Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide To Thriving In The Age of Acceleration by Tom Friedman

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide To Thriving In The Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Tom Friedman's articles in the New York Times and his observations and comments in various other media including the new shows. It took me a while to read the book ( 460 pages) but it was well worth my time and effort. What this book was about mostly was "change." Changes in technology, culture, climate change, politics and globalization have been overwhelming, particularly in the last 10 years. Friedman uses 2007 as a jumping off point for his review and observations regarding change. 2007 was the release of the iPhone and various other technology changes occurred during that year.

I particularly enjoyed Friedman's thoughts on careers and jobs. Young people must prove themselves to be very adaptable to change, market themselves effectively and pursue lifelong learning. A college or high school degree will not get you very far in today's business world or in the future.

In some ways I am envious. I have retired so I have no way of testing how well I would or will do in this type of accelerated change. This is a great book for young business oriented people and college graduates to read.

Regrettably I think that the election of 2016 proves that too many Americans are not adapting to change or the realities affecting their careers and life.


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Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ferriss's book is a smorgasbord of ideas, strategies, philosophies and resources on how to live one's life. They were culled from a variety of business, entertainment, athletic and cultural leaders including Scott Adams, Kevin Costner, Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Sam Harris, Tony Robbins, Chris Sacca, and Peter Thiel. This is not the type of book that you read from cover to cover but one that you sift and skim through for ideas and thoughts that interest you. The book is over 670 pages and I found about three quarters of it to be interesting even for an older reader like myself who does not really rely on career and business advice like he used to.

I judge the value of a book like this by how much I highlighted it and took notes. I can tell you that I did a lot of both. I highly recommend this book for individuals who are just starting their careers or are considering starting their own business.

Very good information and ideas resource to start 2017.


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Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I identified personally with the author and his story. Dan Lyons was a 53-year-old laid off Newsweek writer who made a significant career change by working for a tech startup. He experiences a vastly different business culture and management style from what he experienced at Newsweek. Lyons found out quickly that his ideas, expertise and knowledge were not as valued as he expected them to be. Lyons was working for a boss about half his age and he was surrounded by other twenty somethings whose worth ethics were significantly different than his own. He was also met with skepticism and condescension due to his age.

Lyons struggles to fit in both with his coworkers, his boss and upper management. He finds it to be a losing battle. Allies become enemies and he can no longer trust those around him. He sympathizes with the plights of the salespeople who face enormous odds in meeting quotas and quickly understands that upper management are more concerned about making money than developing a useful and user friendly product.

This is a cautionary tale for workers over age 40 entering new jobs. The older you are, the less serious you will be taken. You may think that your experience can be useful but your employer and management may find it antiquated.

There is some intrigue at the end of the story as certain corporate forces are concerned about the publishing of the book and the FBI is called in...


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No Time To Be Nice at Work

This article in today's New York Times about work incivility really resonated with me... some excerpts below.

Intermittent stressors — like experiencing or witnessing uncivil incidents or even replaying one in your head — elevate levels of hormones called glucocorticoids throughout the day, potentially leading to a host of health problems, including increased appetite and obesity. A study published in 2012 that tracked women for 10 years concluded that stressful jobs increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by 38 percent.

Bosses produce demoralized employees through a string of actions: walking away from a conversation because they lose interest; answering calls in the middle of meetings without leaving the room; openly mocking people by pointing out their flaws or personality quirks in front of others; reminding their subordinates of their “role” in the organization and “title”; taking credit for wins, but pointing the finger at others when problems arise. Employees who are harmed by this behavior, instead of sharing ideas or asking for help, hold back. 

Incivility shuts people down in other ways, too. Employees contribute less and lose their conviction, whether because of a boss saying, “If I wanted to know what you thought, I’d ask you,” or screaming at an employee who overlooks a typo in an internal memo.

Leaders can use simple rules to win the hearts and minds of their people — with huge returns. Making small adjustments such as listening, smiling, sharing and thanking others more often can have a huge impact. In one unpublished experiment I conducted, a smile and simple thanks (as compared with not doing this) resulted in people being viewed as 27 percent warmer, 13 percent more competent and 22 percent more civil.

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow

 Some takeaways from the book:

" New ideas emerge when you question the assumptions upon which a problem is based."

 Lateral thinking doesn't replace hard work; it eliminates unnecessary cycles.

 Momentum, not experience, is the single biggest predictor of business and personal success.

 Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.

We live in an age of nontraditional ladder climbing. Not just in politics, but in personal and business development and education and entertainment and innovation. Traditional paths are not just slow; they no longer viable if we want to compete and innovate.

 Informal mentoring produced a larger and more significant effect on career outcomes than formal mentoring. Asking someone to formerly mentor you is like asking a celebrity for an autograph; it's stiff, inorganic, and often doesn't work it out.

 Research showed that experts – people who were masters of the trade – vastly preferred negative feedback to positive. It's spurred the most improvement. That was because criticism is generally more actionable than compliments.

 Perhaps the most important benefit of having super educated instructors is a better trained teacher is more adept at teaching children how to learn, whereas the coach turned geography teacher will often teach how to memorize. Finnish education reflects that: it focuses on teaching students how to think, not what to think.

 The trouble with moon walkers (Aldrin and Armstrong) and billionaires is once they arrive at the top, their momentum often stops. If they don't manage to find something to parlay, they turn into the kid on the jungle gym who just hangs from the ring. Not coincidentally, this is the same reason that only one third of Americans are happy at their jobs. When there is no forward momentum in our careers, we get depressed too.

 Research found that minor victories at work were nearly as psychologically powerful as major breakthroughs.

Smartest Thing I've Read About Work

From the The Friendly Anarchist Website....

"Work is a scam. It’s a forty-year sentence to wage slavery. Who would sign up for that? It turns out, almost everyone.

Belief in the twin lies that “the devil makes work for idle hands” and “work will set you free” is maintaining a terrible status quo, gradually destroying the natural habitats of the world’s diverse and abundant life forms, and trapping the well-meaning majority of us humans into lives of stale drudgery.

If you’re unlucky enough to have a job, you’ll know that work takes up all of your time: when you’re not actually at work, you’re probably travelling to or from work, preparing for work, or recovering from work. Quite often, you find yourself dreaming of work, only to be interrupted by the alarm clock waking you up to go back to work.

Your home–historically a safe haven for relaxation, husbandry and merriment–is reduced to a fuelling station for work. Work, work, work. Would it not be wonderful if we were no longer expected to go to work?...

The reason that the vast majority of us go to work is to make money to pay the rent (on property built on once-common land, no less) and to pay for material goods we’re told are needed for a good life. We do not work because we enjoy it and we do not work because it is virtuous, though maybe some of us have convinced ourselves to vaguely believe in a combination of the two.

Any semblance of dignity or craftsmanship has been bashed out of today’s work by the division of labour, by technology that allows anyone to do anything regardless of their abilities, and by the new consumer economy which preys upon our weakness and fatigue after work, and fills us with insatiable desire. There is no dignity in working for a supermarket or in an office or in a call centre. There is no dignity in finding conniving new ways of selling junk to your fellow human beings.

The majority do not work to grow food or heal the sick or push the envelope of what humanity is capable of. (We will always need farmers, nurses, and scientists and we should reward them better than we do). The majority now are dissatisfied wage slaves, conned or forced into doing what we do so that we can pump wealth back into the system, further feed the obese rich, and have cell phones and cars and cable television and all the rest of the grubby things that help to perpetuate our malaise."

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

Some Takeaways From The Book By Cal Newport;

Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.

Self-determination theory tells us that motivation, in the workplace or elsewhere, requires that you fulfill three basic psychological needs----factors described as the nutriments required to feel intrinsically motivated for your work;

• Autonomy: the feeling that you have control over your day, and that your actions are important
• Competence: the feeling that you are good at what you do
• Relatedness: the feeling of connection to other people

There are two reasons why I dislike the passion mindset:

• First, when you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyper aware of what you don't like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness.
• Second, and more serious,  the deep questions driving the passion mindset "Who am I" and "What do I truly love" are essentially impossible to confirm.

Three traits that define great work: creativity, impact, and control.

Deliberate practice provides the key to excellence in a diverse array fields, among which are chess, medicine, auditing, computer programming, bridge, physics, sports, typing, and music.

It is a lifetime accumulation of deliberate practice that again and again ends up explaining excellence.

To successfully adopt a craftsman mindset, therefore, we have to approach our jobs in the same way as Jordan approaches his guitar playing or Gary Kasparov off his chess training, with a dedication to deliberate practice.

Mike's goal with his spreadsheet is to become more intentional about how his work day unfolds. "The easiest thing to do is to show up to work in the morning and just respond to email the whole day,"

The five habits of a craftsman:

Step One: Decide What Capital Market You're In

Step Two: Identify Your Capital Type

Step Three: Define Good

Step Four: Stretch And Destroy

Step Five: Be Patient---Acquiring capital can take time. For Alex, it took about two years of serious deliberate practice before his first television script was produced.

Deliberate practice is an approach the work where you deliberately stretch your abilities beyond where you're comfortable and then receive ruthless feedback on your performance.

Musicians, athletes, and chess players know all about deliberate practice. Knowledge workers, however, do not. For example,  Chris Rock will make somewhere between 40 to 50 unannounced visits to a small New Jersey area comedy club to help him figure out what material works and which doesn't.

Giving people more control over what they do and how they do it increases their happiness, engagement, and sense of fulfillment.

Working right trumps finding the right work.

Don't obsess over discovering your true calling. Instead, master rare and valuable skills. Once you build up the career capital that these skills generate, invest it wisely. Use it to acquire control over what you do and how you do it, and to identify and act on a life-changing mission.