Although this book has already sold over 2 million copies, I did not pick one up until this second edition came out. Crucial Conversations
is the type of book that you can recommend to just about anyone and have them thank you for it. It has valuable, practical tools that will help you have conversations that are useful in very real ways. Whether you are looking for conversation advice in business, marriage, love, friendship, or just about anything else, this book will help you push through your emotions and accomplish your real purpose in conversation.
The authors start off with a detailed discussion on what makes someone successful. They argue, unsurprisingly, that it is the ability to effectively communicate and not be locked into a Fool's Choice when making hard decisions. Fool's Choice is a false either/or dichotomy and the authors do a great job of exposing it, maybe the best I have seen in print.
After arguing why conversations are so important, the authors go on to give you the tools to help you communicate effectively. Some of the best takeaways include:
* The advice on page 46,47 on overcoming Fool's Choice's. Great advice, extremely helpful for all.
* The Chapter 5 tools for creating a Mutual Purpose. "Lord, help me to forgive those who sin differently than I."
* The advice in Chapter 6 on how to reframe your stories and control emotions. Very good, especially the section on taking another look at victims, villains, and the helpless.
* The last three chapters are very practical explanations and tools from the rest of the book. If you aren't sure if this book is right for you, just flip to Chapter 10 and read through some scenario's where conversation is crucial and you will be convinced.
Though I have not read the first edition, there are some great bonuses in the second. You get access to the authors' video archive with many of the conversation tools acted out. There is also an online test to measure your "Style Under Stress", a Crucial Conversations visual model, and real life stories about how Crucial Conversations has helped others throughout.
Some of these things are obvious, some of them aren't. Though you are probably skilled in some areas already, this book will help you see the motivation behind your actions and help you see what needs to be done to improve other areas. This is a valuable book and recommended to all - I wish I had found it sooner.
With a book that covers as much ground as Mindhacker
, its hard to know where to start. The authors have written a book that is chock full of brilliant techniques to save time, money, and brainpower. If you find just one tip you can use out of the 60 that are offered, it will be worth the cost of the book - the information is really that good. I have listed just a few of my favorite chapters below, some of the ones that I will definitely be implementing in my own life.
Hack 2: Build A Memory Dungeon - Ever since I read Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
a few months ago, I have been fascinated with memory palaces and how to use them. One of the problems I have had in implementing this is running out of locations for my memory palaces. This hack solves that problem, and then some. This is a great idea that will give you virtually unlimited memory palace locations that you can visit and memorize from the comfort of your couch. Worth the cost of the book by itself.
Hack 4: Space Your Repetitions - Great idea for using an open source program to memorize anything you want to quickly and easily.
Hack 7: Write in Your Books - This hack teaches 3 easy ways to go beyond writing in the margins and highlighting your books. You will understand and enjoy books more by using these techniques. Really great. Also, Hack 6: Establish Your Canon is an excellent essay on why you should read great books, what they are, and how to define them in your own life.
Hack 8: Read At Speed - The authors have condensed the best advice about speed reading down to four pages . . . great advice that will save you close to a hundred dollars and many, many hours of studying all of the books that focus exclusively on speed reading.
Hack 12: Study Kid Stuff - A great list of resources and websites that will help you relearn quickly all that you have forgotten. Great advice, easy to use, and free.
The Hacks that I have listed above are just the ones I really liked in the first two Chapters on Memory and Learning, and there are 48 more hacks to choose from throughout the book.The other chapters cover information processing, time management, creativity and productivity, math and logic, communication, mental fitness, and clarity. There aren't any clunkers here, a rarity for a book like this - the hacks in the time management and creativity chapters are especially good. Half of the fun in a book like this if finding which of these hacks really work for you.
All in all, this is a brilliant book that delivers on what it promises. Its written by a couple of geeks who have condensed great information into bite size pieces that will help you in many ways. Highly, Highly Recommended.
While I think this one is the best of the bunch, by far, see these also: Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain
, Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain
(same authors as Mindhacker), and Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better
(almost all computer tips, not brain tips, but still very helpful).
The Dip
is a short book by Seth Godin about when you should quit and what you should quit. It focuses on one principle again and again, and it is one that most of us need to be reminded of. When we start a business, write a book, sell a book, start training, or just about anything else, there will come a time of diminishing returns. Those who can distinguish the dips that we can push through from the dead ends will have more success. A simple concept and one that you have probably heard before, but this book still adds enough value to the conversation to make it a worthwhile read.
The value of being the best in the world, the best in your category, is huge. This small book will help motivate you to define your category, quit the useless things, and create something great. It's really not rocket science, and a book like this offers a lot of value to a lot of people.
Two criticisms I have heard about this book, and Seth Godin's work in general is that it is too short and too simple. Both critiques are hollow excuses for not engaging great work. I love books and I love reading both short and long works, but I would rather read non-fiction that has been boiled down to its most useful any day over the other stuff. Seth took his own advice for this book and quit the 80% of the book that was not as helpful. The 20% that remains is absolutely great material that will appeal to many. Recommended.
For those of you looking for more insight into the two main concepts of this book, check out these.
On being the best in the world . . .
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind 
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!
On strategic quitting . . .
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less
The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Social Media Analytics
is a book that will introduce readers to many of the best social media analysis tools and firms that are out there. The author does a great job of explaining what a business really needs to measure and then gives plenty of information on how to get there.
Chapter 5 was my personal favorite - Friends, Fans, and Followers: Determining Their Worth. One of the hardest things for me to get my head around when it comes to social media is how valuable it really is to have a fan on Facebook, if at all. This chapter helps you answer those questions in concrete ways backed up with real data. Very helpful for anyone who wants to achieve measurable results rather than shoot in the dark until they finally hit something.
Pros:
* Very informative, great source to find more information on every topic
* Uses real data to back up what is still thought of as art more than science
* Case studies were helpful
Cons:
* Some of the company profiles are too long, a couple of them read like a commercial at points
* Would have liked more "how to do this" type of information
All in all, this book is recommended for anyone with a business that wants to really measure their social media results. Makes a great companion to Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas.
Social Media Science sounds like a fairy tale, but Dan Zarella proves otherwise in his new book on contagious ideas
. He focuses on social media because they are a "petri dish" for ideas, but the principles that he is able to extract from social media metrics can be applied to all of your ideas. This short book will tell you the best ways to spread your ideas and make them more contagious.
The author starts off by building his framework on three points. For your ideas to be more contagious, you must:
1. Increase the number of people exposed to your content.
2. Create more attention-grabbing content.
3. Include powerful calls to action.
Following this, the author provides relevant data to prove his claims. This information is invaluable, and very helpful to anyone who uses social media at all. For instance:
Do you know if it helps or hurts to call yourself a guru (or author, speaker, founder)?
Do larger groups or more active small groups spread ideas faster?
Are negative or positive ideas more contagious?
Should you talk about yourself?
How often should you share content?
What is the best day and time to attract "retweeters"?
What is the best time to blog for your click rate? For comments?
All of the answers to these questions, and many more, are in this book. Each section is short and to the point, no more than four paragraphs and a visual graph of the data that backs it up. This is a book that will pay for itself easily, and the information contained in it is valuable to every business, author, and marketer. Highly Recommended.
Eat That Frog!
is a book that a few of my favorite authors have recommended, but I never picked up a copy until last week. Very glad that I did, it is an excellent time management/productivity book that gets right to the point. Even if you just pick three concepts to implement, any three concepts, I predict your productivity will double. Is there some obvious information in it? Sure there is, but like the author says in the introduction, this book brings the concepts to the forefront of our minds.
* Pros:
Very short book - can read in a couple of hours. Makes it easy to recommend.
Information is solid and practical. Almost like a Cliff's Notes of productivity techniques.
Some great questions to ask of yourself and to ask of those you are mentoring.
Practical steps to implement the techniques are given at the end of each chapter, making it easy to put into practice.
* Cons:
Not much new information . . . not necessarily a con, but it is what it is.
Further reading suggestions for any given topic would have made this an outstanding work.
In short, this is one of the best and probably the first I would recommend to others. Getting started on projects/businesses/writing books and getting more done in less time is a skill that all of us need, and this book will help you get there. Will definitely be buying more copies to give away to others. Highly Recommended.
The Lean Startup
is a book proposing that the way businesses have traditionally started is wasteful, time-consuming, and relies on a lucky turn of the dice more often than not. Eric Ries presents a new way to think about business and a new way to start them in this book. Eric defines a startup as "an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty". In today's world, that applies to all businesses both old and new.
The key to the Lean Startup method is to use the Build-Measure-Learn cycle and to tighten the feedback loop as much as possible. The author start with 5 principles that the entire book is built on:
1. Entrepreneurs are everywhere.
2. Entrepreneurship is management. Your business is a business . . . not just a product.
3. Validated learning. A startup's most vital function. (39)
4. Build-Measure-Learn
5. Innovation accounting, or how to measure your progress.
This book has a lot of great examples and provides real methods to improve your business and your creativity while protecting the bottom line. The information that the author gives on testing products before launch, when to launch, and how to launch is easily worth ten times the cost of the book by itself. Testing is something that quite a few business books are pushing these days, but this is the first I have read that gives real world ways to do it other than using Google AdWords.
It would be easy to assume that a book written by an internet entrepreneur might not have much to say about other businesses, but you would be wrong. The fact is, every business is an internet business these days in some way. Whether it is actually run online, uses a website, or you test your business with some of these methods, you will learn how to create lean start-ups for any type of business. In fact, one of the examples that Eric uses is an on the ground laundry service based in India! You can't get much more low-tech than that, and they followed principles of a lean start-up.
The information in this book is valuable, accessible, and most importantly actionable. Buy it, use it - you will greatly increase your chances of creating a business that people are actually interested in. Highly Recommended.
Also: this book is just as valuable for authors as businesses. If you are writing a book that you expect to sell, the principles of testing and examining the market can be applied to writing a book. Would be especially helpful in narrowing down how you want to frame your book.
I have had this book
on my wishlist for a long time, and I finally found a copy at a bookstore. I was expecting a practical book on creativity, but that's not exactly what this is. It's a lot closer to The War of Art
then to Thinkertoys
.
If you are looking for a quick read that has some great advice for both businesses and individuals, this would be a good choice. It's not as good as The War of Art, but it is also more down to earth. The author's personal transformation into a famous business card size cartoonist provides anecdotes for almost every one of the 40 keys to creativity. The cartoons interspersed throughout the book range from great to "eh" to offensive.
Two of my favorite quotes:
"Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the "creative bug" is just a wee voice telling you, "I'd like my crayons back, please."
"Everyone has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. You may never reach the summit' for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness."
Bottom line: Recommended if you are stuck in a creative rut or need to be convinced that you have some creative gifts to offer. Warning: the cartoons will offend you, so skip them.
Read This Before Our Next Meeting
reads like a dozen expresso shots being added to your morning coffee. The author definitely takes his own advice and does not waste the reader's time with chitchat or useless information, and I will try and do the same.
1: The Modern Meeting supports a decision that has already been made. Make the decision to buy this book, just use this review to help you figure out why.
2: The Modern Meeting starts on time, moves fast, and ends on schedule. T-minus 480 words left . . .
3: The Modern Meeting limits the number of attendees. Buy it if you have meetings (business, church, charity, school, etc). Don't buy it if you don't (but you should - go participate).
4: The Modern Meeting rejects the unprepared. Buy it, or download it for free on Kindle in the next 7 days. It will give you the nuts and bolts, its up to you to actually do the work.
5: The Modern Meeting produces committed action plans. Buy it, its cheap. Then read it.
6: The Modern Meeting refuses to be informational.
7: The Modern Meeting works only alongside a culture of brainstorming. Keep meetings short, but add creativity boosting sessions to your work schedule. Concise, but really good, information on brainstorming.
Highly Recommended, go buy it. Meeting adjourned.
This is a small book
, barely over 80 pages, but it is packed with truth. It is essentially a condensed version of Piper's famous work Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
. I always recommend that folks read this when they start off with Piper because they will get the gist of what he saying in a very short time. This short read should take you no more than 90 minutes, but it is capable of being used by the Holy Spirit to affect change in many lives. For anyone interested in a very well put together theological work accesible to all, this is the best place to start.
Some of my favorite thoughts from the book:
"Jesus is not safe, but he is satisfying!"
"The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever."
"We are far too easily pleased" (Lewis).
The three part prescription for lack of joy in obedience: "First, confess the sin of joylessness. . . . Second, pray earnestly that God would restore the joy of obedience. . . . . Third, go ahead and do the outward dimension of your duty in the hope that the doing will rekindle the delight."
This small book packs a big punch, and I highly recommend to all (especially those new to Piper). This is one of five books that I pick up anytime I find a good copy for a decent price because it is one that should be shared again and again.
My recommendation for the top 5 Piper books you should read first, in order:
The Dangerous Duty of Delight: Daring to Make God Your Greatest Desire (LifeChange Books)
Don't Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition)
Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Spire Books)
Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ
Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
Strategy And The Fat Smoker
is really more like a collection of essays from David Maister. Almost every essay is good enough to expand on and be turned into a regular business book. The author writes in a direct manner that gets right to the point, and his writing is full of usable information. This book may not even be 300 pages, but it will take you a long time to digest everything that he goes over.
In my opinion, the first three chapters are worth the price of the book alone (and the book is expensive everywhere). These three chapters center on doing what is obvious and not easy, and David has some real insight into the strategy problem. His overview of strategy is directed towards businesses, but can really be applied to everyone. If you find it hard to figure out what to do, or are still looking for the best plan to get things done, then pick up a copy of this book.
Some of my favorite quotes from the first chapter alone:
". . . knowing that something is good for us is not necessarily a predictor that we are going to do it."
"We know what to do, we know why we should do it, and we know how we should do it. Yet most businesses and individuals don't do what's good for them."
"The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight but resolve."
"The primary reason we do not work at behaviors which we know we need to improve is that the rewards (and pleasure) are in the future; the disruption, discomfort and discipline needed to get there are immediate."
Highly recommended for businesses, churches, writers, and anyone else who needs to rethink strategy.
See my article on how this book is very useful for writers too - Strategy & The Fat, Smoking Writer
