“The Algebra of Happiness” by Scott Galloway
Book summary, review and lessons from “The Algebra of Happiness” by Scott Galloway.
Learn key life lessons, why you should take risks and not fear rejection, and how to stay married for the long-term.
Book Summary:
“The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning” is an unconventional book of wisdom and life advice from Scott Galloway–the renowned business school professor and NYT bestselling author of “The Four.”
Galloway’s book is a mix of anecdotes and no-BS insight to share hard-won wisdom about life's challenges, along with touching personal stories. Here are a few lessons readers will learn:
Advice on if you should drop out of school to be an entrepreneur (it might have worked for Steve Jobs, but you're probably not Steve Jobs),
Ideas on how to position yourself in a crowded job market (do something "boring" and move to a city; passion is for people who are already rich),
Discovering what the most important decision in your life is (it's not your job, your car, OR your zip code),
And many more.
Book Lessons:
1) Key Life Lessons
Happiness is usually highest during childhood, teen and college years.
It drops during your mid-20s because of work, stress and other hardships and stays around that level till your mid-40s, but starts to go back up once you hit your 50s.
If you want to be extremely successful in your career, you have to focus on work and not look for work-life balance.
By focusing on your career, you will have a lot more work-life balance later in life.
The ratio of time you spend sweating to watching others sweat is a forward-looking indicator of your success.
Spend more time playing sports than watching sports.
The most important decision you’ll make in life is deciding who will be your life partner.
Look for a partner with similar goals and one who approaches life the same way as yourself.
Two-thirds of economic growth over the next 50 years will be in supercities.
Opportunity is a function of density, get to a place that’s crowded with success.
Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.
Invest as early as possible: every $1,000 you put in today will be worth $10,000-$25,000 40 years from.
What is a man’s worst friend? Alcohol.
A Harvard happiness study tracked men for 75 years and found that the one thing that predicted unhappiness better than any other factor was alcohol–it led to failed marriages, careers and bad health.
To be happy, choose experiences over materialism.
Studies show that people overestimate the amount of happiness things will bring them and underestimate the long-term positive effect of experiences.
Nothing is ever as bad or as good as it seems.
You will experience failure and hard times in life, they will not last forever. Failure is often part of the road to success. The good times also don’t last forever, cherish moments of happiness.
Galloway’s book is based on his popular YouTube episode “The Algebra of Happiness.” Watch the video for more lessons.
2) Take risks and be okay with rejection
“Train yourself to take some sort of risk (ask for a raise, introduce yourself around at a party) every day and et comfortable grasping beyond your reach.
”
As the old saying goes, “No risk, no reward.”
Galloway encourages readers to train themselves to take risks, even small ones such as introducing yourself to a stranger at a party. You never know, perhaps the women you introduce yourself to is your future wife (this is how Galloway met his wife).
He also adds that his willingness to endure rejection from peers, investors and women “has been hugely rewarding. Knowing what you want is a blessing, and fear of rejection is a bigger obstacle than lack of talent or the market,” which is why it’s so important to practice risk-taking and being okay with failing.
Failures can be both private and public.
If you fail to get into law school because you bombed the LSAT, no one will know unless you told them. However, if you start your own company and launch it into the public domain, and it fails, people will know. But that’s okay–the road to success is filled with ups and downs, you just have to keep going.
Even if your startup does well in the beginning, you will have to take on more risk and possibly face more rejections. This includes creating and selling new products, hiring new employees, seeking venture funding and finding companies to buy your business.
Life is filled with risks and rejections, don’t let that stop you.
3) Advice for a happy marriage
“Studies show that marriage is advantageous economically. Having a partnership, sharing expenses and responsibilities, being able to focus on your careers, and utilizing the wisdom of crowds leads to better decisions.
”
Marriage is not only better for your personal life, but it is also better for your financial life. Galloway writes that a married couples’ household worth grows at an average of 14% a year.
By their 50s, married couples have 3x the assets of their single peers.
Here are a few pieces of marriage advice from Galloway:
Don’t keep score.
Aim to be as generous and do as much as you can for your partner instead of keeping count of everyone’s contribution and making a loser column. If your partner messes up, and they will, have forgiveness towards them.
Don’t ever let your wife be cold or hungry.
Most fights happen when either you or your partner are cold, hungry, tired or a combination of both. Keep a few snack and oversized scarves with you in the car or when on the go for emergency purposes.
Express affection and desire as often as possible.
Affection, touch and sex all reinforce that your relationship is intact, active and you have romantic feelings for your partner. People who don’t feel desired become insecure and can go down the path of feeling indifferent or disconnected which can lead to them cheating.
The two most rewarding things in life are family and professional achievement, writes Galloway. Life isn’t as fun if you don’t have a close partner to share all the great moments of life with. If you find someone who you can see spending the rest of your life with, make sure you’re a good partner and keep them along for the whole ride.
Book Review:
“The Algebra of Happiness” by Scott Galloway is a surprisingly entertaining and thoughtful book. Although its written by an angry, depressed business professor, Galloway does an excellent job combing research data with personal experiences to offer advice on living a good life.
The book gives tips on succeeding in business, finding the right partner and staying together for the long-term, how to be a good parent, how to take care of your health, and many more wise lessons.
This honest and direct book of advice is a wonderful read for recent graduates, millennials and anyone who feels adrift in life.
Thank you Portfolio Penguin for sending me a copy of this book!
Rating: 4/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson
Book summary, review and lessons from "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson.
Learn why life is an infinite set of problems, why you should adjust your values and how taking responsibility of your life will make it better.
An excellent self-improvement book that delivers the cold, hard truth to readers.
Book Summary:
“The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” by Mark Manson provides readers with a counterintuitive guide to living a good life. Instead of trying to be happy all the time, Manson teaches:
Why problems are infinite, and why that is both a good and bad thing.
How adjusting your values can improve your quality of life.
Why you should take complete responsibility of your life.
And many more lessons.
There are only so many things we can give a f*ck about, so we need to figure out which things really matter in life. Manson’s book delivers the cold, hard truth while also sharing entertaining stories filled with profane humor. This book is a refreshing slap in the face for people to help them lead contented, grounded lives.
Got to meet Mark Manson at his book tour in NYC.
Book Lessons:
1) Problems are both good and bad
“Life is essentially an endless series of problems...The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one...Don’t hope for a life without problems...There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems. ”
Every single person in the world has problems. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, happily married and live in a nice house, you will still face the problem of managing your wealth, remembering your wife’s birthday and buying her a gift and keeping the house clean.
Being rich has its problems, as does being poor.
Having a family has its problems, as does not having one.
Being employed has its problems, as does being unemployed.
There is no such thing as a life without problems.
So what can you do?
“Hope for a life filled with good problems,” writes Mark Manson.
Having the problem of having too many good friends and not knowing which ones to hang out with is a good problem.
Getting accepted into all of the colleges you applied to is a good problem.
Planning a vacation that you won from being the number one salesperson at your company is a good problem.
The good news is that people also derive happiness from solving problems.
This is why people are constantly engaging in games, puzzles and challenges.
Since happiness comes from solving problems, happiness is a form of action or activity, not something you’ll magically discover. By taking action and solving problems, your body will reward you with positive emotions.
Since you can’t have a problem free life, it’s important to ask, “What pain do you want to sustain?”
Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who run triathlons and have chiseled abs and can benchpress a small house. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who fly to the top of it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it (page 40).
2) To have a good life, have good values
“The question is not whether we evaluate ourselves against others; rather, the question is by what standard do we measure ourselves?”
According to Mark Manson, here are the differences between good and bad values:
Good Values:
Reality-based
Socially constructive
Immediate and controllable
Bad Values:
Superstitious
Socially destructive
Not immediate or controllable
Honesty, for example, is a good value. It’s something you have complete control over, it reflects reality and it benefits others. Popularity, on the other hand, is a bad value. You have little control over what people think of you and you will spend too much time concerning yourself over every little action that may change your ranking.
When people have poor values, that is, poor standards, they are “essentially giving fucks about the things that don’t matter, things that in fact make our life worse” (88).
Manson proves his point by looking at the values of Dave Mustaine and Pete Best.
In the early 1980s, Dave Mustaine formed the legendary heavy-metal band Megadeth. Megadeth would go on to sell over 25 million albums and tour the world several times. Mustaine became incredibly wealthy from the band’s success and is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of heavy-metal music.
Unfortunately, before he formed Megadeth, Mustaine was kicked out of the band Metallica. Arguably the greatest rock band of all time–Metallica has sold over 180 million albums, seven times that of Megadeth.
In a 2003 interview, Mustaine admitted he still considered himself a failure for being kicked out Metallica. By adopting the bad values of happiness equals being more successful than his former band, Mustaine felt like a failure even though he was worth millions of dollars, had countless fans and made a career out of something he loved to do.
Now compare that to the life of Pete Best.
Pete Best was also kicked out of a band, and not just any band, it was The Beatles.
Unlike Mutaine, Best didn’t go on to become a global rockstar or make millions of dollars, and yet, in an interview, he said he was happier without the Beatles.
Why?
Best said that getting kicked out of the band led him to meet his wife and then his marriage led to him having children. His values changed and he began to measure his life differently.
Instead of chasing glory and fame, Best sought out a loving family and happy marriage.
One would imagine that Dave Mustaine would be more satisfied with life since he achieved great fame and glory, but yet he felt like a failure whereas Pete Best didn’t become a superstar and yet is contempt with life because he simply changed his values.
Choose better values, and you too will have a better life.
3) Take total responsibility for your life
“There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances.
”
This lesson may be one of the coldest and hardest truths to accept in Manson’s book. The truth that no matter what, you are responsible for your life and must respond to any punches life throws your way.
This doesn’t mean that fault and responsibility are the same things, but you still must take responsibility for things that aren’t your fault.
For instance, if you woke up one day and there was a newborn baby on your doorstep, it would not be your fault that the baby was put there, but the baby would now be your responsibility. You would have to choose what to do (feed the baby, call home services, etc).
In other words, fault is past tense and responsibility is present tense.
Here’s some more cold, hard truth from Mark Manson:
Many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things. You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences (page 99).
Don’t fall for the victim mentality–it’s tempting to pass of the responsibility of solving your problems to others, but it won’t get you nearly as far in life as taking responsibility for your own life will.
This isn’t a new idea, Jocko Willink literally wrote a book called “Extreme Ownership” where he shares the most important lesson of leadership, taking complete responsibility and ownership of any situation.
Jordan Peterson also shares a similar lesson in his book, “12 Rules for Life.” Peterson writes that each and every one of us most shoulder as much responsibility as possible in order to improve our lives.
Your problems may not be your fault, but it is up to you, and you alone, to take responsibility of your life and take action to improve it.
Book Review:
“The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck” by Mark Manson is equal parts insightful and entertaining. Manson has an incredible sense of awareness when it comes to life and looking at it from different perspectives, while also cracking poop jokes and talking about a superhero called “Disappointment Panda.”
This is the second time I’ve read this book, and I found it just as helpful and interesting as the first. At 200 pages, this book is quite easy to read and Manson’s stories about Buddha and rockstars keep readers engaged chapter after chapter.
Life is short, stop caring about things that don’t matter. Instead, read this book, focus on the things that do matter and take responsibility for your life.
Rating: 5/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
You can also get the audio version of this book for free by signing up for a trial of Audible here.
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"The Creative Curve" by Allen Gannett
Book summary, review and lessons from "The Creative Curve" by Allen Gannett.
Read about creative geniuses and the truth behind their work instead of the common myths around them.
Learn practical steps that you can apply to become more creative.
Book Summary:
“The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time” by Allen Gannett debunks the mythology around creative genius and reveals the science and secrets behind achieving breakout commercial success in any field.
From writing a popular novel to starting up a successful company, recent research shows that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor.
By understanding the mechanics of what Gannett calls “the creative curve”–the point of optimal tension between the novel and the familiar, and the four laws of creative success (consumption, imitation, creative communities, iterations) and the common patterns behind their achievement, everyone can better engineer creativity.
Book Lessons:
Become a consumer and spend 20% of your time familiarizing yourself within your chosen field.
Imitate the style of great creatives in your field before you start adding your personal spin to your art.
Develop a creative community that consists of a mentor, collaborator, modern muse and prominent promoter.
Iterate your work by talking to customers and using data-drive processes to refine ideas and turn them into great pieces of work.
Law 1: Consumption
“Painters show up at numerous art exhibits. Chefs eat at cutting-edge restaurants, visit farms, and travel to food shows. Songwriters are constantly listening to music, new and old.”
There is a common pattern among successful creative artists, they are all consumers of their craft.
Great painters visit art galleries.
Skilled chefs explore different restaurants.
Successful authors read hundreds of books a year.
Gannett writes that creative artists spend about 3-4 hours a day or roughly 20% of their time on consuming their respective art.
He calls this the 20% principle:
By consuming material in your creative field, you develop an intuitive, expert-level understanding of the field, where it is on the creative curve, and where it is heading.
Take Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer at Netflix, as an example.
As a kid, Sarandos worked at a video rental store and spent all of his free time at work watching movies. Within a few months, he had watched almost every movie in the shop. He had become a human recommendation engine as was constantly being asked by customers which movies were worth watching.
By going on a consumption binge, Sarandos was able to differentiate what makes a movie great and was makes a movie bomb. He continued to consume movies as he was promoted to general manager of the video store chain and then went on to join Netflix in 2000, where he led content acquisition.
Even today, Sarandos continues to watch 3-4 hours of film and TV today, except now he does so from his corner office in Beverly Hills.
The 20% principle is critical for creative artists because you need to have a certain level of established knowledge of what people like and what already exists in the world before you attempt to create something new.
As author Allen Gannett writes, “If your goal is to achieve mainstream success, your first step should be to immerse yourself in the field you’re interested in, exposing yourself to and consuming as much as possible. This will allow you to identify ideas that are familiar to previous successes” (131).
Only once you have a baseline understanding of your art field can move on to creating something original.
Law 2: Imitation
“You may think that breakout success comes from breaking the pattern. In reality, it is only by following a pattern that you tap into the right level of novelty.
”
There’s an old saying that before you can break the rules, you must first master them. That is especially true for creatives.
Great creative individuals all follow some form of structure, formula, pattern or norm.
Almost all books are 200-300 pages long.
Almost all songs are 2-3 minutes long.
Almost all sitcoms are 20-30 minutes long.
These constraints ensure familiarity to consumers, while also allowing the artist to spice things up by changing 10, 20 or 30% of the art.
Take Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the bestselling book “Too Big to Fail” and co-creator of the hit show “Billions” as an example.
After graduating from college, Sorkin was hired as a business reporter for the NYT. However there was one problem, he was 22 years old and had no real experience.
So what did he do?
He started to imitate the greats. He sought out NYT stories from previous years and studied their formats. Sorkin began to build outlines of an ideal format based on what worked and then fit his own story into the outline.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Sorkin learned the formula of what makes an article great and applied it to his own writing. The result? It “helped skyrocket his career” (152).
Sorkin used the same strategy when he began writing the book “Too Big to Fail.”
“I went to the bookstore and bought five or ten of my favorite business narratives and studied what they were doing, how they do it, what was it that I liked about it, and what didn’t I like about it,” Sorkin said.
Sorkin then emulated the book style formula of the writers he admired into his own book. By doing so, he was able to communicate his most persuasive new ideas into a time-tested framework.
“If we imitate the people we admire, and reconstruct their past successes, we are that much closer to absorbing the patterns we need to create content at the right point of the creative curve,” writes author Allen Gannett.
Law 3: Creative Communities
“Studies show that building a community of people around us is essential to achieving world-class success...research demonstrated that an innovator’s network could predict prominence, productivity, and even the length of their career.
”
There’s a common myth that creative geniuses simply sit alone in a house in the woods and create masterpieces. However, more often than not, this is completely false.
The truth is that most creative geniuses have a creative community.
One study found that the “strength of an artist’s reputation was correlated to the number of relationships they had with other successful artists, both within and beyond their own generation” (156).
Author Gannett discovered that creatives had 4 different types of people in their networks:
A Master Teacher
A Conflicting Collaborator
A Modern Muse
A Prominent Promoter
Together, these form what Gannett calls a “creative community.” Each role can be filled by either an individual or a group, and all four roles play a critical part in becoming a successful creative artist.
Here is a short description of each role:
A Master Teacher
Master teachers serve two essential roles: they teach constraints and they assist with deliberate practice through feedback. A master teacher is needed to take your game to the next level, even professional athletes have teachers (coaches).
A Conflicting Collaborator
You don’t want to collaborate with someone who is so easy to get along with that they don’t push you. The goal is to find a person who will help you discover and overcome your flaws.
A Modern Muse
A modern muse is an individual or a group of people who continually inspire and motivate you. This support system will help supply you with energy to power through the low moments of your creative career.
A Prominent Promoter
Prominent promoters are people with credibility who will advocate for you and your work. This could be an agent, publicist or fellow artist with a solid reputation and has influence in their field.
Near the end of the chapter, Gannett writes that “The best innovators know that creative success isn’t a solo adventure, and also know that a single key partner is insufficient. We all need in our orbits a community of people who will fill a variety of roles” (182).
Law 4: Iterations
“The biggest secret to creating something your audience will love? Listen to them.
”
The 4 steps of iteration are conceptualization, reduction, curation, and feedback.
During the conceptualization stage, creatives generate a set of plausible ideas that can later be refined.
In reduction, creatives put their early work in front of an audience to test the ideas and get a sense of which ideas are worth investing time and energy into. This stage can be scary because it involves criticism and rejection, but it’s better to have 3 great ideas that you feel will succeed instead of 30 random ideas.
Then in the curation stage, you take your ideas one step further and allow people to dive deeper into your work so that you can gather extensive information to confirm data and intuition.
The final stage is feedback. Creators need to constantly measure and assess their work to fit customer needs. This can come from phone calls, emails, social media, sales figures or any other data points. Just as authors constantly rewrite their drafts, use customer feedback to improve and refine your product until it is a polished piece of work.
Here’s how Ben & Jerry’s, the famous ice cream company, goes through the iteration process:
Conceptualization: Ben & Jerry’s R&D researchers come up with a list of 200 possible new flavors.
Reduction: Ben & Jerry’s emails those 200 flavors to their newsletter subscribers and asks which flavors interest them and move forward with the top 15 flavors.
Curation: the Flavor Gurus start to make small batches of the 15 flavors and tests them with other teams and stakeholders.
Feedback: During the early release, Ben & Jerry’s looks at fan reactions to see if people like it or not. Then during the official release, the company looks at phone calls, emails, social media, sales figures and any other data points that indicate whether customers like the product and if any improvements are needed.
Book Review:
“The Creative Curve” blew me away. It’s not a NYT or WSJ bestseller, and yet it is a fantastic book filled with engaging stories and wonderful pieces of practical advice.
The book debunks many common myths around creative geniuses and provides insightful recommendations on how anyone can improve their creativity. Author Allen Gannett did an excellent job presenting his ideas with the support of both original research and published scientific studies.
This book is a must read for artists, writers, musicians or anyone in a creative industry. I can’t recommend it enough, I’ve already added it to my list of books that are worth reading more than once.
Rating: 5/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
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"Loonshots" by Safi Bahcall
Book summary, review and lessons from "Loonshots" by Safi Bahcall
Read about a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior and nurturing radical breakthroughs.
“Loonshots” teaches readers how to keep an eye out for false fails and how to create a company structure that allows loonshots to grow and thrive.
Book Summary:
“Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries” by Safi Bahcall, teaches readers a surprisingly new way of thinking about group behavior and nurturing radical breakthroughs.
Safi Bahcall combines his business and science background to share dozens of entertaining historical stories about ideas that changed the world. These crazy ideas include the invention of radar, the James Bond and Star Wars franchises, the creation of Lipitor–a multibillion-dollar drug, and many more.
Just like how changing the temperature of a fridge by one degree can change water from a solid to a liquid, “Loonshots” explains how making small shifts in company structure can lead to dramatic outcomes that can alter company’s future. The book distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.
Book Lessons:
1) Beware of false fails
“The negative result in the rat experiment was a False Fail–a result mistakenly attributed to the loonshot but actually a flaw in the test.
”
Statins (drugs that lower cholesterol levels in the blood) have generated over $300 billion in sales, and Facebook, a social media giant that has a market cap of over $500 billion are two loonshot ideas that both experienced false fails.
The first statin, mevastatin, showed no lowering of cholesterol levels during the crucial stage of testing in live animals. That is until Akira Endo, the scientist who discovered mevastatin, bumped into a colleague who worked with chickens.
It occurred to Endo that hens might have high blood cholesterol since their eggs have so much of it and convinced his colleague to give mevastatin to chickens (in secret, of course).
““The results were spectacular. Mevastatin decreased cholesterol by nearly half, triglycerides by even more, with no ill effects””
Why did the drug work on chickens but not rats?
It was later discovered that rats have very little LDL or “bad cholesterol” while chickens have both good and bad cholesterol, much like humans.
Today, statins prevent approximately half a million heart attacks and strokes each year–but the drug almost didn’t make it to market because of a false fail during testing.
Facebook had a similar experience.
In the early 2000s, Facebook was seeking venture capital while competing with several other social networks including: Classmates, Sixdegrees, Tribe, Hub Culture, aSmallWorld, and others.
Investors believed social network sites were a fad since users would abandon established sites and join new ones, such as leaving Friendster for MySpace. Several investors passed on Facebook, but investor Peter Thiel decided to dig deeper into the problem.
Thiel found that users of Friendster were leaving the site because it was constantly crashing and although the company had received advice to fix and scale their site, they ignored it. Thiel concluded that users weren’t leaving the social network because of its weak business model, but because of a software glitch.
Thiel wrote Zuckerberg a check for $500,000 and eight years later, he sold most of his stake in Facebook for roughly a billion dollars.
Both Facebook and statins were crazy loonshot ideas that experienced false starts. However, a simple adjustment resulted in two multi-billion dollar entities.
One way to overcome false starts, is to Listen to the Suck with Curiosity or LSC as the author calls it. Overcome the urge to defend and dismiss when your idea is attacked and instead investigate the failure with an open mind.
When the drug testing in rats didn’t work, Endo asked why and set about testing different ideas. Peter Thiel did the same thing and investigated into why users were leaving social networks and found a contrarian answer.
It’s hard to hear that no one likes your beautiful loonshot idea, but it can be even harder to keep asking why it isn’t working. However, that doesn’t mean you should give up.
2) Developing the ideal loonshot environment
“Rather than champion any individual loonshot, they create an outstanding structure for nurturing many loonshots. Rather than visionary innovators, they are careful gardeners.
”
The idea that long-lasting companies are built on the back of a single genius-entrepreneur, is a myth. Rather, the best companies “ensure that both loonshots and franchises are tended well, that neither side dominates the other, and that each side nurtures and supports the other” (38).
Bahcall calls these principles the Bush-Vail rules–separate the groups working on the loonshots and those working on the main business, but allow projects and feedback to travel easily between the two groups.
Start by separating the artists and soldiers
“Artists” are people responsible for developing high-risk, early stage ideas while “soldiers” are responsible for already-successful, steady-growth parts of the organization. Loonshots are often fragile in their early stages since most are seen as crazy ideas, even radar was dismissed by the military as loonshot.
Several major movie studios passed on the loonshot idea of a British spy who saves the world (James Bond) and a script titled The Adventures of Luke Starkiller (Star Wars). By separating the artists and soldiers, you will create a loonshot nursery that projects those embryonic ideas and allows the artists to grow and develop them.
Love your artists and soldiers equally
Both loonshots and franchises are important to a business’ long-term survival, which is why it is important to love both artists and soldiers. During Steve Job’s first stint at Apple, he called the loonshot group working on the Mac “pirates” while he dismissed the group working on the Apple II franchise as “regular Navy.”
Hostility between the two groups grew and resulted in several key employees leaving the company as well as a failed Mac launch. It wasn’t until Steve Jobs returned 12 years later, that he learned to love both his artists (Jony Ive) and soldiers (Tim Cook).
3) Additional rules for a loonshot environment
Separate the phases
Separate your artists and soldiers.
Tailor the tools to the phase.
Watch your blind side: nurture both types of loonshots (product and strategy).
Create dynamic equilibrium
Love your artists and soldiers equally.
Manage the transfer, not the technology: be a gardner, not a Moses.
Appoint, and train, project champions to bridge the divide.
Spread a system mindset
Keep asking why the organization made the choices it did.
Keep asking how the decision-making process can be improved.
Identify teams with outcome mindsets, and help them adopt system mindsets (149).
Reduce the return on politics
Make lobbying for compensation and promotion decisions difficult. Find ways to make those decisions less dependent on an employee’s manager and more independently assessed.
Use soft equity
Identify and apply the non-financial rewards that make a big difference. For example: peer recognition and intrinsic motivators.
Increase project-skill fit
Invest in the people and processes that will scan for a mismatch between employees’ skills and their assigned projects. Adjust roles or transfer employees between groups when mismatches are found. The goal is employees stretched neither too much nor too little by their roles.
Fix the middle
Identify and fix perverse incentives, the unintended consequences of well-intentioned rewards. Pay special attention to the dangerous middle-manager levels, the weakest point in the battle for promotion and toward incentives centered on outcomes. Celebrate results, not rank.
Bring a gun to a knife fight
Competitors in the battle for talent and loonshots may be using outmoded incentive systems. Bring in a specialist in the subtleties of the art–a chief incentive officer.
Fine-tune the spans
Widen management spans in loonsot groups (but not in franchise groups) to encourage looser controls, more experiments, and peer-to-peer problem solving (224).
Book Review:
“Loonshots” by Safi Bahcall does an excellent job explaining how small shifts in company structure can help companies nurture and develop loonshot ideas–a widely dismissed idea whose champion is written off as crazy, that leads to an important breakthrough.
One would believe a book about company structure would be dry and dull, but Bahcall made this book both entertaining and educational. The book is filled with stories about how the military dismissed the invention of radar, how a drug that lowered cholesterol was killed three times, how forest fires and terrorist networks spread, and dozens of more captivating stories.
Although “Loonshots” is an interesting and informative read, it is also for a very niche audience. I would recommend this book for CEOs and executives of medium to large size companies, scientists, military leaders and entrepreneurs. Apply the tools in this book to help your company and employees unlock their potential to create and nurture the crazy ideas that change the world.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
Here are a few similar articles:
After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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"Never Grow Up" by Jackie Chan
Book summary, review and lessons from “Never Grow Up” by Jackie Chan.
Read about Jackie’s journey from stuntman to global movie star.
Learn about Jackie’s tough childhood, his incredible work ethic and how he sacrificed his body for his art.
Book Summary:
“Never Grow Up” by Jackie Chan is a candid memoir from one of the most recognizable, influential, and beloved cinematic personalities in the world.
Everyone knows Jackie Chan. Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon or The Karate Kid, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts.
In his book, Jackie Chan reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of seven), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father (which has been, admittedly and regrettably, imperfect).
Book Lessons:
1) Jackie Had A Rough Childhood
“I spent more time in the hallway outside the classroom than inside it, and became notorious in the school...I kept playing pranks, blowing off my homework, misplacing my books, getting into fights, and being a headache for the teachers.”
Jackie’s childhood was not an easy one. He had difficulty paying attention in school and was a rebellious kid. The only class he cared about was gym and found class lectures to be beyond boring. With that kind of behavior, it isn’t a surprise that he was kept back at the end of his first year.
Jackie’s parents figured he wasn’t going to be an academic, so they sent him to boarding school, Jackie was 7 years-old at the time. The school was called the China Drama Academy, there he learned martial arts, dancing and acting–all skills which would help him become a successful actor.
Here was his school schedule:
Wake up at 5 a.m. for breakfast.
Practice kung fu until noon.
Lunch.
Practice until dinner at 5 p.m.
Dinner.
Practice until bedtime at 11 p.m.
Do it again the next day.
Jackie writes that for “ten years, I got only six hours of sleep, night after night.” Even when he caught a fever, the teacher still made Jackie practice kung fu, no exceptions.
It may seem brutal, but the school taught Jackie the importance of hard work, discipline and allowed him to gain the necessary 10,000 hours needed to become an expert at acting and martial arts.
2) Work Hard In Every Role
“For a long time, Jackie only got to play background roles where his face wasn’t shown, or as a bad guy who got smacked in the face, or someone in a crowd who gets kicked by the hero.
”
Jackie Chan didn’t always play the lead role, especially in the beginning of his career.
He started out as a stuntman and often played one of the bad guys that the main character would knock out with a single punch or kick, and most of the time, had little to no lines in the film.
In one of his earliest roles, he played a corpse on set. Jackie was so good at holding his breath and not moving that the director pointed at him and announced “That guy is the best corpse, make sure we get him in tomorrow as well.”
No matter how big or small the role, Jackie would always give his best because he knew that although he wasn’t the best actor around, he would at least be the hardest working one.
Jackie writes that he became known “as the first to arrive on set and the last to leave. My attitude was enthusiastic and committed. I got into the habit of volunteering to do the most difficult or dangerous jobs...and never let on about how much pain I was in.”
It didn’t matter whether the pay was low or none at all, nor did the size of the role matter, Jackie was determined to get as much experience under his belt as possible and each gig got him one step closer to becoming a global movie star.
Even when things got difficult and Jackie had to move back in with his parents, who lived in Australia, and work construction, he didn’t give up on his dream. When the opportunity arose to play a lead character in a small movie, he decided to go back to China and continue to pursue his dream.
Years of hard work and commitment soon paid off, as Jackie writes, “After fifteen years of hard training, I was an overnight success.”
3) Jackie Sacrifices Himself For His Art
“My ankle joint pops out of its socket all the time...my leg sometimes gets dislocated when I’m showering...I’ve been delaying shoulder surgery for three years now..the cartilage in my kneecaps has been worn away, so I can’t go running.
”
Many artists suffer for their art, some even go so far as for dying for it, Jackie Chan’s commitment to partaking in real stunts for his films have resulted in dozens of injuries and even a couple of near death experiences.
Here are a few of his injuries:
Head: After a stunt went wrong while filming Armour of God, he needed brain surgery.
Ear: He also has permanent hearing loss in my left ear.
Nose: He broke his nose on To Kill with Intrigue.
Cheekbone: Broke cheekbone while filming Police Story 3: Super Cop.
Shoulder: Dislocated shoulder during City Hunter.
Back: Jackie almost snapped his spine between the seventh and eighth vertebrae during Police Story and hurt his back again when a wire snapped and he fell to the ground while filming Chinese Zodiac.
Pelvis: Dislocated during Police Story.
Ankles: Broke his ankle during Rumble in the Bronx.
The list goes on.
Since people were paying money to see his films, Jackie wanted to give the audience their moneys-worth by making the stunts as realistic as possible and thus giving his fans a thrilling and enjoyable cinematic experience.
Although Jackie Chan hasn’t broken every bone in his body, he says, “From my hair to the tips of my toes, every inch of my body has been wounded.”
Now that’s commitment.
With Jackie Chan at a book signing event in NYC.
Book Review:
“Never Grow Up” gives readers a deep insight into Jackie Chan’s journey from starving stuntman to global movie star. Learning about his childhood and adolescence was fascinating, Jackie had a rough childhood and was sent to boarding school away from his parents at an early age to study martial arts and acting.
The book details the many early roles Jackie took on, many of which he worked for little to no pay and usually had no lines. However, most of latter half of book is spent retelling the typical mistakes made my many stars: spending money on silly items, gambling, having affairs, the list goes on.
At some point, you start to dislike Jackie because of his childish behaviors, however, it also proves that everyone is human, even the rich and famous make mistakes.
For the average person, this book doesn’t offer as many life lessons as one would like, I preferred reading “Total Recall” by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it seems a tad cliche at times.
Nonetheless, hardcore Jackie Chan fans will enjoy this book, as will aspiring actors and stuntmen since the book shares Jackie’s inspiring struggle and what is takes to become a world famous film star.
Rating: 3/5 Stars
If you’re interested in this book, you can get it here.
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After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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Jordan B. Peterson Shares The 5 Books That Had The Biggest Influence On Him
Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, professor of psychology and bestselling author.
At the Q&A, I asked Dr. Peterson which 5 books influenced him the most.
Read more to find out his answer!
Last week I had the incredible fortune to meet the one and only Dr. Jordan B. Peterson–a Canadian clinical psychologist, professor of psychology and author of the bestselling book “12 Rules for Life.”
Peterson has been a virtual mentor of mine and was one of the key reasons I started Alex & Books. He also influenced me to stop wasting time on TV, video games and other distractions (Peterson has a great video on that topic here).
I met Dr. Peterson while he was in NYC for his book tour.
Incredibly humbled to have met the one and only Jordan Peterson.
Since I bought the VIP meet and greet tickets, I had the chance to briefly speak with Dr. Peterson, pose for a picture and participate in the VIP Q&A session (read about the full event here).
About 100 people stayed for the VIP Q&A, it only lasted about 20 minutes since Peterson had a plane to catch. Four people had the chance to ask him a question, luckily I was the fourth and last person he picked.
I wrote down my question on my phone earlier so I wouldn’t stutter or go blank if I got the chance to ask a question.
Jordan Peterson during the VIP Q&A, about 100 people stayed for this part of the show.
I asked:
You recommend over 100 books on your website, so I wanted to ask if you could apply the Pareto Principle to that list and share the 5 books that had the biggest influence on you?
Here is Peterson’s answer:
1) The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It likely isn’t a surprise for JBP fans to learn that Dr. Peterson ranked “The Gulag Archipelago” as the No. 1 book that influenced him. Peterson constantly shares stories from the book during his lectures, as well as talking about Solzhenitsyn’s other great books. Peterson even wrote the foreword to the new 50th anniversary edition of “The Gulag Archipelago.”
Book Summary:
“The Gulag Archipelago” is a three-volume, non-fictional text written by Russian writer and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was first published in 1973 and covers life in the gulag (the Communist Soviet forced labour camp system) through a narrative constructed from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a gulag prisoner.
2) Crime and Punishment & The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Tie)
Peterson said “Crime and Punishment” along with “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky would tie for second place as the books that most influenced him. Peterson is constantly referencing Dostoevsky’s work during his lectures and has called Dostoevsky one of his favorite authors and recommends reading all five of his great novels.
Book Summary:
“Crime and Punishment” focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Before the killing, Raskolnikov believes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds. However, once it is done he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust for what he has done. His moral justifications disintegrate completely as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts the real-world consequences of his deed.
Book Summary:
“The Brothers Karamazov” is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th-century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, judgment, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia, with a plot which revolves around the subject of patricide. Dostoevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which inspired the main setting. Since its publication, it has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.
3) The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Peterson ranked “The Road To Wigan Pier” as number three and although he didn’t add why this book influenced him, Peterson has talked about this book in his lectures and said “He would highly recommend this book” and called it “A truly great book” in a Facebook post.
Book Summary:
“The Road to Wigan Pier” is a book by the British writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half is a long essay on his middle-class upbringing, and the development of his political conscience, questioning British attitudes towards socialism. Orwell states plainly that he himself is in favor of socialism, but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.
4) Affective Neuroscience by Jaak Panksepp
Peterson ranked “Affective Neuroscience”as number four and commented that it is the best book on neuroscience that he’s read.
Book Summary:
“Affective Neuroscience” by Jaak Panksepp provides the most up-to-date information about the brain-operating systems that organize the fundamental emotional tendencies of all mammals. The book offers a comprehensive summary of the fundamental neural sources of human and animal feelings. The book includes chapters on sleep and arousal, pleasure and fear systems, the sources of rage and anger, and the neural control of sexuality, as well as the more subtle emotions related to maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. This book will be one of the most important contributions to understanding the biology of emotions since Darwins’ “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.”
5) The Neuropsychology of Anxiety by Gray & McNaughton
Fifth place belongs to “The Neuropsychology of Anxiety” by Jeffrey Gray and Neil McNaughton. Peterson said that this book was fascinating but also incredibly dense and each chapter would require the reader to take time to soak in all of the information. He added that it would take the average person probably a year or so to read, and even with Peterson’s background in psychology, he said it took him over 6 months to finish reading.
Book Summary:
“The Neuropsychology of Anxiety” first appeared in 1982 as the first volume in the Oxford Psychology Series, and it quickly established itself as the classic work on the subject. This completely updated and revised edition is essential for postgraduate students and researchers in experimental psychology and neuroscience, as well as for all clinical psychologists.
To summarize, here are the 5 (or technically the 6) books that had the biggest influence on Dr. Jordan B. Peterson:
Thank you everyone for reading my article, I hope you’ve found it helpful!
If you’re a fan of Jordan Peterson, I would definitely recommend going to one of his events, and for those who haven’t yet read Peterson’s book, I would highly recommend doing so.
You can get it here.
A few related articles:
What Dr. Peterson Got Right & Wrong About “A Billion Wicked Thoughts”
6 Profound Quotes from "12 Rules for Life" by Jordon Peterson
"12 Rules for Life" by Jordan B. Peterson -Book Review & Summary
Learn more about Jordan Peterson here:
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"Letters of Note" by Shaun Usher
Book summary and lessons from "Letters of Note” by Shaun Usher.
Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letter to his daughter, writing advice from Ernest Hemingway and life advice from Fyodor Dostoevsky.
This book is filled with 125 letters from writers, scientists, artists, musicians, and many more historic individuals.
Book Summary:
“Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience” by Shaun Usher is a unique collection of 125 letters from famous writers, scientists, artists, and other remarkable people throughout history.
There is an image of each letter and a transcript to go with it for easy reading, the book is also filled with photographs, portraits and relevant artworks that adds a visual treat to this collection of text.
The book contains letters from:
Albert Einstein
Benjamin Franklin
Ernest Hemingway
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kurt Vonnegut
Ray Bradbury
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ludwig van Beethoven
And many more.
Book Lessons:
1) Life Advice from F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1933, the famous American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, best known for writing “The Great Gatsby”, sent a letter to his young daughter while she was away at camp.
The letter is filled with wisdom such as the things she should worry about in life and the things that she shouldn’t worry about. Here are a few lines from the letter:
“All I believe in life is the rewards for virtue and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly.
”
“Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures”
2) Writing Advice from Ernest Hemingway
Even the best writers encounter roadblocks and question the quality of their work. So in 1934 when F. Scott Fitzgerald needed honest feedback, he turned to his old and trustworthy friend, Ernest Hemingway.
Fitzgerald had just published “Tender is the Night” and wanted Hemingway’s opinion on the book–Hemingway did not hold back and the brutal honesty of his advice remains invaluable for all writers.
Here are a few quotes from the letter:
“For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it–don’t cheat it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist–but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.”
“You’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write.
”
“But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvelous...You can write twice as well now as you ever could.”
“All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. Go on and write.”
3) Advice from Fyodor Dostoevsky
In April 1849, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was arrested for discussing literature banned by Czar Nicholas I and sent for execution. At the last minute, the execution was called off and Dostoevsky was instead sent to a prison camp in Siberia.
He would go on to spend almost 5 years in prison and after being released, write such classics as “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov.”
A day after his execution was called off, Dostoevsky sent a letter to his brother in which he described his death sentence, talked about his new perspective on life. Here are a few quotes from the letter:
“When I look back at the past and think how much time has been wasted in vain, how much time was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in ignorance of how to live, how I did not value time, how often I sinned against my heart and spirit,–my heart bleeds. ”
“Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness.”
“Now, changing my life, I am being reborn into a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I shall not lose hope, and shall preserve my spirit and heart in purity. I shall be reborn to a better thing. That is my whole hope, my whole comfort!”
“The life in prison has already sufficiently killed in me the demands of the flesh which were not wholly pure; I took little heed of myself before...do not fear that any material hardship will kill me. This cannot be! Ah! To have health!”
Book Review:
“Letters of Note” by Shaun Usher is the perfect coffee table book, especially for people who love to read or write. There is something special about reading letters, particularly handwritten letters, from famous individuals that gives readers an inside look into the person’s soul.
Since most of the letters are only a page or so, you can read this book bit by bit without having to remember past characters or the storyline. Instead, pickup this book whenever you have a few minutes and read a letter from Charles Darwin or John F. Kennedy.
The book is also filled with images and photographs that add another layer of personality to the letters and make the writing come alive. Whether you are into science, writing, art, music–there is something for everyone in this book.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
If you’re interested in reading the full letters or reading more letters from a wide-range of authors, you can get “Letters of Note” here.
After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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"Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport
Book summary and lessons from "Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport.
Learn how how social media is designed to be addictive, how to perform a digital declutter and how to replace social media with deep meaningful activities.
Matt Ridley is a professor and author of several books including “Deep Work” and “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.”
Book Summary:
“Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Cal Newport takes the concept of minimalism and applies it to personal technology. In an overstimulated world, this book will teach readers how to live a focused and productive life.
The book is similar to Newport’s last book, “Deep Work” but has a greater focus on how to properly use smartphones, personal tech and social media.
Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists can rethink their relationship to social media, rediscover the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnect with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude.
He also shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.
Technology is neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the how.
Book Lessons:
1) How Social Media is designed to be addicting
“Just as Tristan Harris warned, in many cases these addictive properties of new technologies are not accidents, but instead carefully engineered design features.
”
When the first iPhone was released in 2007, there was no App store, no social media notifications and no Instagram. Fast forward a decade and almost everyone who has a smartphone is addicted to it and social media.
The average modern user spends around “two hours per day on social media” and checks their phone “eighty-five times a day.” People text while driving, they cross the street while looking at Instagram and watch YouTube videos while using the bathroom–the addiction is widespread.
Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer and whistleblower of tech addiction, explains that minimizing distractions and respecting users’ attention would reduce revenue for companies such as Google. Since many tech giants operate on an attention driven model (the more eyeballs they get, the more ads they can sell), these companies don’t have much incentive to become less addictive.
So how do these companies design tech to grab as much of your attention as possible?
One way is by creating attention-catching notifications and making it easy to find the next interesting post.
The original Facebook notification symbol was blue to match the rest of the site, “but no one used it. So they changed the color to red–an alarm color–and clicking sky rocketed.”
Almost every social media platform has copied this concept and also added a news feed with infinite scrolling. Infinite scrolling allows users to see post after post for hours on end–it’s difficult to stop when there is no finish line and the fear of missing out (FOMO) on an interesting post is always in the back of your head.
Social media is also designed to encourage users to seek social approval.
“In Paleolithic times, it was important that you carefully managed your social standing with other members of your tribe because your survival depended on it.” Today, new technologies hijack this deep drive to create a behavioral addiction.
When someone shares a new post, they aren’t sure whether ‘their tribe’ will approve of it or not so they constantly monitor its progress. If the post gets a lot of likes, hearts or comments, people feel a surge of dopamine. If the post doesn’t do well or doesn’t get as many likes as the last post, people will often delete it.
As Sean Parker, the founding President of Facebook, once said that features like these are part of a “social-validation feedback loop...exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
2) Take a digital declutter
“Digital Minimalism:
A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.
”
Much like cleaning out a house that is filled with things that provide little to no value to one’s life, Newport suggests doing a digital declutter in which you clear away distracting tools and compulsive habits.
Here’s how:
Take a 30 day break from optional technologies in your life.
During that break, explore and rediscover activities and behaviors that you find satisfying and meaningful.
At the end of the break, slowly reintroduce optional technologies in your life. For each technology you reintroduce, determine what value it serves in your life and how specifically you will use it to maximize this value.
Newport sent this declutter challenge to his mailing list and surprisingly, over 1,600 people signed up. Here are a few tips from for this challenge:
During the first step, remove social media, video games, video streaming and other technologies that aren’t necessary in your life–you can survive without Netflix or Reddit for a few weeks.
For the second step, focus on spending time on rediscovering what’s important to you and what you enjoy outside the digital world–try different hobbies, spend time playing sports, reconnect with old friends by meeting in person, read some books, etc.
The final step requires you to start from a blank slate and only allow the technology that greatly benefits you life to come back in–ask yourself, is this app, social media platform, video game, tv show...etc, really adding value to your life or not?
Lastly, here are 3 pieces of advice when considering whether to bring an optional technology back into your life, it must:
Serve something you deeply value (offering some benefit is not enough).
Be the best way to use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better).
Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it.
3) Connect in the real world, not the digital one
“Investing energy into something hard but worthwhile almost always returns much more richer rewards.”
The key issue is that using social media tends to take people away from the real world socializing that’s massively more valuable.
Social media isn’t inherently bad, it’s like a knife– a knife can be used to cut open a watermelon for people to enjoy or as a weapon that hurts people.
This is why it’s important to know when and how to use social media so it’s used for good instead of something bad.
Studies show that people who spend more time on social media feel more lonely and miserable because they are spending most of their time online instead of offline.
The tiny dopamine boost a person gets from getting a lot of likes on their Instagram picture isn’t nearly the same as the dopamine wave one gets from spending quality time with a dear friend.
Instead of using your smartphone and social media to connect with people online, use it as a way to plan activities in the real world.
Plan a weekend basketball pickup game
Host a weekly poker night at your house
Meetup with old friends and reconnect at a local bar
Have a weekly game night with the family
Join a volunteer group to help improve the community
There are countless of activities that will result in deeper relationships and be much more meaningful than stay at home and scrolling through your newsfeed.
If you’re more introverted, find a craft that you enjoy and adds value to your life.
This can include:
Crafting a wooden table
Knitting a new sweater
Renovating your guest room
Creating a new song
Working on your jumpshot
Reading great literature
Writing a journal entry
All of these crafts provide a good source of high-quality leisure. “Craft allows an escape from this shallowness and provides instead a deeper source of pride.”
High-skill effort activities (like building your own coffee table) require more than than low-skill effort activities (like answering emails) but yield much more meaning. “Over time, you’ll soon begin to wonder how you ever tolerated spending so many of your leisure hours staring passively at glowing screens.”
Conclusion:
“Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport is a book that does exactly what it says, it shows readers how to have a focused life in a noisy world.
Social media apps may be free, but people pay for them with their most precious resources, their time and attention. With this book, readers will be able to fight against the tech giants and regain control of their lives, thus becoming aware of to properly use technology to your advantage, instead of tech companies using it to theirs.
By revealing the forces behind addictive technologies and introducing readers to a minimalism philosophy, readers will be well-equipped to thrive in an increasingly digital-first world. Anyone who owns a smartphone or uses social media for more than an hour each day should read this book.
Rating: 4/5
(Thank you Portfolio Penguin for sending over a copy of this book!)
If you’re interested in getting the book, click here or on the images below.
Here are a few similar articles:
After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
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Ernest Hemingway’s Writing Advice to F. Scott. Fitzgerald
In 1934, Ernest Hemingway wrote a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The letter contains Hemingway’s thoughts on Fitzgerald’s latest book and is filled with great writing advice.
Both writers and authors will find Hemingway’s advice incredibly helpful.
Writing is hard, even the best writers encounter roadblocks and question the quality of their work. So in 1934 when F. Scott Fitzgerald needed honest feedback, he turned to his old and trustworthy friend, Ernest Hemingway.
Fitzgerald had just published “Tender is the Night” and wanted Hemingway’s opinion on the book–Hemingway did not hold back and the brutal honesty of his advice remains invaluable for all writers.
The book “Letters of Note” shares Hemingway’s response.
Here are a few fantastic quotes from his letter:
“I liked it and I didn’t...If you take real people and write about them you cannot give them other parents than they have (they are made by their parents and what happens to them) you cannot make them do anything they would not do. ”
“Invention is the finest thing but you cannot invent anything that would not actually happen. That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best–make it all up–but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way. ”
“That’s what dries a writer up (we all dry up. That’s no insult to you in person) not listening...You see well enough. But you stop listening. It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.”
As the letter goes on, Hemingway advice gets even better:
“For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. ”
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it–don’t cheat it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist–but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you. ”
“You’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write.”
“But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvelous...You can write twice as well now as you ever could. ”
“All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. Go on and write. ”
Hemingway may have written this letter over 80 years ago but his advice, just like his books, are remain indispensable.
If you’re interested in reading the full letter or reading about more letters from a wide-range of authors, you can get the book “Letters of Note” here.
Here are a few similar articles:
After reading 100+ books, here are the books I recommend reading.
Please consider supporting A&B or signing up for our monthly newsletter. Thank you!
"The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley
Book summary and lessons from "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley.
Learn why women conceal fertility, why women want rich and tall men and why romance novels are porn for women.
Matt Ridley is a scientist, journalist and bestselling author.
Book Summary:
“The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature” by Matt Ridley answers dozens of riddles about human nature and culture–including why men propose marriage, the method behind our notions of beauty, why humans reproduce sexually instead of asexually and many more human mysterious.
Author Matt Ridley also argues that men are polygamous for the obvious reason that whichever gender has to spend the most time and energy creating and rearing offspring tends to avoid extra mating, while women are far less interested in multiple partners and will commit adultery if stuck with a mediocre mate.
Read on to learn why women conceal their fertility, why women like men who are tall, wealthy and have status, and why romance novels equal porn for women.
Book Lessons:
1) Why Women Conceal Their Fertility
“Women’s genes seem to have gone to inordinate lengths to conceal the moment of ovulation. ”
A lot of animals, such as chimps, mice and dogs, can tell when the other sex is ‘in heat’ and fertile for mating.
Some animals make it extremely clear, “chimpanzees become pink; cows smell irresistible to bulls...female mice solicit male mice” but when it comes to female humans, women have evolved to hide their ovulation, so much so that even they don’t always know exactly when the moment will happen.
So why do women not advertise to mates that they are fertile like other species?
One argument is that since the man doesn’t know when the woman is pregnant, he must stay around and have intercourse with her often to be sure he is the father of the children. “This keeps him from mischief and ensures he is still around to help rear the babies.”
The second argument, is that if females wish to select their choice of partner, it makes little sense for them to advertise their ovulation. She wants to first choose a mate, then advertise to him that she is fertile afterwards while keeping the other males guessing.
Both arguments are logical and make a strong case. Ideally, a woman would want to select the best mate and then keep him around for form a long-term relationship with him instead of advertising that she is fertile and hooking up with the first guy that comes by,
2) Women Want Men With Status, Wealth & Height
“Men consistently place physical features above personality and status when considering women; women do not when considering men.
”
Good news guys, women don’t care about a guy’s physical appearance as men do!
This isn’t because men are shallow, but rather men look for cues to learn about the health of a woman–a symmetrical face, large breasts and hips are all features that indicate a healthy body (read more from "A Billion Wicked Thoughts” by Ogas & Gaddam).
However, everyone already knew what men desire, the million dollar question is what do women desire?
The answer: Status, wealth and height.
Status: Ideally a woman would want to be with someone who is ‘on the top of the food chain’ such as a doctor or CEO, but since most women choose a mate long before a man has had the chance to become high status, women look for clues for future potential.
This includes clues such as past achievements, intelligence, ambition, optimism, poise–”these are the things that cause men to rise to the top of their professions. And not coincidentally, these are the things women find attractive.”
Wealth: The stereotype is true, women want wealthy men. “Women pay attention to cues of wealth and power, men pay attention to cues of health and youth.”
This is because a wealthy husband helps the wife by increasing “the number of and health of her children.” More money equals more food, medicine, shelter and many more things that will improve the odds of her children surviving and thriving.
Height: “Tall men are universally considered more attractive by women than short men...the principle that a man must be taller than his date is so universal that it has been called ‘the cardinal principle of date selection.”
This doesn’t mean you have to be 6’8” to date women, it means if you’re interested in a women who is 5’4”, she would likely prefer someone 5’5” or taller.
3) Why romance novels Equal porn for women
“Porn is designed for, marketed to, and sought out by men, not women. The romance novel, by contrast, is aimed entirely at the female market.
”
While men are attracted to visual images and having fantasize multiple partners, women are not. They prefer touch and fantasize about a familiar partner.
This is one of the main reasons women prefer romance novels over pornography.
While men are interested in intercourse with as many mates as possible (common theme in porn), to have as many offspring as they can, women have a different strategy.
Since a women can only have one child at a time and usually has to raise that child for a decade or two, women go for the best mate (common theme in books).
There is no evolutionary advantage for a woman to have sex with multiple men since she will only produce one offspring. Women have nothing to gain and in fact have a great deal to lose from this, especially if the women is looking for a long-term partner.
This explains why “male sexual fantasies tend to be more ubiquitous, frequent, visual...promiscuous and active” while “female sexual fantasies tend to be more contextual, emotive, intimate, and passive.”
The men in those novels are discussed in great detail, but with a focus on the man’s character and not his body.
Not surprisingly, sex plays a very small part in romance novels, instead, the majority of the book is about “love, commitment, domesticity, nurturing and the formation of relationships.”
Conclusion:
“The Red Queen” by Matt Ridley is a well-written and insightful journey that takes readers through genetics, neurobiology, psychology and many more areas of science to explore the evolution of human nature.
The book explains the benefits of sexual reproduction versus asexual, the different ways animals and humans evolved over thousands of years and how men and women seek different traits in a mate.
Although there were several nuggets of valuable information in this book, it is a bit outdated since it was written in 1993. I’d recommend first reading "A Billion Wicked Thoughts” by Ogas & Gaddam since it was written 2012 and has much more info on sex and human nature.
Rating: 3/5
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