Archive for the ‘Business Books’ Category

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Sunday, November 8th, 2020
Psychology of Money

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel explains the psychology of spending and saving for anyone who has to deal with money and life. This is an excellent nontechnical study of this most important topic for high school students on up. If you want to acquire enough wealth to feel independent this book is for you. You can skip to chapter 20 to learn what Morgan and I do with our money.

Introduction

  • We start with stories of a janitor who invested what he could in blue-chip stocks and died with an estate worth $8 million dollars and a successful businessman who went bankrupt by overspending on houses and wasting money. The premise of this book is that doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. It’s more about psychology and not so much about physics.

1. No One’s Crazy

  • The decisions we make about money depend heavily on our experiences and the environment we grew up in. Although the first currency dates back to about 600 BCE, most of our current financial instruments only arrived after World War II. Prior to that time, most people worked until they died. Now we all expect to retire and have to save and invest for that day. Since modern instruments are so new, we aren’t crazy, we are just essentially newbies at it.

2. Luck & Risk

  • Bill Gates attended a high school that had better computer access than most graduate schools. This allowed him to become an expert who wrote a program to do the school’s schedule among other things. Were it not for this unprecedented access he claims there would be no Microsoft. Meanwhile, his best friend who also became a computer wiz died in a mountaineering accident before he finished high school. The point here is that luck and risk are siblings. He shares other stories of people who took risks and made it big like Vanderbilt and Rockafellar who felt they had enough power to ignore some laws and indeed they did. Not all success is due to hard work and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people. (Doug: Better yet, don’t judge people.) The world is too complex to allow 100% of your actions to dictate 100% of your outcomes.

3. Never Enough: When Rich People Do Crazy Things

  • When you are young taking some modest financial risks makes sense as you have time to recover. At some point, you may need to decide that you have enough and scale back your risk. Morgan cites Bernie Madoff and Rajat Gupta as very successful investors who didn’t know when to say enough and ended up in prison after running a Ponzi scheme and engaging in insider trading. The ideas that the best games to play in a casino are none of them and that the Lotto is a tax on the poor are also instructive.
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The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford

Monday, August 19th, 2013

Adapt: Why SUccess Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford offers an inspiring and innovative alternative to traditional top-down decision making. Tim deftly weaves together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics along with compelling stories of hard won lessons from the real world. He makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial and error to deal with problems both global, personal, and everything in between. Click at the bottom of any page to purchase this breakthrough handbook for surviving and prospering in an ever-shifting world.

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All Hands On Deck – Culture Trumps Strategy – Joe Thy

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

This book by Joe Tye uses a fictional format to explain why organizational culture is so important and how you can get the people you lead to help you create the kind of culture you want. My summary deals with the key concepts, but you need the book to access the compelling story and valuable appendix. This would be a good read for your entire team to discuss.

Click here to see my summary of All Hands On Deck.

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Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other

Monday, August 15th, 2011

Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other(© 2011, Basic Books: New York, NY) is Sherry Turkle’s third book that explores our lives on the digital terrain. Sherry has conducted hundreds of interviews to gather her data. She explores how the technology that lets us do anything anywhere with anyone can drain us as we try to do everything everywhere and are always on call. She looks at how relentless connections lead to a new solitude and impacts our emotional lives. She also sees hope as people seek to sustain direct human connection.

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Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future and Locked Us In

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future and Locked Us In by Brian X. Chen (© 2011, Da Capo Press: Cambridge, MA), is an insightful look at technology’s all-in-one revolution and its consequences. Will we give more control to individual companies and sacrifice privacy and freedom in the process? This is the first book to take on the possible future that products like the iPhone may portend. Brian writes the regular Apple column for Wired Magazine. In order to write this book, Chen interviewed many of the top technology thinkers, innovators, and researchers.

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APE: How To Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki & Shawn Welsh

Thursday, December 13th, 2012
APE

APE: How To Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welsh (©2012) As the digital world has created a revolutionary opportunity for writers to become their own publishers, a new self-publishing infrastructure has emerged. This book offers a guide to this new publishing universe with details and inspiration. After you read this you are unlikely to let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t write a book. The APE in the title stands for Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur, and Guy and Shawn devote sections of this book to each part of the process. It makes for a great read and a better reference as you bring your book to life. Be sure to click the icon at the bottom of any page to support this stellar self-published effort.

Guy and Shawn

  • Guy Kawasaki is the author of eleven previous books, including What the Plus!, Enchantment, and The Art of the Start. He is also the cofounder of Alltop.Com and the former chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
  • Shawn Welch is the author of From Idea to App, iOS 5 Core Frameworks, and iOS 6 for Developers. He is also the developer of several iOS apps. Previously he worked as a senior media editor for Pearson Education. He helped pioneer many of Pearson’s earliest efforts in iPad solutions. Welch has a BS from Kansas State University.

[Author Section] Why should anyone give a shiitake about your book?

  • This is the question Guy starts with to help you decide if you should write a book in the first place. Keep in mind that people by books to help themselves, not to further your career. Question two is, will your book enrich your readers with some combination of knowledge, understanding, entertainment, or laughter? If your answer is yes you should write a book. Other good reasons include the value of the intellectual challenge, furthering a cause you believe in, and the therapeutic value of the process. Bad reasons are thinking you are in popular demand and that you will make a lot of money. You just might. but the odds are against you.

Some Publishing History

  • While we don’t have to wait for scribes to hand copy books anymore, publishing a book in the traditional way still takes twelve to eighteen months. Authors and readers can’t wait this long anymore. Guy details the steps and the people involved in the traditional approach from agents to editors to copy editors to publicists. He warns about being rejected, and gives examples of many famous writers who had rejection experiences. He notes that traditional publishing is under siege by many forces, and may not be appropriate for writers like you. Self-publishing, on the other hand, is the best thing that has ever happened to writers.

The Self-Publishing Revolution

  • Traditional publishing grew up in a world with limits and logistics such as shelf space, access to printing presses, editing and production expertise, and shipping of physical books. The 1980’s brought us laser printers and software that allowed anyone to publish. This was followed by electronic delivery systems that eliminated the need to print physical books. As a result, publishing is more democratic. That doesn’t mean, however, that the quality is any better. Any intermediaries between the author and the reader must add value or face their demise.
  • Now authors can control content, design, and how long the marketing effort lasts. With print on demand services, books can stay in print for any length of time and revisions are easy to make. More, if not all, of the profit goes to the author. You can get global distribution, set your own price, cut quantity or license deals, and monitor sales as you wish.
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Be Excellent On Purpose: Intentional Strategies for Impactful Leadership by Sanée Bell

Thursday, May 6th, 2021
Sanée Bell Cover

Be Excellent On Purpose: Intentional Strategies for Impactful Leadership by Sanée Bell shares her experience and vision as a school leader. As someone who has taught leadership for aspiring principals, I find her advice to be totally on the money. This would be an excellent book for any school leadership course. It’s also good reading for teachers who don’t aspire to the principalship, but who nonetheless lead in their own way.

Introduction

  • To be excellent on purpose you need to be intentional with your time, intentional with the company you keep, and intentional about where you focus your thinking and energy. This will allow you to set a standard for success and do what it takes to close the gap between where you are and what you are striving to become. Excellence is a journey that requires effort and energy. You will see barriers as obstacles that you can overcome. This book is designed to help you develop habits that will help you lead with excellence.

1. Own Your Excellence

  • As a young girl, Sanée had a vision that she wanted to compete with the boys in her neighborhood. She was clear and intentional about what she wanted to accomplish and built the steps needed to get there. Her vision was the roadmap to the end. It was her strategy for success. Later she was able to generalize her playground success to the rest of her life.
  • Start by thinking about what you want to achieve. Then identify the action steps you need to take. Identify the barriers and develop a plan to eliminate them. As you move forward monitor your progress. As you develop your vision be sure you know why. This is where you will summon your motivation. Your why is what gives your vision meaning and purpose. With your why firmly in place you next have to address how you are going to accomplish your goals. Along the way be honest with others and yourself. As you venture into the unknown try to develop a level of comfort with it and with your own vulnerability. Celebrate your accomplishments rather than feeling like an imposter.
  • Simon Sinek
    Sanée was inspired by Simon Sinek’s TED Talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action. Give it a look.

2. Understand the Power of Words and Actions

  • Sanée’s mantra is “lead with purpose, intention, and excellence. Be excellent on purpose and strive for excellence in all we do.” Success is a result of intentional planning and hard work. Know that everything you do matters and that everyone is watching. Focus on what you can control. While culture work belongs to the group, the leader has the biggest responsibility. Your words need to match your actions. Work to get a commitment to continuous improvement. Ask “where can we continue to grow and improve?” Striving for excellence does not involve making excuses.
  • Start with a focus on what’s strong rather than what’s wrong. Once you do this you can figure out how to make not-so-great areas better. It’s important to determine why what’s working is successful. Then it’s on to finding out why some things aren’t working well. You can give pep talks focused on your mission. Point out obstacles you overcame. Celebrate this achievement with the group and identify the challenges ahead. Speak from the heart and use emotion to inspire the group.

3. Expand Your Connections

  • It is important that leaders use their abilities to connect. They need to broaden their network to include leaders outside of education and leaders around the world. This can greatly expand one’s learning. Think of it as your professional development network (PDL). This will also expose you to new opportunities. Look for people who push your thinking, not just people who always agree. Look for opportunities to meet people at conferences who you follow online.
  • As you expand your virtual support team, be sure to prioritize local face-to-face connections. Sanée suggests that you schedule regular get-togethers with people who can support your work as you support theirs. You also need to manage by walking around. As you do so, check in with the people you lead. Be sure to ask “how are you doing” and as they say “I’m doing fine,” watch their body language to see if it sends the same message or a different one. Ask questions like why and don’t tell them how you solved their problems. Take time to be alone to think and write. Be sure to share what you write, which is easy today thanks to blogs like mine where you can guest post.
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Better By Mistake – Improve your life and performance by Alina Tugend

Thursday, April 14th, 2011
Mistake

This eye-opening book features the big idea that embracing mistakes can make us happier and more productive in every facet of our lives. It examines the tension between the idea that we must make mistakes to learn, and the fact that we often get punished for them. © 2011, Riverside Books: New York, New York

Another Way of Learning

  • My teacher said I learn by making mistakes. Since I didn’t make any today, I guess I didn’t learn anything. This story is followed by the notion that when people think they must do everything perfectly, they can spend energy blaming each other rather than finding a solution. It results in defensiveness and accusations rather than apologies and forgiveness. Mistake prevention gets in the way of daring and innovation. Most of us think that mistakes make us look stupid.

(Re)Defining Mistakes

  • My teacher said I learn by making mistakes. Since I didn’t make any today, I guess I didn’t learn anything. This story is followed by the notion that when people think they must do everything perfectly, they can spend energy blaming each other rather than finding a solution. It results in defensiveness and accusations rather than apologies and forgiveness. Mistake prevention gets in the way of daring and innovation. Most of us think that mistakes make us look stupid.
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Blink – Vintage Gladwell

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is Malcolm Gladwell’s second bestseller. Even though it was written in 2005, the information remains current and valuable. This summary is written with educators in mind. His 3rd book, Outliers, is also available here.

Click here to see my summary Blink.

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Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

Sunday, October 13th, 2013
Brain Rules

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina tells how what we know about brain science can be used to positively influence our daily lives. This book is vital for educators, policy makers, and anyone who wants to get more out of their gray matter. Click at the bottom of any page to purchase this essential book.

Dr. John Medina

  • John is a developmental molecular biologist focused on the genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders. Most of his life has been spent working in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He teaches at Seattle Pacific University where he is the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research. He also teaches in the bioengineering department at the University of Washington. His other books include Brain Rules for Baby, The Genetic Inferno, as well as books on Alzheimer’s, depression, and AIDS.

The Brain is an Amazing Thing

  • The human brain is easily the most sophisticated information-transfer system on Earth. As you read this, it sends jolts of electricity crackling through hundreds of miles of microscopic wires in less time than it takes to blink. Brain scientists have a lot to learn, but they rarely have conversations with educators and business people. This book is meant to fill this communications void. Each of the 12 rules here are supported by research that has been replicated, and John focuses on how what we know can be applied to our daily lives.
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