EP797: Jesan Sorrells - How Great Books Can Make You Smarter & Better
“You are made in the glorious image of Jesus Christ and the Son of God — you have that in you, so don’t hide your light under a bushel. Tell people what you have learned through the process.”
— Jesan Sorrells
Jesan Sorrells has been reading great books and drawing leadership lessons from them for five seasons now. His podcast, Leadership Lessons from the Great Books, covers the full spectrum — Augustine, Homer, Jane Austen, Joan Didion, Carl Hiaasen — because his view is that you can learn something from almost everything, and that the books business culture tends to dismiss often contain the most honest insights about how human beings actually behave.
In this conversation, Sorrells and Nicky go deep on why fiction matters for leaders, what reading biographies of McKinley and Kennedy reveals about the present moment, and how the long game in jiu-jitsu rhymes with the long game in business. There’s a recurring thread: real progress takes time, optimization can be the enemy of meaning, and the people most ready to receive help are rarely the ones who seem to need it most.
Nicky brings his own journey into the room — 58 pounds lost, a bodybuilding competition at 57, and a four-year commitment to earn his IFBB pro card at 60. Sorrells brings a 15-year jiu-jitsu plan and a grandmother who had no patience for poor thinking. The result is a conversation that is warm, honest, and genuinely hard to skim.
Jesan closes with three concrete steps anyone can start today — none of them require a library card, though one will probably lead you to get one.
Expert Action Steps:
Turn off Netflix and stop doom-scrolling. Put the phone down and redirect that attention toward the people and things in your household that actually matter.
2. Engage with discipline in the small things. Do one hard thing every day — start small, then build. You do not need to be an athlete to practice this; you just need to be consistent.
3. Stop hiding your light. Share what you have learned through the process — first with your family, then with your community. You were made to contribute, not to quietly accumulate.
Learn more & connect:
Connect with Jesan Sorrells on LinkedIn — search Jesan Sorrells and mention you heard him on this show.
Leadership Lessons from the Great Books — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube
https://www.leadershiptoolbox.net
Resources mentioned:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem — Joan Didion
The Optimist’s Daughter — Eudora Welty
Emotional Intelligence — Daniel Goleman
The Dip — Seth Godin
Undisputed Truth (autobiography) — Mike Tyson
Kennedy — Ted Sorensen
Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.