Author: Donovan Frew

2017 in books

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I managed just over one book per month in 2017 by just reading 30 minutes per day. I should have written a proper review for each one but I didn’t. So in an effort to catch up, here are all 16 books I read in 2017 with a review about the size of a tweet.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Nick Bostrom)

Eventually the difference in intelligence between a human and a computer will be equivalent to the the difference in intelligence between a beetle and human. Who do you think is going to be in charge in that world?

Zero Zero Zero (Roberto Saviano)

Everyone you know is taking cocaine. Maybe not everyone but don’t go betting your life savings on which ones aren’t. You’re going to lose it and the winner will probably spend it on cocaine.

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics (Tim Marshall)

Have you heard all that talk about China surpassing the USA? It’s not going to happen. America has the trump card (and it’s not the guy in office). Their geographical advantage is simply too great.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)

In the short time that humans have been around, many great people have lived and they’ve made many great discoveries. Their conclusion? The universe is old, the universe is huge, the universe loves emptiness, the universe hates life.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) (Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills)

We’re often prisoners/slaves to our assumptions which are almost always the result of indoctrination not critical thinking. In effect, we’re living our lives based on an agreement handed down to us. We’d probably be happier if we made an agreement with ourselves.

Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity (Edward de Bono)

Sometimes expertise is the biggest blocker to progress. The obvious narrows our field of vision and blocks out the improbable but possible. The way to innovate is to be prepared abandon established paradigms.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Tom DeMarco,‎ Tim Lister)

Too often we focus on the efficient at the expense of the effective. The former is for processes, the latter is for people. Building software is about people and relationships. Most developers don’t recognize this and neither do most non-developers.

Metaphors We Live By (George Lakoff,‎ Mark Johnson)

Our choice of words and sentence construction might be influencing our actions a lot more than we realize or would like to admit. Also, this sentence:

It includes some of the central insights of the phenomenological tradition, such as the rejection of epistemological foundationalism.

Think And Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill)

What happens when you ask 500 of the most successful people in the world how they got rich? They tell you that they first thought about how rich they want to be and then did it. And when you read a book 50 years after it was written you get to laugh at the stupid shit people used to believe.

Change Directions: Perceive it, Believe it, Achieve it (Georges Philips)

If things aren’t going the way you want, you’re unlikely to hope your way to change. You need a concrete goal, a concrete plan and determined execution if change is to happen. (I’m surprised that I paid money for a book to tell me this).

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (A. G. Lafley,‎ Roger Martin)

Strategy is about focus, which means strategy is about tradeoffs, which means strategy is about being about choosing what not to do. If your business ‘strategy’ doesn’t rule out any category of customer then make sure your white flag is readily accessible.

The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick) (Seth Godin)

Second place is really the first of the losers. If you’re not aiming for first you might as well aim for last. If you’re aiming for last then it makes sense to quit now.

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

Sometimes you have to shoot your best friend in the back of the head. That doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. (You’ll probably still end up in prison though).

Eat That Frog!: Get More of the Important Things Done – Today! (Brian Tracy)

Only a few things guaranteed in life. One of those guarantees is that if the very first thing you do tomorrow after waking up is eat a frog (cooked or raw, up to you) your day is only going to go uphill from there.

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t (Simon Sinek)

Organisations are composed of people. People have feelings and feelings can be hurt. There is simply no organisation that gets better results from hurting their people’s feelings than they do from making their people happy. Great leaders know this.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Stephen R. Covey)

What do highly effective people have in common? Daily private victories (3), daily public victories (3) and a spirit of continuous improvement (1). 3 + 3 + 1 = 7.

Wrapping it all up

There you have it. 16 books. Looking at this list two things really stand out:

  1. One non-fiction
  2. Complete lack of diversity of authors

Both will be addressed in 2018.

Executive Presence (book review)

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How did I hear about it?

Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success

Now I’ve completed it and …?

What are some sample quotes?

Becoming a leader and doing something amazing with your life hinge on what makes you different, not on what makes you the same as everyone else

Gravitas is the very essence of EP. Without it, you simply won’t be perceived as a leader, no matter what your title or level of authority

Great leaders are brutally optimistic

Your communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal, are what ultimately win you the attention and mindshare of colleagues, clients, and friends

It may be more important to comfort a room than command it

Sensitivity can spell the difference between sounding like a leader and actually succeeding as one

To radiate presence you have to radiate that you are present

Was it worth the money?

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The Four Agreements (book review)

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How did I hear about it?

I don’t know how The Four Agreements ended up on my reading list. I don’t mean that I don’t remember the sequence of steps I took to add it, I mean it seems impossible that such a book would be on my reading list. You see the full title of this book is The Four Agreements: Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Toltec Wisdom Book) and it’s the Toltec Wisdom bit of the title that normally acts as a repellent. Toltec is an ancient Mesoamerican culture and if there’s one thing we know about wisdom from ancient cultures its that they’re notorious for being wrong. Yes, it’s true. Still the book was on my list so I assume I had a well researched reason for adding it. I started reading and the drill is simple, if I start reading a book then I have to complete it.

Now I’ve completed it and …?

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in one afternoon. It’s not very big but also Don Miguel Ruiz makes his points using simple, natural language without patronising the reader. The key point is that we live our lives based on agreements we’ve made with society. Unfortunately society’s primary goal is control and we didn’t have much of a say in the agreements as they have been drilled into us since we were children.

One such agreement, for example, is when as a child you’re singing and your parents tell you that you don’t sing well. After hearing this repeatedly you eventually stop singing because you have come to the agreement that you don’t have a good singing voice. It doesn’t matter that singing makes you happy, you would rather deny yourself that pleasure than break the agreement. Of course you can’t blame your parents because they too had the same agreements imposed on them.

According to “Toltec” wisdom (more on that later) all that matters is happiness and you only need four agreements with yourself to find happiness. These are 1) be impeccable with your word, 2) don’t make assumptions, 3) don’t take things personally and 4) always do your best. That’s it. Break the old agreements, adopt these new ones*, live happily ever after.

As for all this talk about Toltec wisdom it’s like calling your ice cream flavour Planifolia, it might attract hippies but ultimately it’s still just Vanilla.

* ignore the fact that this is someone else telling you to make these agreements

What are some sample quotes?

We train our children whom we love so much the same way that we train any domesticated animal: with a system of punishment and reward

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive

The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human

Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves

Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves

When we believe something, we assume we are right about it to the point that we will destroy relationships in order to defend our position

Was it worth the money?

As I stated earlier, I had reservations about reading this book but once I did read it I thought it was well worth the (admittedly quite small) effort. The four agreements speak for themselves and are pretty obvious but the surrounding narrative really helps to reinforce the point.

Verdict: Buy.

The four agreements (cover photo)

Give and Take (book review)

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How did I hear about it?

Give and Take is one of those books that seem to have always been, inexplicably, near the top of my reading list. I knew I really wanted to read it but had no idea why. I had never heard of the author, no one I know has ever admitted to reading it and the title clearly didn’t get reviewed by a marketing agency (or at the very least i hope they had a generous refund policy).

More than likely I read some other book and at the end my kindle said “People who read this also liked… Give and Take” and being nothing but a hairless ape I went along with the shrewdness. Yes folks, a group of apes is called a shrewdness, just one of the many facts you’ll learn here. I digress.

Now I’ve completed it and …?

Give and Take follows the age old tradition of social science books by making a bold assertion then following up with copious amounts of evidence in the form of research and anecdotes. Adam Grant does this particularly well by sharing stories that start out as doom and gloom case studies in naïvety but inevitably ends with everyone living happily ever after. He does it throughout the book in varying forms and on each occasion I’m left surprised at the outcome.

In a nutshell the book suggests that there are three types of people. Takers see others as exploitable and use them as stepping stones to satisfy their own goals. Givers help others out of a sense of duty to society and therefore look for nothing in return. Matchers treat others in the way they’re treated and so give to receive and take to compensate. It’s pretty obvious that most people are Matchers. As for the Givers and Takers you can pretty much guess which one of those most often find themselves at the bottom of the pile. And if you guessed Takers then according to Grant you guessed wrong.

Takers seem to only do well in short term and/or zero sum situations. Once they’re found out, news spreads quickly and everyone becomes guarded when dealing with them. Who would have guessed, most people don’t like being exploited and don’t like seeing others being exploited. If you’re a Giver you have the opposite effect, all the matchers as well as other givers start routing for you. Interestingly, the act of giving/helping others actually increases the size of the pie, so the more people give the more opportunities there are for all of us. Why aren’t we all giving?

What are some sample quotes?

You can’t just ignore someone because you don’t think they’re important enough

The fear of being judged as weak or naïve prevents many people from operating like givers at work

If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed

We should see networks as a vehicle for creating value for everyone, not just claiming it for ourselves

You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody

Even in seemingly independent jobs that rely on raw brainpower, our success depends more on others than we realize

Givers get extra credit when they offer ideas that challenge the status quo

Was it worth the money?

I’m going to be honest, I really like this book. I really, really like it. I first read it a few months ago then basically re-read it to write this review, which I don’t normally do. The problem is that the message is so potent and so appealing and so basic that a simple blog post would have sufficed. In fact I could say it in just 4 words: Don’t be a dick!

Verdict: Hold.

Give and take (cover photo)

To Sell is Human (book review)

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Why did I read this book?

I once read a book called Drive by a guy called Dan Pink who did a TED Talk called The puzzle of motivation that was a real eye opener. So profound an impact the book had that I decided I had to read more material from the author. He’s written about 5 books in total but the title of one in particular really caught my attention: To Sell is Human.

I’ve never been any good at selling things, including myself, and here was a book suggesting that one of my weaknesses should come as naturally as walking or talking. It made sense to give this one a go (especially considering that the other books had slightly less inspiring titles like Free Agent Nation and something, something Johnny Bunko).

Now I’ve completed it and …?

To sell is human cemented my view of Dan Pink as an author. Here he effortlessly combines a wealth of social science research, expert opinion and personal experience to raise my awareness in an area that is totally necessary but to which I was mostly blind and/or incompetent.

Pink starts by describing the traditional sales man, a guy with hair full of gel, a face full of confidence and a mouth full of lies. In today’s world where information on any product is near ubiquitous and consumer feedback is public such a person is part of a dying breed. Consumers are becoming more and more savvy so the only way to keep them coming back is to add real value over and above that which they can already create for themselves. Today it is the seller that needs to be weary or the buyer. There is a need for a more modern type of selling.

Now, this is great advice for a salesperson currently missing targets but this hardly seems relevant to me. Actually Pink makes a very compelling argument that we are all salespeople. The job of sales is about convincing others to exchange a resource they have for something else of (hopefully) equivalent value. For a traditional salesperson that’s exchanging money for a product like a blender or lawnmower or whatever. If you’re a teacher that exchange would be time and attention for knowledge. If you’re a personal trainer that exchange could be effort and dedication for a healthy body. In general, if you’re trying to influence others or as Pink puts it “move others” then your objective is no different from the salesperson and  neither should your skills.

As humans we’re social creatures whose survival and progress as a species depends heavily on interacting with other humans. Combined with the sentiment above there is only one conclusion, to sell is human. The title practically wrote itself.

What are some sample quotes?

One smart, easy, and effective way to get inside people’s heads is to climb into their chairs

We’re more likely to be persuaded by those whom we like

Negativity and negative emotions are crucial for our survival

The potential to be good at something can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing

For many of us, the opposite of talking isn’t listening. It’s waiting

The most effective tools for excavating people’s buried drives are questions

Contrast operates within, and often amplifies, every aspect of persuasion

Was it worth the money?

I found this book very useful in helping me identify the practices I had which were driving my “customers” away. On top of that it provided me with a new set of tools that I could use to more effectively deliver my message. I picked this up with the hope of learning to pitch to investors but put it down better equipped in my role as a mentor*. Trust me, anything that makes motivating 10 year olds easier is a great investment so at £6.45 this was a steal.

Verdict: Buy.

To sell is human - cover photo  61mnrynuidl

* Reach Out – Mentoring that works.