Book Review
Mastering the art of hilarious mishaps, this guide celebrates life’s awkward moments and the joy of not having it together
Mastering the art of hilarious mishaps, this guide celebrates life’s awkward moments and the joy of not having it together
“The book delves into effective decision-making, organizational growth, and the importance of diversification in investments, drawing from real-world events like the European debt crisis.”
“It’s at this point that I discovered that ‘talent’ is a word people use to describe you when they want to express good-hearted empathy. It merely reflects that you’re not yet a threat to their dominance or their prize fund flow. It’s when they trash-talk you like they did after my surprise coup in Italy – that you know you’re respected, maybe even feared.
The way I see it, talent is a lot like a plant. When it’s watered with hard work, it grows, branches out and blooms. Deprived of nourishment, the plant simply withers away. With hard work, talent gains in depth and scope, and uncovers abilities that were earlier unexplored. Talent and hard work, therefore, aren’t conflicting forces orbiting in separate galaxies; they are complementary to each other and provide one another with sustenance. I hate to undermine the worth of talent. Unquestionably, talent exists.”
Excerpt From: Viswanathan Anand. “Mind Master:Winning Lessons From a Champion’s Life.”
“The Tropicana deal secured my promotion to partner, and I celebrated by redecorating my office. If I was going to be there twelve hours a day, I wanted it to be a cocoon against all the psychological stresses of my work, cozy, like a beautiful sitting room or library in an English house. I had the walls painted partly in reddish-maroon, the rest covered in the kind of grass cloth I’d seen at Lee Eastman’s place. I installed a chocolate carpet, chintz chairs, and a partners’ desk from the 1890s. It was exquisite. No one else at the firm had ever done this. It wasn’t how they thought about work. But I didn’t consider myself to be at work.”
Excerpt From: Stephen A. Schwarzman. “What It Takes.”
“Steve was in a sociable mood, so we chatted it up for a few minutes, and then the meeting began. “Before we start, let me just update you on a few things,” said Steve, his eyes surveying the room. “First off, let’s talk about iMac—”
He stopped cold. His eyes locked on to the one thing in the room that didn’t look right. Pointing to Lorrie, he said, “Who are you?”
Lorrie was a bit stunned to be called out like that, but she calmly explained that she’d been asked to attend because she was involved with some of the marketing projects we’d be discussing. Steve heard it. Processed it. Then he hit her with the Simple Stick.
“I don’t think we need you in this meeting, Lorrie. Thanks,” he said. Then, as if that diversion had never occurred—and as if Lorrie never existed—he continued with his update.”
Excerpt From: Insanely Simple. “Ken Segall.”
“Office duplicating by machine was a new and unsettling idea that upset long-established office patterns. In 1887, after all, the typewriter had been on the market only a little over a decade and wasn’t yet in widespread use, and neither was carbon paper. If a businessman or a lawyer wanted five copies of a document, he’d have a clerk make five copies—by hand.”
“Why should I want to have a lot of copies of this and that lying around? Nothing but clutter in the office, a temptation to prying eyes, and a waste of good paper.’”
Excerpt From: John Brooks. “Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street.”
“Ballmer and other Amazon skeptics, like the hedge fund investor David Einhorn, who added Amazon to his “bubble basket of stocks” that fall, were looking at Amazon’s reported losses and significant investments in new initiatives. They were also underestimating the true performance of its older business units, which the company shrouded in secrecy. Amazon was profitable, particularly mature retail categories like books and electronics in the U.S. and UK. But rather than accumulating record amounts of cash and reporting it on its income statement, as companies like Microsoft and Apple were doing at the time, Bezos invested Amazon’s winnings like a crazed gambler at the craps table in Las Vegas.”
Excerpt From: Brad Stone. “Amazon Unbound.”
“The painting of the jets by the new leader was perplexing to those at the top of the company. Although the painting project wasn’t expensive enough to move the needle at the massive company, it did cost a lot of money. Furthermore, the jets didn’t need to be painted and the reasoning for the move was unclear. It was another lesson about Jeff Immelt. If he wanted something, he got it and it was best not to question too much.”
Excerpt From: Thomas Gryta. “Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric.” – Amazon Link
Read also Book Review: Hot Seat – Jeff Immelt
“Creativity is at the heart of every stupid idea. In fact, it would be safe to say that more often than not, creativity and stupid are interchangeable. Stupid ideas come from a very powerful, creative space within our hearts and minds. The natural tendency is to recoil from these ideas, because everything inherent to that kind of creativity requires breaking away from the norm, going against the grain, and leaning into risk and fear. To many people, great creativity is just not worth the risk (or the discomfort)—particularly not within the firmly established culture of an organization as a whole.”
Excerpt From: Norton, Richie. “The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret.”
“If you take away just one message from this book, I hope it is this: life doesn’t have to be as hard and complicated as we make it. Each of us has, as Robert Frost wrote, “promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep.” No matter what challenges, obstacles, or hardships we encounter along the way, we can always look for the easier, simpler path.”
Excerpt From: Greg McKeown. “Effortless.”