Book Review: The Leaders Way with The Dalai Lama

The Monk and the Management Consultant – looking for a synthesis between capitalism and Buddhism

Today’s reading was this little book that comes from a decade of collaboration between two unlikely worlds. The jist of the book is Right Decision Making by taking a truly “long view” in a deeply “interdependent world.” Right decisions come from right view, which lead to right action. Therefore at core of all leadership is right action that benefits all. Systems thinking/holistic viewpoint is to be adopted, along with mindfullness. This means seeing things as they really are, and looking at things from other peoples perspective as well.

Three central concepts have to become instinctual to decision making— cause and effect, interdependence, and impermence

Learn to train the mind to be calm, collected and concentrated. Training the mind must become instinctual like eating food. Calm and collected decisions involves asking ourselves four questions: What is the reality and is it a problem? What is the cause of the problem? What do I want to achieve? How can I arrive at the goal?

If you remember only two concepts after reading this book—Right View and Right Conduct—and keep these two principles vivid in your mind, your decision making will improve, as will your satisfaction with life.

Three sections in the book –

1) Leading Self – best way for a ruler to reign over his country is to first rule himself well. The Six Perfections to leading oneself —often expressed as generosity, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiastic effort, concentration, and wisdom—are of obvious value to all individuals, Meditation is key, and the book discuss’ 5 methods of meditation for indiviuals, as a key method of training the mind.

2) Leading Organization – Several of the CEOs reported that fewer meetings were required because they had learned to concentrate and give their undivided attention to the item at hand.The first step of a leader is to restore faith and purspoe in those one leads.Creating Faith, establish values and make right decisions. The purpose of a business/org cannot be profit, profit is the end result of what you. Pursue happiness of all involved.

3) Leading in an interconnected world – goal of achieving freedom and prosperity for all.

Quotes from the book, that stuck a chord with me

I believe that leaders of religious traditions—with their ability to take a long view of the human condition—should participate in discussions of global business and economics.

The root of happiness is not in what we desire or what we get but somewhere altogether different. It stems from a place of inner contentment that exists no matter what we gain or achieve.

People cannot be truly happy unless they have friendships and good relationships with other people. Furthermore, good relationships are reciprocal.

True leaders have the ability to look at an issue from many perspectives and, based on that expanded view, make the right decisions. They have a calm, collected, and concentrated mind, undisturbed by negative thoughts and emotions, trained and focused. And true leadership recognizes the inevitability of change, the need for a sense of universal responsibility, and the importance of combining an economic system with moral values. That is the leader’s way.

Thinking the right way means making sure that every action is based on the right intention and the right motivation. The right intention is that the action will be beneficial to you and everyone affected by it;The second part recognizes three aspects of reality: impermanence, interdependence, and dependent origination. Buddhism teaches that nothing exists that is permanent; nothing exists that is independent; and nothing exists without a cause.

the root cause of suffering was self-centeredness. Also People would rather deal with a person who is interested in their well-being than with someone who is interested only in him- or herself.

Right View consists of two parts: the decision-making process and the three values or concepts—dependent origination, interdependence, and impermanence—that have to be respected in every decision

The concept of impermanence teaches us that every goal is a moving target.

Right livelihood is important – do not deal in weapons; deal in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter, as well as the slave trade and prostitution); work in meat production and butchery; and selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs.

The researchers compared the brain maps of 175 people who had never meditated to the brain map of the monk. They found that the monk’s activity in the frontal lobe, which is associated with greater happiness, was higher than that of any of the 175 other people tested. the meditators had 5 percent thicker brain tissue in the prefrontal cortex.4 In other words, meditation had seemingly enlarged the part of the brain that regulates emotion, attention, and working memory.

Buddha considered respect for all to be very important. Buddhists believe that even if a person acts badly, he or she has the potential to become a good person and deserves respect as a human being.

Worth reading slowly, and returning to it from time to time.

5 STAR MUST READ : Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth - Bucky Fuller

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth – Bucky Fuller

As I have returned to serious reading again, am devouring the works of Bucky again, and understanding it in a whole new light. Bucky is a genius in the league of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. He was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartograher, philosopher, futurist, inventor, inspirer.. you get the idea.

His work was very instrumental in my life and in almost everything I do, esp his emphasis on generalized principles. I got back to his classic work Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth after many years. This is an easy introduction to some of the bigideas of this brilliant man. IMHO his works shuold be required reading to every kid in high middle/high school.

If you have not read this book, you MUST READ IT! If I was making something a must read, this would definitely be one of the 25 books.

Key Ideas:
1. Speclialization is unnatureal
2. The great pirates were the origins of specialization, they profited from no one knowing the whole picture
3. Most people are unaware that we are still rules by the “great Pirates” who employ divide and conquer
4. Earth is a spaceship and the sun is the energy sourse
5. How big can we think is the real question – employ General Systems Theory
6. Synergy – whole is greater than the sum of its parts
7. Integral functions – wealth is expanded by development of tools which go beyond what was integral to man

Awesome Quotes from the book

Only our minds are able to discover the generalized principles operating without exception in
each and every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will give knowledgeable
advantage in all instances.

Society assumes that specialization is natural, inevitable, and desirable. Yet in observing a little child,
we find it is interested in everything and spontaneously apprehends, comprehends, and coordinates
an ever expending inventory of experiences. Children are enthusiastic planetarium
audiences. Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its wanting to
understand all and put everything together.

Pirates were the first interconnectors. And it followed that these Great Pirates came into mortal battle with one another to see
who was going to control the vast sea routes and eventually the world. Their battles took place
out of sight of landed humanity. The wider and more long distanced their
anticipatory strategy, the more successful they became.

Leonardo da Vinci is the outstanding example of the comprehensively anticipatory design
scientist. Finally, the sea-dwelling Leonardos became Captains of the ships or even Admirals of Fleets,
or Commandants of the Navy yards where they designed and built the fleets, or they became
the commandants of the naval war colleges where they designed and developed the
comprehensive strategy for running the world for a century to come.

Then came the grand strategy which said, “divide and conquer.” You divide up the other
man’s ships in battle or you best him when several of his ships are hauled out on the land for
repairs. They also had a grand strategy of anticipatory divide and conquer. Anticipatory divide
and conquer was much more effective than tardy divide and conquer

But specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the “expert” is fooled into
accepting his slavery by making him feel that in return he is in a socially and culturally
preferred, ergo, highly secure, lifelong position. But only the king’s son received the Kingdomwide
scope of training.

Extinction in both cases (biology and anthropology) was the consequence of over-specialization.

I’m sure that you don’t really sense yourself to be aboard a
fantastically real spaceship our spherical Spaceship Earth. Of our little sphere you have seen
only small portions. However, you have viewed more than did pre-twentieth-century man, for in
his entire lifetime he saw only one-millionth of the Earth’s surface. You’ve seen a lot more. If
you are a veteran world airlines pilot you may have seen one one-hundredth of Earth’s surface.

Spaceship Earth was so extraordinarily well invented and designed that to our knowledge
humans have been on board it for two million years not even knowing that they were on board
a ship. And our spaceship is so superbly designed as to be able to keep life regenerating on
board despite the phenomenon, entropy, by which all local physical systems lose energy. So we
have to obtain our biological life-regenerating energy from another spaceship the sun.

I define universe, including both the
physical and metaphysical, as follows: The universe is the aggregate of all of humanity’s
consciously-apprehended and communicated experience with the nonsimultaneous,
nonidentical, and only partially overlapping, always complementary, weighable and
unweighable, ever omni-transforming, event sequences

synergy is the only word in our language meaning behavior of wholes unpredicted by
behavior of their parts

It is obvious that the real wealth of life aboard our planet is a forwardly-operative,
metabolic, and intellectual regenerating system.

Wealth is anti-entropy at a most exquisite degree of concentration. The difference between
mind and brain is that brain deals only with memorized, subjective, special-case experiences
and objective experiments, while mind extracts and employs the generalized principles and
integrates and interrelates their effective employment. Brain deals exclusively with the physical,
and mind exclusively with the metaphysical. Wealth is the product of the progressive mastery of
matter by mind
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth – Bucky Fuller

Bucky is a genius in the leauge of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. He was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartograher,
philosopher, futurist, inventor, inspirer.. you get the idea.

His work was very instrumental in my life and in almost everything I do, esp his emphasis on generalized principles. I got back to his
classic work Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth after many years. This is an easy introduction to some of the big
ideas of this brilliant man. IMHO his works shuold be required reading to every kid in high middle/high school.

If you have not read this book, you MUST READ IT!

Key Ideas:
1. Speclialization is unnatureal
2. The great pirates were the origins of specialization, they profited from no one knowing the whole picture
3. Most people are unaware that we are still rules by the “great Pirates” who employ divide and conquer
4. Earth is a spaceship and the sun is the energy sourse
5. How big can we think is the real question – employ General Systems Theory
6. Synergy – whole is greater than the sum of its parts
7. Integral functions – wealth is expanded by development of tools which go beyond what was integral to man

Awesome Quotes from the book

Only our minds are able to discover the generalized principles operating without exception in
each and every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will give knowledgeable
advantage in all instances.

Society assumes that specialization is natural, inevitable, and desirable. Yet in observing a little child,
we find it is interested in everything and spontaneously apprehends, comprehends, and coordinates
an ever expending inventory of experiences. Children are enthusiastic planetarium
audiences. Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its wanting to
understand all and put everything together.

Pirates were the first interconnectors. And it followed that these Great Pirates came into mortal battle with one another to seewho was going to control the vast sea routes and eventually the world. Their battles took place
out of sight of landed humanity. The wider and more long distanced their
anticipatory strategy, the more successful they became.

Leonardo da Vinci is the outstanding example of the comprehensively anticipatory design
scientist. Finally, the sea-dwelling Leonardos became Captains of the ships or even Admirals of Fleets,
or Commandants of the Navy yards where they designed and built the fleets, or they became
the commandants of the naval war colleges where they designed and developed the
comprehensive strategy for running the world for a century to come.

Then came the grand strategy which said, “divide and conquer.” You divide up the other
man’s ships in battle or you best him when several of his ships are hauled out on the land for
repairs. They also had a grand strategy of anticipatory divide and conquer. Anticipatory divide
and conquer was much more effective than tardy divide and conquer

But specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the “expert” is fooled into
accepting his slavery by making him feel that in return he is in a socially and culturally
preferred, ergo, highly secure, lifelong position. But only the king’s son received the Kingdomwide
scope of training.

Extinction in both cases (biology and anthropology) was the consequence of over-specialization.

I’m sure that you don’t really sense yourself to be aboard a
fantastically real spaceship our spherical Spaceship Earth. Of our little sphere you have seen
only small portions. However, you have viewed more than did pre-twentieth-century man, for in
his entire lifetime he saw only one-millionth of the Earth’s surface. You’ve seen a lot more. If
you are a veteran world airlines pilot you may have seen one one-hundredth of Earth’s surface.

Spaceship Earth was so extraordinarily well invented and designed that to our knowledge
humans have been on board it for two million years not even knowing that they were on board
a ship. And our spaceship is so superbly designed as to be able to keep life regenerating on
board despite the phenomenon, entropy, by which all local physical systems lose energy. So we
have to obtain our biological life-regenerating energy from another spaceship the sun.

I define universe, including both the
physical and metaphysical, as follows: The universe is the aggregate of all of humanity’s
consciously-apprehended and communicated experience with the nonsimultaneous,
nonidentical, and only partially overlapping, always complementary, weighable and
unweighable, ever omni-transforming, event sequences

synergy is the only word in our language meaning behavior of wholes unpredicted by
behavior of their parts

It is obvious that the real wealth of life aboard our planet is a forwardly-operative,
metabolic, and intellectual regenerating system.

Wealth is anti-entropy at a most exquisite degree of concentration. The difference between
mind and brain is that brain deals only with memorized, subjective, special-case experiences
and objective experiments, while mind extracts and employs the generalized principles and
integrates and interrelates their effective employment. Brain deals exclusively with the physical,
and mind exclusively with the metaphysical. Wealth is the product of the progressive mastery of
matter by mindOperating Manual for Spaceship Earth – Bucky Fuller

MUST READ IMHO

5 Star Book Review: Paradox of Choice

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE by Barry Schwartz
Four and Half Stars- Must Read for anyone interested in “decision making”

A fantastic book on why more is less (or less is more). It is a fantastic essay on how the culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction in life, and more importantly bring in depression. It shares enough case studies and examples of why more is less, and how to increase satisfaction life.

Key Idea: Giving people too many choices tends to lessen their satisfaction.
“Maximizers” are people who, given a choice, will exhaustively search all the options, seeking all possible information, in order to make the best possible choice. This behavior generally consumes a lot of time, and often leads to nagging doubts, perhaps where no one clear winner emerged.
“Satisficers” are those who settle for a choice that is “good enough” for them These people are generally happier with their choice, and spend less time choosing, leaving them free to enjoy other things.

Counterintuitive wisdom

1. We are better of if we embraced voluntary constrains of choice on our freedom of choice, instead of rebelling against in thme
2. We are better off when we choose good enough instead of seeking the best
3. Lower your expectations about the results of your decisions
4. We are better off if our decisions are irreverseable
5. We are better off if we paid less attention to what others do around us

Summary of the book by Chapter:
Lets go shopping: Every area of our life from the super market to the education market offers way too much choice.

New Choice: Filtering our extraneous information is the key function of consciousnesses.

Deciding and Choosing: Figure your goals out, rank them, evaluate options and their likelyhood to meet goals, pick winning option .
Growth of options and opportunities means decisions require more effort, mistakes are more likely and psychological ocnsequence of mistakes is more severe.

When Only The Best Will Do: When you seek and only the best will do you are a MAXIMIZER. When you seek the good enough and not worry about consequences you are a SATISFIER.
Maximizers tend to: make more product comparisons, take longer to decide, compare their decisions to others, experience more regret that others, feel less positive about their decisions.

Choice & happiness: Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy. The choice of when to be a chooser may be the most important choice we have to make. The more control people have, the less helpless they feel, the less depressed they will be.
Time spent with dealing with choice is time spent away from being in life.
Some constrain can afford liberty, while freedom will bring enslavement, it is wise to choose the the constrains.

Missed opportunities: Examine opportunity costs – more the choices, we diminish our subjective experience of benefits, thus we are worse off.
When people have too many options and trade offs, they avoid making decisions options we consider usually suffer from companions with other options
One reason why maximizers are less happy, less satisfied with their lives, and more depressed than satisfiers is precisely because the taint of tradeoffs and opportunity costs washes out much that hshould be satisfying about the decisions they make.

The Problem of Regret: Two factors affect regret a) personal responsibility for the result b) how easily we can imagine the counter factual better alternative.
Regret looms more for the maximizer than the satisfier.

Everything suffers from Comparisons: Curse fof high expectations, curse of social comparisons due to race for status,
Maximizers are more concerned with social comparisons than satisfiers. Increasing available options seems to usually reduce satisfaction.

Whose Fault is it?:Helplessness induced by failure or lack of control causes depression. Depression more common when only the best will do.

What to do about Choice?:
1)Choose when to choose.- think of cost associated with decisions.
2) Be a chooser not a picker –
3)Satisfy more, maximize less
4)Think about opportunity costs of opportunity costs – dont be swayed by new and improved
5) Make decisions non reversible
6) Practice an attitude of gratitude
7)Regret less
8) Anticipate adaptation – focus on how things are as opposed to as they were
9) Control expectations
10) Avoid social comparisons
11)Learn to love constrains

is worth the read, to hammer home the point of embracing a satisfaction based life, and how to learn to love constrains. BUY THIS BOOK, which was voted as a TOP 10 book for the year by Business Week to understand why” less is more, and how to increase the satisfaction in your life.”

5 Star Book Review: Hagakure - Code of the Samurai

If you have seen the movie Ghost Dog you have been introduced to the Hagakure. If you have studied the Bushido in any form, then no doubt you have come across this work. Profound and misunderstood at the same time. A lifetime treat to unravel slowly and delibrately. READ THIS BOOK if the old ways of the blade call you

The warrior rule in Japan lasted from 1160 to 1868. In 1710 Tsunetomo Yamamoto began dictating perhaps one of the best known and least understood books on the Way of the Warrior- The Hagakure. This is the Code of the Samurai.

The book is a collection of parables that point towards the Samurai life. It begins with a young scribe who comes to an old master looking for a unique education, and boy does he get one.

In this edition which is adapted by Sean Micheal Wilson – the old wisdom stories are bought to life in anime/illustrations, making it a real pleasure to read.

The book is divided into firve chapters 1)The Way of the Samurai 2) Loyalty 3)Revenge 4)Kaishaku and Seppaku 5) Sincerity

Way of The Samurai: – book of Kokendenju. Several anecdotes that illustrate the path less travelled. Lesson 1:Matters of Great Concern should be treated lightly 2: Learning when to be ruthless and when to retire 3: Making fun of others is beneath a Samurai 4: Samurai does not ignore rude behavior

Loyalty:- 1: to the present moment 2: being kind to ones retainers 3: Not to seek wealth and fame for its own sake 4:the geneology story 5:Staying humble at heart

Revenge:- Revenge is beautiful act 2: Avoiding shame by embracing death 3: How to take proper revenge

Kaishaku and Seppaku : 1:The right way to cut heads 2:NO fame for a good cut, but a lifetime of disgrace for a bad one

Sincerity: 1:Sincerity is the way of heaven and is instinctive

If you are into MA you will lobe this book, if you study the old ways then BUY THIS BOOK. If you are fascinated by the Japanese ways, and or anime, you will really enjoy this adaptation.

Get this comic book, you will love it for its wisdom and fantastic art

5 Star Book Review: THE LESSONS OF HISTORY by Will & Ariel Durant

The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant

This is the celebrated collection of essays compiling over 5000 years of history. The two coauthors of the 9000 page, 50 year quest culminating in a 11 volume work called “story of civilizations.” When they were asked on lessons from History, they offered up a survey of history based on Geography, Biology, Race, Character, Morals, Religion, Economics, Socialism, Government, War and growth.

If you were read only one book on history make this the one. IT IS A MUST READ no matter wheater you are a fan of history or not, this little 96 page book is a sweeping course on the BIG LESSONS FROM HISTORY. Do yourself a favor, and BUY THIS BOOK and read it. You will thank yourself.

Big Ideas/Summary points from the book

Human history is a brief spot in space, and its first lesson is in modesty

Westwards the routes of the empire takes, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Will it go next to China? (he said this in 1930s)

Biology: life is competition, we cooperate to compete better against the other groups. Lesson 2. Selection: Nature has not read the Bill of Rights: leave man free and inequalities will multiply. Lesson 3: Life must breed

Race: Fights the ideas that “All strong characters are race consious and instintively averse to to marriage outside of their racial group. The indian Caste system was the formulation of Aryans from Europe.”
History is color blind and can develop great civilizations under any race. A knowledge of history teaches us that civilization is the product of cooperation, and all people have contributed to it.

Character: No one man however brilliant , can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are wisdoms of generations. The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it. This is the creative tension that creates “whole movements.”

Morals: Sin has flourished in every age. No civlization has made peace with the 10 commandments. Indiviualism will die in America & England as geographical protection diminishes. Sexual license will cure itself from its own excess’

Religion: Heaven & utopia are buckets in a well: when one goes down the other must go up. When religion declines, communism goes up.catholism survives today because it appeals to the imagination and hopes of the poor.
As long as there is poverty there will be gods.

Economics: Concentration of wealth is natural and unevitable, with periodic violently led partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism.

Socialism:The history of socialism vs capitalism has a historic rhythm; Now the fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is west, west is east, and soon te twain will meet.

Government: When wars dominate – democracies succumb. When race/class wars become hate, one side will overcome the other at the edge of the sword. When there is mis-distribution of wealth, dictatorship will rise in the name os security for all.

War: of last 3241 years only 268 have not seen war – it is a constant of human history. States will unite in basic cooperation only when they are in common attacked from without. Perhaps only when we as a species are attacked from another species, will we ever unite as one planet.

Growth And Decay: Nations die. Old regions grow arid or suffer other change. Resilient man picks up his tools and his arts, and moves on, taking his memories with him. Remember civilizations are generations of the racial soul.

If you were read only one book on history make this the one. IT IS A MUST READ no matter weather you are a fan of history or not, this little 96 page book is a sweeping course on the BIG LESSONS FROM OUR SHARED 5000 Year HISTORY. Do yourself a favor, and BUY THIS BOOK and read it. You will thank yourself.

The Story Factor By Annete Simmons BOOK REVIEW - 3 Stars, Good Premier

The Story Factor By Annete Simmons

Finished a refresher on this book as I prepare to go through Slideology again. If you are new to Story Telling, this is a GOOD PREMIER. The key take away from the book is thinking of the 6 key stories every story teller needs to be able to tell/structure.

6 Kinds of Stories You Must Be Able to Tell

People dont want more information, they want stories through which they can have “faith in you.” You can connect and influence people with 6 kinds of stories

1. “Who I Am” Stories 2. “Why I Am Here” Stories 3. “The Vision” Story 4. “Teaching” Stories 5. “Values-in-Action” Stories 6. “I Know What You Are Thinking” Stories

Who Am I Stories – I have seen many leaders use the power of a story of a personal flaw to great effect. The psychologists call it self-disclosure. disclosure. One theory about why this works is that if I trust you enough to show you my flaws, you can trust me enough to show me yours.

Why I Am Here Stories – Your reasons for wanting to influence may combine selfish ish desires for power, wealth, or fame with selfless desires to benefit the organization, society, or a particular group of people. If you choose to tell a story that focuses on your selfless reasons, at least acknowledge the existence of your personal goals lest you lose credibility as a truth-teller. People want to believe you-help them out.

The Vision Story – You have to take the time to find a story of your vision in a way that connects-a story that people can see. The secret of a moving story is to tell it from a place of complete plete authenticity. A real vision story connects with people in a way that shrinks today’s frustrations in light of the promise of tomorrow.

Teaching Stories – Teaching stories help us make sense of new skills in meaningful ways. You never teach a skill that doesn’t have a reason “why.”

Values In Action Stories – A good test for yourself is to discover cover how many stories you can come up with to demonstrate strate the values you profess to hold.

I Know What You Are Thinking Stories – Living a life of influence means that we are more often evangelizing to the heathens and less often preaching to the choir.

Think of stories as Holograms of Power and they hold the potential to create power.

Stories Can Do What Facts Cannot – Just like knowledge can become wisdom, so can facts become a story. The story helps you build an interpretation around the facts, making absorption easier.

Psychology of Story telling – gives a brief overview of what and how to tell an epic, as opposed to delivering a soundbite.

Story Telling as A tool of influence _ if you work in the corporate world and or have a NLP background, this is self explanatory. The chapter at best is an overview of how to influence with stories

3 Star rating. It is a good companion to Slideology and Resonance. I will cover them in the coming month as I get back to re-reading them.

Meditations on Nature - Rilke on reconciling

Read these beautiful words this morning and it made sit back to contemplate

If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems insignificant, then everything will become more coherent and somehow more reconciling. Not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awakeness and knowledge.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

And then the words of David Wagoner came back to me after years of being lost in my consciousnesses

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

— David Wagoner

KONTIKI - Book Review and Recommendation: 5 STARS

Just finished with Kontiki -What an astonishing adventure, 5000 miles from Peru to Polynesia on a wooden raft. Thor Heyerdahl is a biologist who believed that Polynesia was settled by South Americans 1500 years ago.
He followed his theory into practice when every scientific establishment and publication shut him out. He and a band of 5 friends go on an adventure of a lifetime including
1. Building a raft based on 1500 year old designs
2. Getting financing from the Peruvian Govt. and survival material/shark repellents from the US Navy
3. Radio break downs, and pet parrots being eaten by sharks
4. Hunting for a shark with hand held blade
5. A clash of Faith and Science
6. A deep study of leadership and the hero’s journey
These gentleman changed the way adventure and exploration was viewed post world war two. The story is inspirational and gripping.
IMO one of the must read stories of our time.
FIVE STARS rating from me on this, and I intent to come back to this “teaching story” again. It is worth 10 times the price of its low $5 market price. THIS IS A TRUE CLASSIC!

KONTIKI - Book Review and Recommendation: 5 STARS

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Just finished with Kontiki -What an astonishing adventure, 5000 miles from Peru to Polynesia on a wooden raft. Thor Heyerdahl is a biologist who believed that Polynesia was settled by South Americans 1500 years ago.
He followed his theory into practice when every scientific establishment and publication shut him out. He and a band of 5 friends go on an adventure of a lifetime including
1. Building a raft based on 1500 year old designs
2. Getting financing from the Peruvian Govt. and survival material/shark repellents from the US Navy
3. Radio break downs, and pet parrots being eaten by sharks
4. Hunting for a shark with hand held blade
5. A clash of Faith and Science
6. A deep study of leadership and the hero’s journey
These gentleman changed the way adventure and exploration was viewed post world war two. The story is inspirational and gripping.
IMO one of the must read stories of our time.
FIVE STARS rating from me on this, and I intent to come back to this “teaching story” again. It is worth 10 times the price of its low $5 market price. THIS IS A TRUE CLASSIC!

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Book Review: Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara 5 STARS MUST READ

Spent this morning with a real treat.. the dairies of Che on his epic Latin America adventure.

The chronicles of a young Che Guevara’s journey through Latin America, and the transformation of the man to become the legend he is. This is a wonderuful story of and reminded me of a wonderful Joseph Campbell quote “We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.” This is the story of how Che goes on his self discovery/journey to become vitally human, and one might argue that how he in so many ways revitalized humanity around him.

The story begins with the “call to adventure” and to explore the whole of Latin America on a motorcycle. Many adventures later, they lose their beloved motorcyle and continue their journey on foot. in the hope of reaching the northern most point of Latin America

The story is gripping, reminded me a lot of Jack Kerouac. The turning point comes when young Che sees the plight of the Peruvian mine workers and natives. Here is drawn to something greater than himself, and begins to stir his very soul. As the hero’s journey unfolds Che has a run in with a doctor treating leprosy. His heart calls him to apprentice and serve a much grander vision of himself. He begins his service at a leprosy camp in San Pablo helping serve something greater than himself.

ON his 24th birthday he realizes “that seperation of various nations of Latin America is a fallacy, and all of Latin America is but one race.” And the new vision of the possible life enters his life, and through him into Latin America. He then faces his greatest fear of Asthama in a daring midnight swim across the cold river. A new man is born as he says goodbye to Peru. The aimless roaming across America by two men not only changed them, but changed the course of history in the process.

Take those journeys of solitude seriously and as study the lives of men who have dared to do so before us. As the eminent historian Will Durant says in his wonderful essay called a Shamelss Worship of Heroes “To contemplate such men, to insinuate ourselves through study into some modest discipleship to them, to watch them at their work and warm ourselves at the fire that consumes them, this is to recapture some of the thrill that youth gave us when we thought, at the altar or in the confessional, that we were touching or hearing God.”

This is the story one one such man. I am going to be visiting this story/book again and again

PS: I got a few messages asking me about my political leanings on the polorising Che.
This books is NOT about his political writings.. what I read was the conditions in the making of a very charismatic leader. You can choose to agree/disagree with his stances, the fact remains, in his becoming he changed the geo-political landscape. And as far as I go, this story is a HUMAN STORY, and worth a read/watch

Book Review - Essentialism By Greg McKeown

As some of you know have gotten back to reading voraciously again. Around 2007 my two good friends &I had contemplated putting out summaries of the books we read, but we never did. Am now trying to take that forward and will post the summaries of books that others may find interesting. Cheers

Essentialism By Greg McKeown

The disciplined Pursuit of Less in an overloaded world. The author lays out “the process of how to focus on what is essential,” and apply all your energy towards the relentless pursuit of that intent. Becoming an essentialist is key to creating space in one’s life and creating space for fulfillment. Reading this book has made me rethink about what things I say yes to. A powerful read with the potential to change how you lead your life.

Eight key ideas discussed in the book are

1. Explore options, eliminate quickly and execute flawlessly. Repeat cycle. Essentialists exercise the power of choice

2. An essentialist thinks almost everything is non essential. The trick is to distinguish the vital few from the trivial many.

3. FOCUS -Essentialists ask “what problem do I want to solve? What do I bet big on?” This is the study tradeoffs, risk and reward

4. CREATE SPACE – Essentialists create space to escape, and have this time to explore and choose focus

5. SEE CLEARLY – Essentialists learn how to see – discern signal from noise, and pay attention to what is not being said

6. PLAY – Essentialists see work as play, stress kills. Stress takes away choice and ability to explore. Shift into the play mode to be successful

7. SELECT – Your response to life and things should be Hell Ya or NO! Say yes only to the top 10% of opportunities. Remember if it is not a Clear Yes, then it is a Clear No.

8. ESSENTIAL INTENT – Have clear essential Intent, and clearly know when your task is done. Design a routine that enshrines what is essential. The essential is the default position

If anything it will get you rethinking of what is truly important and convince you to focus on the Essential Intent. Good easy reading, and can be applied to all areas of life.

FOUR STARS rating from me and WORTH A READ.

Mahipal Lunia

www.TheRenaissancePath.com

www.RadicalChangeGroup.com

www.MountainViewAiki.com

Automatic Customer Book Review - FOUR STARS : BUY & STUDY premier into the emerging Subsription economy

Synopsis: If you are in a service biz or work with technology – BUY THE BOOK to learn the new language and math of business! This would have been an even more powerful book had the author walked you through the process of selecting the right models for your industry in a step by step way. However given its an emerging model, its a survey course on possible models, and anyone with a lil discipline will be able to put together some interesting pricing and subscription models.

Synopsis: Subscription Biz models are here to stay in everything from software, to content to household consumables.

The author has listed 9 specific models/approaches to take:

1. Membership Website Model: Works best in a tightly defined niche with specialized knowledge is needed
2. All you can eat library model: Evergreen content is an example. Think netflix – even the most addicted watcher could not go through it all
3. Private Club Model: Limited supply being sold to an affluent clientele. High prices, low numbers
4. Front of the line model: Different prices for different levels of service/support. works best on complex products/services.Think salesforce.com’s model for how your complaints are dealt with
5. The Consumables Model: Selling products that naturally run out as a service, where ordering things can be a chore. Food, blades, vitamins e
6. Surprise Box Model: when you have a network that is willing to buy deeply discounted consumables from manufacturers at deep discount. The idea being some of the consumers will then order a subscription service at regular prices.
7. Simplifier Model: Its a complex word, simply the buying process and choice. Works best with an affluent consumer needing a service on an ongoing basis
8. Network Model: fixed price, and value of service grows as number of subscribers grow. Think phones
9. Peace of Mind Model: this is the insurance sale , where you pay for a peace of mind in the event you may need the service.

He closes the book out with the new math of the subscription game with concents such as Customer acquisition cost, Monthly renewal rate, Life time Value of customer, Margins and Churn.

The book is a good way to think about what models will work best in your industry / Excellent premier.

If you are in a service biz or work with technology – BUY THE BOOK to learn the new language and math of business!

Mahipal Lunia