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Book Review: Switch

An elephant, a rider, and a path are the analogy of choice for the Heath brothers latest book, ‘Switch : How to change things, when change is hard.’
 
At first, the introduction of the elephant to describe the way that humans react emotionally and intelligently to change is somewhat of a stretch. But as the book pours through countless counter-intuitive examples of change, radical change, so too the elephant analogy takes hold.
 
It’s a book that provides real life examples of how to instigate change in your organisation. Even within yourself.
 
There are stories of Doctors who make the wrong decision because they 3 choices instead of 2. Teachers who radically change a pupil’s behaviour by putting a couch in the classroom. And loyalty cards with 2 free initial stamps on a 10 stamp card, verses no stamps on a 8 stamp card, and the 2 free stamps increase the return of the customer by 15%.
 
The picture of how tagged my book is says it all. I have heaps of notes to make and I will read it again within the next year or so.
 
If you’re a teacher, CEO, project manager, administrator, pastor, or a leader of any kind. Buy it, reflect on it, read it apply it!

Book Review: Compassionate Leadership

It was one of those books in which the title challenged my thinking more than the book itself. It was an OK read but the authors really tried to say there was more to servant leadership, that leaders needed to be compassionate. The problem is, they then use the term "Servant Leader" more often than compassionate leader, and their entire summary was what "Servant Leaders do..."

Overall it was a good summary of Servant Leadership, though not a griping read.

Uppermost in the mind of a compassionate leader is the constant quest to know and understand the will of God, and to seek His wisdom and guidance. ...

Effective leaders must be willing ti be in the state of constant learning. There is no relaxing or even plateauing.

Servant leaders are characterized by a thorough and ever expanding knowledge of God's Word. They use their biblical wisdom, and understand clearly the grace of God.

Pg 116

The challenge, if not just from the title, be a compassionate leader!

5 very brief book reviews...

Here are some books I have read lately. I have been in catch up mode as I once again found myself with 9 books I had started reading.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Succeed - by Michael E. Gerber

Yeah, the narrative style does little for me, but the concept is a good one. He basically says most people start businesses because they are technically good at something (the book uses the example of making pies). Being technically good at making pies, doesn’t make you good at running a business.

My key lesson was the Turn Key Revolution which basically means you systemize everything and act like a franchise.  3 out of 5.

Boundaries: When to say Yes, When to Say No - by Henry Cloud
I actually thought I would enjoy this book far more than I did. I really enjoyed his writing style in “9 things you must do”. I found this book to be beneath me. I know that sounds arrogant, but I simply didn’t get much out of it. I believe in boundaries, but this book did little to expand the concept for me. 2 out of 5.

RULES OF THE RED RUBBER BALL - by Kevin Carroll
Read it on a plane flight from Hamilton to Christchurch. Easy read. I liked the fun layout. A great reminder to chase and live your dreams. 4 out of 5.

The Extraordinary Leader : Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders - by John H. Zenger
An interesting book that follows a similar vein to “Good to Great”, though not as compelling. The authors conduct a significant amount of research into what makes an extraordinary leader. It would appear that it comes down to those who work hard at developing one to two key strengths. Being good in every competence is less relevant than being stunning at one or two. 4 out of 5.

Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church - by Mark Driscoll
I powered through this awesome book. (it wasn’t one of my nine) Really enjoyed his writing style, candor, humour and passion. Recommend it for anyone wanting a different and freshing perspective on Post Modern Christianity. 5 out of 5.

Project Management – Gary R. Heerkens

This is a very easy book to read that gives you 24 concise lessons for becoming a successful Project Manager. It assumes the reader has some knowledge of project management and is relatively simplistic in its approach.

Nevertheless it is a worthwhile remind of the sort of things you should watch out for as a project manager, and applies equally to a business owner or other stakeholders.

A couple of good steps are “Transfer your lessons learnt” – If you do not structure your information so that others can actually apply the lessons you’ve learned, your organisation hasn’t really benefited.

And “Consider post project issues” – What happens after the project is often more important than the project.

Overall a simple book that I will use with those who fringe project management within agóge.

ISBN 978-0-07-148652-1 : Hardback : 99 pages

The Warrior – Francine Rivers

This is a fictional story based on the life of Caleb. Caleb is one of those names that you can glance over the in Old Testament amongst such huge names as Moses and Joshua.

Imagine being one of two men who thought they could enter the Promised Land. Then getting told to wait 40 years until you actually enter it because of the disobedience of the many.

It is a well written story and I think gives some great insights to how the people would have thought at the time.  I have often found it almost unbelievable that God rescued the people from Egypt and mere days later they want to return. This story handles some of those personal battles, similar to the battles we face today, really well.

This is the first of Francine’s books that I have read. I will definitively read more in the future.

Left for Dead – Nick Ward with Sinead O’Brien

This is the “untold story of the tragic 1979 Fastnet Race”. 15 people lost their lives in this race including 2 from the boat Grimalkin. Nick Ward was abandoned by 3 of his peers after being thought to dead. This is his story.

This storm was bigger than any of us or any race. Grimalkin and her crew were being crushed by this heavyweight bruiser. We were all suffering from the body blows, the knockout punches. Each time Grimalkin was pitched into a monster wave, we were violently flung about, thrown against a combination of wood, metal, fibreglass and each other – our heads, arms, hands, legs, chins, elbows, knees – virtually every part of our bodies hurt.

It is a mind blowing account of man against nature’s full fury. How they survived is beyond my comprehension.  Not his time I guess.

ISBN 978-0-7136-8522-0 : Paperback : 173 pages

Book Review: Holy Discontent by Bill Hybels

I actually downloaded this book from audible.com and listened to it on the plane to Melbourne. I then brought the book and listened to it again.

Bill basically asks, what is it that you can’t stand? What is it that you are passionate about? What keeps you awake at night? He challenges you to seek out this ‘Holy discontent’ and pursue it with everything you have.

One of the examples he uses is a lady named Jude Goatley from NZ who now works in Africa with Brighthope. Jude and Karina have known each other for years. It was kind of strange to be listening to a book from US then hearing about a person you know and their Holy Discontent.

Anyway here is an unrelated excerpt:

Friends, when a leaders shoulders sag, everyone else's shoulders begin to sag too. If your shoulders are drooping, it won’t be long before you find everyone around you hunched over and beaten down. You hold tremendous responsibility in this regard, because when hope dies in a leader, the game ends and the cause is defeated. Please don’t let this happen to you!

This area of self leadership – the issue of keeping you energy high – is absolutely critical because everyone you lead, whether a friend, a child, an employee, takes their cue from you.

The good news is this: When you charge toward your holy discontent with boundless passion, optimism and energy, you become the very best kind of contagious! It’s positive magnetic living in its purest form.

Lesson: I think it is apathy. By that I mean I think my discontent is linked to it in some way. Maybe it is indifference. Watch and see, I am working on it.

Holy Discontent
Bill Hybels
Genres	Leadership, Spirituality, Personal Vision
Pages	149
Readability	2	(1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment	4	(1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Book Review: The Dip by Seth Godin

This book is simply a timely reminder about the importance of sticking through something to become the best in the world, or about quitting. Here is a great excerpt:

Hannah Smith is a very lucky woman. She's a law clerk at the Supreme Court. She's the best in the world.

Last year, more than forty-two thousand people graduated from law school in the United States. And thirty-seven of them were awarded Supreme Court clerkships.

Those thirty-seven people are essentially guaranteed a job for life after they finish their year with the Court. Top law firms routinely pay a signing bonus of $200,000 or more to any clerk they are able to hire. Clerks go on to become partners, judges, and senators.

There are two things worth noting here. The first is that Hannah Smith isn't lucky at all. She's smart and focused and incredibly hardworking.

And the second thing? That any one of the forty-two thousand people who graduated from law school last year could have had Hannah's job. Except they didn't. Not because they weren't smart enough or because they came from the wrong family. No, the reason that most of them didn't have a chance is that somewhere along the way they quit. They didn't quit high school or college or law school. Instead, they quit in their quest to be the best in the world because the cost just seemed too high.

This is a very short book about a very important topic: quitting. Believe it or not, quitting is often a great strategy, a smart way to manage your life and your career. Sometimes, though, quitting is exactly the wrong thing to do. It turns out that there's a pretty simple way to tell the difference.

In addition to being smart and focused and incredibly hardworking, Hannah Smith is also a quitter. In order to get as far as she's gotten, she's quit countless other pursuits. You really can't try to do everything, especially if you intend to be the best in the world.

Before we start on the quitting, though, you probably need to be sold on why being the best in the world matters so much.

Lesson: If I want to be the best in the world it means quitting a heap of things that wont get us there and working really hard on the things that will.

The Dip
Seth Godin
Genres	Marketing, Success, Business
Pages	80	easy read
Readability	1	(1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment	4	(1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Book Review: Freakonomics (Levitt & Dubner)

Imagine for a minute a parent buys a new car seat. They opt for the most expense one with a 6 point safety harness almost roll cage type characteristics. The head off and have it installed by an expert. "Theirs is a gesture of love, surely, but also a gesture of what might be called obsessive parenting. (Obsessive parents know who they are and are generally proud of the fact; non-obsessive parents also know who the obsessive parents are and tend to snicker at them)"

And with that quote I introduce the book Freakonomics. It is a book that looks at how we act verses the data. A child is more likely to die in you neighbours pool than if you purchase a cheaper car seat. It explores the myth of how much money drug dealers make, attributes a drop in crime with the legislation of abortion in the US, and investigates how teachers cheat to improve the schools performance.

It also looks at what makes a perfect parent (from a statistical viewpoint), and highlights some things statistically that matter and don't matter as far as your child getting ahead.

4 things that matter:

• The child's parents are highly educated.
• The child's mother was 30 or older at the time of the first child's birth.
• The child's parents are involved in the PTA.
• The child has many books in her home.

4 things that don't matter:

• The child's parents moved into a better neighbourhood.
• The child frequently watches TV.
• The child's mother didn't work between birth and kindergarten.
• The child's parents read to her nearly every day.

I'll leave it to you to read and consider these things for yourself.

My key lesson: Correct analysis of numbers and data can turn up a heap of facts that I have never before considered. 

Freakonomics
Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
Genres	Society, Provocative thought.
Pages	306	one relaxing weekend
Readability	3	(1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment	4	(1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Book Review: 9 Things a Leader MUST DO - Dr Henry Cloud

This is a follow on book from his book "Nine Things You Simply Must Do: To Succeed in Love and Life"

9 Things a leader must do is a smaller book and a good reminder. I think I enjoyed his first book more and the 9 things are basically the same, although they have different titles. I have included the titles from the first book in brackets. To me, they are simpler and easier to remember.

'9 Things a leader MUST DO' is an easy read, and covers most of the elements of the first book. If you are looking for a slightly more definitive, well sold approach I would start with "Nine Things You Simply Must Do: To Succeed in Love and Life"

The 9 things are:

1. Excavate your soul (Dig it up)- Invest time into what you are passionate about
2. Yank the Tooth (Pull the Tooth)- Do not allow negatives to take up space
3. Play the Movie (Play the Movie)- Look to the future
4. Put Superman out of a job (Do Something)- How can I make this better
5. Embrace your inner insect (Act like an Ant) - take small steps in the right direction
6. Earn a black belt in hate (Hate Well) - Hate the right things
7. Forget about playing fair (Don't Play Fair)- Give back better than you are given
8. Quit Self-Exaggerating (Be Humble)- Don't appear to be better than you are
9. Ignore the Popularity Polls (Upset the right people) - Don't make decisions out of fear of people

9 Things a Leader MUST DO
Dr Henry Cloud
Genres	Leadership
Pages	128
Readability	2	(1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment	4	(1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

A yacht called erewhon

I have waxed lyrically in the past about waking up on a yacht, in calm seas. I am also one of those weird people that got up at 1am to watch non-critical matches in the Americas Cup. Its so boring most people would shout, though most of those people are fishermen with whom I have a deep philosophical issue with when they use the word boring.

Any Kias brought me this book for my birthday and I read it after I had my wisdom teeth out.

It is the story of a family who find the hull of an out j-class yacht in farm land up north. They recover it and rebuild and race it in a series around the time of the Americas Cup in 2000.

It is an enjoyable read, although it does have a little bit of airy fairy in it at times.

Kias, thanks so much for the book. It was a great choice at the right time!

A yacht called Erewhon
Stuart Vaughan
Genres	Fiction
Pages	352
Readability	4	(1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment	4	(1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

         
            
   
 

Empowerment a catchphrase from the 90s?

Finally a book from Ken Blanchard that takes more than one minute to put into place. Unfortunately it is still narrative and it would be great to read about a real company that really existed that made these things happen.

I brought the book because I was working on our strategies for the year ahead and noticed it talked about sharing information (something we do OK at) and creating boundaries (something we are currently working on). I hoped it would be something I could read with my team but as a story it is just to slow moving.

It lacks what John Allen calls "intellectual curiosity"

Did I enjoy it, not overly. Did I learn something? I always do.

Below is a summary of the book from a diagram call "The Empowerment Game Plan"

Click Image to see in full size

Book Summary

Empowerment - Takes More than a Minute
Ken Blanchard

Genres          Management, Empowerment
Pages           135
Readability     2 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment     3 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Book Review (Freedom to Explore)

Michael’s book has 26 two-page chapters with each one covering a different letter. Each letter has a well-crafted story with a provocative point to make.

Some of the chapter titles are ‘C is for Crap’, ‘E is for Erotic’ , ‘L is for Lager’ and ‘Y is for Yahoodotcom’.

A cool quote, there are heaps, is from ‘X is fro Xenophilia’

Jewish theologian Martin Buber once said, “Life is meeting.” By this me meant that we are fully and authentically alive when we meet others. To meet, in his thinking, is to so engage another human being so as to see in them at least as much complexity and beauty as you would like others to see in you.

Book Summary

Freedom to Explore
Michael Frost

Genres             Christian Spirituality, Post Modern Church
Pages              63
Readability       3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment        5 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

If you are are in any way involved in Christian things, BUY IT and READ IT. It will challenge your thinking no end!

NB: Xenophilla means 'an attraction to foreign peoples, cultures, or customs'

The Google Story

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google as a research project while studying at Standford University. From there they have grow Google into a worldwide household name and one of the largest companies (by market value, not revenue or employees) in the world.

The Google story follows the incredible rise of the company, its culture of innovation and its “Don’t be evil” philosophy. The growth in the Google business is mind blowing, for me at least. Founded in 1998 here is their revenue growth

Google’s Revenue History

Year	Revenue (US$ in millions)
1999	$.2
2000	$19.1
2001	$86.4
2002	$440
2003	$1,466
2004	$3,189
2005	$6,139
2006	$10,604

Google is an only in America story. You simply couldn’t have build a company like this in New Zealand for 3 very clear reasons:

1. Our IT network simply wouldn’t be able to handle the volume and you would have to move off shore in your 1st or 2nd year.
2. We simply would have enough IT people available to be employed to build the system.
3. In the 2nd year they raised $25million (about NZ$48million at the time) in Venture Capital. You would not raise that sort of money in NZ.

All that said, it is a remarkable story and has some key lessons:

1. Keep your project teams to 3 – 5 people. Anything more slows down innovation.
2. They have a 20% rule to drive innovation. Their engineers spend 1 day a week working on any project or idea they like. If it is good enough it may get funded and launched as a product.
3. An awesome employee culture meant they employed people for less and stole people from other huge companies in their formative years. Without it they probably wouldn't have made it.

Book Summary

The Google Story
David A Vise

Genres             Google, Business
Pages               325
Readability       4 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment        4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Finally, now that I have read the Google Story it makes me think it would be almost impossible to take on Google in their core brand (not that I was thinking about it). I still think some of the lessons of my previous post apply, but it fails to acknowledge just how intelligent the founders of Google are.

Book Review (The Google Story)

The thing that blows me away the most about The Google Story is the intelligence of it's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

If you are a closest IT geek and entrepreneur like me you will probably enjoy the read.

Be warned the numbers are mind blowing. Last year was their seventh year of busiess and they had revenues of $10 billion US dollars.

You can read the full review at www.viewpoint.net.nz

Get your FREE PRIZE here

Free Prize Inside follows on the back of  'Purple Cow' and 'Unleashing the Ideavirus'. Seth Godin again does a great job of provoking a review of how we conduct our marketing and challenges us to create remarkable businesses. He introduces two new terms 'a Free Prize' and 'Egdecraft'

A free prize is an idea, an innovation or an add-on to your existing service that makes your product more remarkable. It is ideas that are so simple that they make people talk about your service, and this leads to an ideavirus.

Edgecraft is the craft of finding ideas that are innovative enough to take you to the edge and beyond. It acknowledges that to be noticed you need to be different, and to be different you need to be edgy in your industry.

Here are some quotes:

'If people aren't blown away, they won't talk about it. If they don' talk about it, it doesn't spread fast enough to help you grow.'

'Edgecraft is an iterative process that is much easier for an organization to embrace than brainstorming.

There are hundreds of available edges, things you can add to, subtract from or do to your product or service. Find an edge and go all the way to it. Going partway is time-consuming and expensive-and it doesn't work very well. Going all the way to the edge is the only way to jolt the user into noticing what you've done. If they notice you, they're one step closer to talking about you.

It's all marketing now. The organizations that win will be the ones that realize that all they do is create things worth talking about.'

Book Summary

Free Prize Inside
Seth Godin

Genres          Marketing, Management, Ideas
Pages            235
Readability    3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

You can download "Unleashing the ideavirus' for free here. Or you can check out Free Prize Inside here. Oh and there is a Free Prize in Seth's Book as well. If you enjoy ideas and stretching your thinking, READ IT.

Free Prize Below

Come to the edge. We might fall.
Come to the edge. It's too high!
Come to the edge! And they came,
and he pushed ...... and they flew.  - Christopher Logue

I have just finished my sixth book for the year, Seth Godins "Free Prize Inside" (and it actually has one). It is a book that challenges business to go to the edges and beyond.

The key implication for me: Ideas are worthless if no one owns them and makes them happen.

To read the full review and get your free prize click here. If you post a comment on viewpoint.net.nz, I'll email you a free prize.

Delegation meets the Monkey

The One Minute Manager meets the Monkey is, as the title suggests, another in the One Minute Manager series. Like the rest of the books, it is written in a narrative style with lessons along the way. This makes it easy to read but because the people are fictional you often wonder if a real person can implement everything taught the in book.

The storyline, for want of a better description, is about a manager who is over worked, doing long hours, stressed and as a result is a poor leader. He discovers that the reason for this is actually monkeys. Monkeys are tasks or problems that people below him should be handling and resolving, except he continues to say "I will sort that out for you".

The man in the story, learns to leave the problems and tasks on his people's back and helps them with direction. Effectively it is a story of delegation and coaching, so here are the 4 lessons of the monkey:

Rule 1: Describe the Monkey: the dialogue must not end until the appropriate "next moves" have been identifies and specified.

Rule 2: Assign the Monkey: All monkeys shall be owned and handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare.

Rule 3: Insure the Monkey: Every monkey leaving your presence on the back of one of your people must be covered by one of two insurance policies:

1. Recommend, the Act
2. Act, then Advise

Rule 4: Check on the Monkey: Proper follow-up means healthier monkeys. Every monkeys should have a checkup appointment.

In summary, it was an easy read with some timely reminders about getting your people to solve their own problems.

Book Summary

The One Minutes Manager meets the Monkey
Ken Blanchard

Genres          Management, Coaching, Delegation
Pages           130
Readability     2 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment     4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Time Management meets the Monkey

A post of mine on www.viewpoint.net.nz about the One Minute Manager meets the Monkey. Like the rest of the books in the series, it is written in narative style.

The key lesson for me is:

Rule 4: Check on the Monkey: Proper follow-up means healthier monkeys. Every monkeys should have a checkup appointment.

In summary, it was an easy read with some timely reminders about getting your people to solve their own problems.

Read the full review [Here]

74 of the toughest questions in business today

Jack Welch was chairman and CEO of the General Electric Company from 1981 to 2001.  He generally regarded as one of the top CEO's of his time and was recongised for his candid straight up view of doing business. This book follows on from his previous book "Winning" and answers just 74 of the questions that he has been asked as he has toured.

Many of the chapters serve as timely reminders, other chapters blew my mind with the scale of multinational business and a few chapters I just out right disagreed with.

Below is an excerpt taken from the last chapter:

Winning, actually, doesn't have anything to do with markets. Or we should say, it doesn't have to have anything to do with them. By our definition, winning is a personal journey. It's about you as an individual setting a goal and achieving it. That goal could be creating and supporting a happy, healthy family. It could be founding or funding a homeless shelter. It could be teaching children to read; it could be sailing around the world.

And then again, it could be building thriving company that succeeds in the global marketplace.

Winning is about reaching the destination you chose. It is not necessarily about profit, though it can be. But winning is, at its most fundamental, about making something of your life. It is about progress and meaning. It is about achievement.

If you enjoyed reading "Winning", then this book is a great follow on, and is worth reading.

Book Summary

Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today
Jack and Suzy Welch

Genres         Business, Leadership, Winning
Pages           272
Readability   3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Getting the best people

So you have a goal to build a strong employer brand. Great idea, but as you know that is easier said than done.

How does a medium sized company in the transport and logistics industry compete for great people against what can be seen as more sexy and edgy industries?

Well I am reading Jack Welch's book at the moment "Winning: The Answers". In the book Jack details the six critical factors for getting the best people.

1. Preferred employers demonstrate a real commitment to continuous learning.
2. Preferred employers are meritocracies. Pay and promotions are tightly linked performance, and rigorous appraisal systems consistently make people aware of where they stand.
3. Preferred employers not only allow people to take risks but also celebrate those who do. And they don't shoot those who try but fail.
4. Preferred employers understand that what is good for society is also good for business.
5. Preferred employers keep their hiring standards tight.  They make candidates work hard to join the ranks by meeting strict criteria that centre around intelligence and previous experience and by undergoing an arduous interview process.
6. Preferred companies are profitable and growing.

It's that easy! Well maybe? Interestingly enough though, this checklist could be applied to warehouse staff, truck drivers and senior managers. Have another look.

Oh, by the way he says it will take years, if not decades.

If you are interested you can listen to a podcast from Jack & Suzy on the same topic here.

Never read "Hello Laziness"

In France 1 in every 5 people are employed by the state. Employment and business law is so regulated that growth is minimal. There is little being done to encourage start-up businesses and when a change to labour laws was suggested 1,000,000 people marched (and rioted) against them.

It is against this backdrop that I review the book "Hello Laziness" by Corinne Maier. I brought the book because I thought it was the sort of book I should read before I gave it to anyone (something I will not be doing).

The author appears to be bitter, anti business and discourages employees from taking ownership and learning new things. An example is the first of the authors commandments:

"Salaried work is the new slavery. Remember that work is not a place for personal development. You work for your pay cheque at the end of the month, full stop."

I am glad I don't live in France (from a business point of view).

The irony is that the author would probably say, that as a business owner, I am exactly the sort of person you should be wary of.

Book Summary

Hello Laziness - Why hard work doesn't pay
Corinne Maier

Genres        Business, Being a lazy employee.
Pages         121
Readability   3 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    1 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

Dragon for sale!

Don writes about the lessons he has as he grew up without a father and does so in his normal matter of fact and humorous style. At times I felt that some of his observations and negatives that he put down to being fatherless, actually apply to most men and are not necessarily the result of not growing up with a father.

Nevertheless a good, easy and enjoyable read. A couple of chapters I found particularly good and the quote below is from the latter.

Chapter 8: Making Decisions - How to Stay Out of Prison
Chapter 13: Education - Jordan and Mindy's Dog

I don't think I am stupid anymore. These days, I just think of the mind as a muscle, and by working it, we get more enjoyment out of life. I had a teacher in high school named Mr. Sleepak. He was our music instructor, and he used to tell us if we were coasting , we were moving downhill. He said this to get us to practice our instruments, but I think it's true in all of life. What I mean is, if we aren't learning, we are forgetting, if we aren't getting smart, we are becoming dull.

The latest statistic is that the average American watches 1,456 hours of television a year [4 hrs a day] but only reads three books. So if it's true that readers are leaders, and the more you read the further you advance, then there isn't a lot of competition.

Book Summary

To Own a Dragon - Reflections on growing up without a father
Donald Miller (with John MacMurray)

Genres        Fathers, Spirituality, Humour
Pages         192
Readability  2 (1 = Easy, 5 = Hard)
Enjoyment    4 (1 = Never Read, 5 = Remarkable)

What does a Purple Cow have to do with Marketing?

Book Review: Purple Cow is about making sure that your business is offering remarkable services.

A key quote for me is:

"The opposite of 'Remarkable' is 'Very Good'

Ideas that are remarkable are much more likely to spread than ideas that aren't. Yet so few brave people make remarkable stuff. Why? I think it's because they think that the opposite of 'Remarkable' is 'bad' or 'mediocre' or 'poorly done'. Thus, if they make something very good, they confuse it with being virus worthy.

Continue to read the my full review in a post at viewpoint.net.nz

Also read a great summary of 10 points about being remarkable from Seth's Blog. (the author)