our breakthroughs.

Let's see the 4 Cs!

The first C stands for commitment. If you are not committed to achieve something then you'll quit when you face discomfort and uncertainty. Fear will grow within yourself and it will be too strong to tackle. In fact, it's the fear that is strong, but your commitment is too weak to find...

... courage that is the second C! If you are committed, you'll be brave enough to do whatever is necessary. Courage gives you the strength to endure even when you are afraid a bit, when things don't work out for the first time. Courage immediately grows a bigger future. When you have courage, you will go to uncharted territories where you can fail, you'll be out of your comfort zone. And that's exactly the point, because that's the territory where your courage can create...

... capability! The period of courage will lead you attain the new capabilities that you need for the breakthrough you look for. When you learn how to do new things, you gain something more than the sheer capability. Along the way, as you practice as you apply your new skills you also gain confidence.

That confidence is already a reward on its own. We all love being confident, we wish we could always feel that way. But that's only part of the reward. The even bigger payoff is that your greater confidence will increase your motivation and your ability to start over the cycle and keep growing.

If you don't believe what Dan wrote, it's time to think about your breakthroughs and identify the 4 stages I described to you earlier. He claims that you'll always be able to identify those.

One of my breakthroughs was that I got into C++ On Sea 2020, a well recognized C++ conference. Though I enjoyed all the local conferences where I was given the possibility to share my knowledge, this was on a different scale.

How did I get there?

I have a bucket list of 100 items where one of the items was to get into a such a conference. It's not a wish list! It's a list of things I want and I will achieve! I had the commitment and I also had to courage to send dozens of applications with different topics (to different conferences).

Obviously most failed, but I practiced writing applications and in some cases I received some feedback and in some others I got into a round where the applicants could review all of the applications. It was a great source of learning. Slowly I learned more and more about how to write appealing applications.

I'll never forget when I received the confirmation mail by Phil Nash saying that they were overwhelmed with high quality proposals and he was pleased to say that they accepted "Undefined behaviour in the STL" for inclusion in the programme.

It really boosted my confidence and my reputation - at least within the company. Did it lead to new commitments? Of course, I was committed to continue my journey to become a C++ expert (I'm far from it) and to publish books. But that's a story for another day.

I truly recommend reading The 4 C's formula by Dan Sullivan. It's free and not long, yet it offers some very important insights on how we can achieve a breakthrough once we are committed to do something!

Happy reading!