Book of the Week: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
When was the last time you helped somebody by keeping your mouth shut?
Think about it. Not by giving advice. Not by fixing it. Just by listening.
If you’re like me, the answer is “not as often as I should.” I’m a talker. I’ve got 34 years of window cleaning in my head and I love handing it out. Ask me a question and you might get a seminar.
Then I read Siddhartha, and a ferryman who barely says ten words put me in my place.
How I Found It
Honestly? I’m not sure.
That’s how it works for me. One book leads to another. Something in chapter seven sends me down a rabbit hole, and three weeks later I’m reading something I never planned to pick up.
Lately the rabbit hole has been meditation. Deep thinking. The whole realm of it. How it calms your brain, puts you at ease, and hands you insight you didn’t know you were missing. 10% Happier by Dan Harris pulled me further in. And then, out of the blue, Siddhartha popped up.
Maybe this is the end of the rabbit hole. I doubt it. I think it’s the beginning. There’s something burning inside me that keeps me chasing the next thing to learn, and I haven’t caught it yet.
Turns out Siddhartha has the same problem. More on that in a minute.
Here’s the confession. This is not an easy read. It’s a short read. Not the same thing. There’s more depth packed into these 144 pages than a Rubik’s cube waiting for someone to put it back in order.
First pass, I was lost. Second pass, a little less lost. I grabbed some CliffNotes. Then the third pass.
Click. The lightbulb went on.
We’ve all stood in front of an important answer and missed it because our eyes weren’t focused enough to see it. You can flip the lights on in a dark room and still not notice the color of the paint on the walls.
Siddhartha is a book about finally seeing the paint.
The Short Version
Siddhartha is the son of a priest in ancient India. Smart kid. Knows all the rules. Everybody loves him. And he’s miserable, because knowing the rules didn’t give him peace.
So he leaves. He tries starving himself with a group of monks. Doesn’t work. He meets the Buddha himself, agrees with every word, and walks away anyway. Then he swings the other direction. Money, pleasure, gambling, the whole buffet. Doesn’t work either. He ends up at rock bottom on the bank of a river, the same river where he first started waking up years before.
That’s where he meets Vasudeva, the ferryman.
You Can’t Hand Someone Wisdom
The scene with the Buddha is the key to the whole book. Siddhartha basically says, “You’re right about everything. But your wisdom came from your life. I can’t get it by listening to you.”
That stopped me cold.
I can teach you how to hold a squeegee. The angle. The pressure. The turn at the edge of the glass. I can write it in a manual and draw you a picture. You’ll still streak the first hundred windows. You don’t learn it until your hands learn it.
I was a franchisee for 20 years before I started Window Ninjas. Nobody could have handed me those 20 years in a binder. I had to live them.
So if wisdom can’t be taught, what’s a leader supposed to do? Sit there?
Kind of. Yes.
The Ferryman’s Secret
Vasudeva is the wisest person in the book, and he never gives a speech. He doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t fix. When Siddhartha tells him his story, Vasudeva just takes it in, the way the river takes the rain. No judgment. No interrupting. No “here’s what you should do.”
And Siddhartha figures it out on his own.
That’s the move. The ferryman doesn’t carry you across with his answers. He gets you to the place where you can hear your own.
Most business owners think leadership is talking. Meetings. Pep talks. Training videos. I’m guilty. I’m building our franchisee operations manual right now, and I believe in it. Systems matter. But the manual is the squeegee lesson. It’s not where the real learning happens. The real learning happens when somebody’s stuck, and the person across from them is smart enough to be quiet.
Two Ears, One Mouth
My dad had a saying. Think before you speak.
And he had another one he must have told me a million times. Listen. You’ve got two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Man, I must have driven that man crazy. I was a kid with an answer for everything and a mouth that ran faster than my brain.
But you know what? He was right.
The more I kept my mouth shut and listened, the smarter I got. Nowhere did that pay off more than at the negotiating table. The guy who talks first and talks most usually tells you everything you need to know. Where he’s flexible. What he’s scared of. What he really wants. All you have to do is let him.
Here’s the funny part. Dad handed me those two golden nuggets years ago, and I didn’t realize what I was holding. Not until I’d lived enough life to need them.
Sound familiar? That’s Siddhartha’s whole point. The words can be handed to you. The wisdom shows up later, when life finally gives you a reason to hear them.
Dad was the ferryman. I just took the long way across the river.
Your Turn
Here’s the question I’ve been chewing on, and I’ll hand it to you.
When someone brings you a problem, are you listening to understand, or listening to reply?
Be honest. Most of us are already loading the answer before they finish the sentence. I am.
Next time one of your people comes to you stuck, try being the ferryman. Ask one question. Then close your mouth and let the river do the work.
The Pushback
This book is not for everybody. It’s slow. It’s dreamy. It repeats itself on purpose, like the river. If you want a five-step framework, go read something else. Siddhartha won’t give you a checklist. It’ll give you a headache first and a lesson second.
And yes, I had to work for it. But the stuff you work for tends to stick.
Golden Squeegee Rating: 5.0 out of 5
This book is gold. Five squeegees, no hesitation. I have never found this much depth and knowledge wrapped up in 144 pages. Nothing else comes close.
If you’ve got time for a book that’s short and full of depth, this is the one to grab. Bring your thinking cap and your open mind. Walk the 144 page journey. Then flip back to page one and do it all over again.
Heck, I’m going back for another round myself. I want to see what other bit of wisdom this book hands me next time.
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Keep Shining.
