The $100 Startup Review

Short summary:
This book can be divided into two parts.
For the first part, it is an motivational read for those who are tired of the routine 9-5 and are itching to start their own business. Concept, motivation and plenty of success stories, this book gives those with the entrepreneur dream plenty of encouragement and provides the rest of us enough information to fuel our next day dream.

The second part of the book is more technical and tactical. General advice and guidance on how to go about your business, should you actually choose to start one. With that being said, the second part with it's nitty gritty argument, could be boring for us who aren't actually starting a business, especially when you don't agree with all of the suggestions put forth by the author.


Stats gain:
Motivation +1
Business skill +0.5

Who should read this book?
If you like Tim Ferris 4 hour work week, this book is for you. For those who love to daydream about escaping 9-5, this book is a feel good read.

Special attribute:
Feel-good read.

The 100 Startup Official Site
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Start with why - Review

Short summary:
Too often we focus on what we do and how we do it, but not why we do it.
Why, is always tell a more focus and more powerful story.

On marketing:
Why does this product existed?
Apple's why is to provide technology in a thought-fully designed way. 1000 songs in your pocket tells a good why. "5GB of space with best price" does not.

On marketing a product, first find those who agrees with your why and are willing to suffer some inconvenient to buy for you. They will be your ambassador.

Interpersonal:
On communicating, on selling, always starts with why something or some action exist. Communicate the why, not what, now how.

Personal:
What is your why of living? Why do you exist? Think about your calling. Know - your - why.

Stats gain:
Intra-personal insight +2
Marketing skill +2
Interpersonal skill +1

Who should read this book?
Everyone. First of all, this book is a joy to read.
This book tries to explain product marketing success and failure by the ability of the company to explain it's why. The example are fun, and it make sense.
This book also makes you think about your goal and strategy of living if you haven't been thinking about it everyday already.
Great book.

Special attribute:
Page turner, thought provoker, rule-book(marketing).

Start With Why official site
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Why nations fails - Review

Short summary:
Why nations fail explores on why nations fail.
Spoiler alert: Extractive political and economical regime VS inclusive political and economical regime.

Stats gain:
World History +3
Politics +2
Economic +2

Special attribute:
Academic, Rare knowledge

Why would I want to read this book?
Studying world history or the sociopolitics of other nations is not something that come across most people's life. I mean seriously, what is the usefulness of such knowledge?
For me however, it is precisely because I most definitely will not stumble across such knowledge in my daily life that this book is so worth reading. This book showed me a world and a time that I otherwise will have no chance acquainting.
After reading this book, one see any policy as extractive or inclusive and perhaps even able to foresee the mistakes of policy makers and why some policies is doomed to fail,
One will gain opinions on the prospect of any institution, be it a club, a company or a nation.

Notes:
Extractive institution - Institution where the top extract the power or wealth from the lower social class.
Inclusive institution - Institution where everyone is included and have a say in power/ wealth.

Critical Juncture - A time where the underlying institution structure is shaken due to any reason, and change is given a chance to happen.


Why Nations Fail official site
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Non-violent Communication - Review

*Most books impart knowledge, this book imparts wisdom. If there is a sin for promoting a book too strongly, this is the book that I am willing to be incarcerated for*

I thought I was good at communicating non-violently, and went reading this book with the expectation of reaffirming what I am already doing right.

Wrong.

This is the book that I wish I'd read years ago, so that I could have the chance to practice it in my relationships with friends and family. It could have changed my life.

This is not the type of book you keep on shelf and re-reads from time to time.
This is the book that after reading, creates a strong urge to FORCE IT on everyone around you.

This book could be life-changing for many persons.

Seriously, they should have taught non-violent communication in school (together with personal finance and politics).

Anyways, about this book.
This book taught on how to communicate with others non-violently, duh.


Non-violent communication has a structure that you can follow. There are fundamentals that you can build your communication strategy on, methodically. Not unlike sports, it is the fundamentals that separates the amateur and the pro.

Observation, feelings, needs, request. Four components to the Nonviolent Communication models.

Non-violent communication is not only about interpersonal communication, it is also about how you communicate with yourself. This is a very peaceful book.

Basically it starts with understand the need of yourself and the other person, and to have the empathy for that need. Then proceed to communicate with both parties need on the table, visible for all to see.

What makes this book worth reading is the nuances and example behind this simple concept. How the Marshall Rosenberg does it in real life, and the common example and traps in real life that makes you go "Omg, I did that too!"

According to tribal leadership classification, this is easily a stage 5 book.

Non-violent communication webpage

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Below are my personal notes taken throughout reading this book. Spoiler alert.

What you want his/her reason to be

Often, we try to get other people to do something, while neglect to consider what we want the reason behind that prompted action to be.
The cliche example would be the housewife who tried to get her husband home early, and do that by scolding the husband every time he came home late.
In this case, the wife focus on getting the husband home in time.
However she didn't consider what reason is getting the husband home in time.

In this case, her husband is coming home early out of fear.

If the wife wants the reason that gets her husband home in time to be 'love', she would not resort to scolding the husband every time he was late.
She will instead employs another strategy, perhaps with positive reinforcement. Greeting the husband with kisses and massages when the husband arrives home in time.

Perhaps that will even get the husband to start doing dishes or salivating at the ring of bell.

My personal story on this would be when I was in a harmonica band back in high school. The band was originally a cool and social place with few core members (and majority dormant member). We enjoy the music and we practice for the love for the music.
Then there came the change in leadership. The new leadership is ambitious, with the grand vision of bringing all the non-committing members (which is the 90% of all members) back to practice and have us growth in both number and skills.

We accomplished that with a disciplinary leadership, parting from the social and fun-loving culture from the previous leadership.

We focus on getting everyone to practice, and to improve.

However we neglected on the reason behind them doing so: Out of fear of disciplinary action instead of the love for the music.

As the result, we get what we wanted: Our players' skill improved and attendance to practices spiked. However, the morale remains low. Nobody enjoy the practice sessions anymore.

Inevitably, when the leader left, the disciplinary structure lax and the whole club collapse.

The leadership achieve what they wanted: People who practice hard out of fear.
What the leadership should have set as goal: People who practice hard out of passion.

Don't rebel, Don't summit

This four letter outline the principle of action when facing violence from authority. The goal is to understand both other's your's need and perhaps finding a way to communicate and sort out both needs.
It is easier said than done, but what's easy are to remember that: To summit or to rebel is to give power to the other person over you.

When communicating needs or giving feedback

• When giving feedback, Give observation, not evaluation

I see that 3 out of 5 times you arrived at the meeting roughly 5 minutes late.
(As oppose to, "you never arrive on time!")

• It is important to communicate your needs

I have the need to make sure all of my schedule were on time.

• Make your request clear

Is there a way for us to arrange a time where you can make it, so that my schedule will be neat and tidy for me?

9 Human's need by Max-neef

• Subsistence
• Protection
• Affection
• Understanding
• Participation
• Leisure
• Creation
• Identity
• Freedom

I always agree in the sense that we all have a set of needs and in life, we made choices that sometimes sacrifices one need for the others, (eg. career choice and lifestyle choices). My purpose of life has always to be, to live a complete life, which for me means, to have all my needs reach a level of satisfaction. Overachieving in a single aspect of needs is unnecessary.

For me, life is like a academic report card. As 80% and 100 % is both an A. I would aim for ten 80% and get a straight A ; instead of eight 100% and two F's and repeat the semester.
(Disclaimer: Aiming for straight A's is the strategy to get into most scholarship program. My view on academic importance and achievement however is more nuance that example above.)

Empathy

Empathy is understanding the message no matter how it was delivered. Even if the message is delivered through violence or silence, to have empathy first required us to understand the message delivered.
"If I am understanding you correctly, what you are feeling is that your needs for safety has not been met by my present?" "Am I right to say that you are not talking because you did not feel safe to do so?"

An underlying message can be delivered in different ways just as a gift can be wrapped up by different gift box. A message can be delivered violently, humorously, loving or even through silence. One needs to open the gift box to see the true message inside, and when one understands the message and understands the deliverer's need and sees "what is alive in them", one can empathize.

And empathy is powerful.

Express our need as a gift

The proper way of asking, is showing a need and giving the other person a chance to gift a gift. It could have been a win-win situation. A gets his needs met, B gets to feel good giving a gift.

In our society however, asking is often performed as a demand or a guilt trip, which creates a win-loss situation. A may get what he needs, B will feel drained meeting the need as he often felt obligated to do so (especially in a intimate relationship.)

Example that this is worst in intimate relationship:
Situation A: Your (spouse/siblings/parents/children) ask you to help to fetch his/her dog from dog spa.
You felt obligated to help, although you really don't feel like helping. You want to stay home and watch youtube but...sigh, FINE, I will be a good hubby and go.

Situation B: A friend of a friend, call you up out of a blue. He/She has run out of option and has to ask for your help to pick up his/her dog from a dog spa.
Ohhh, you didn't expect me to be able to help do you~? Okeey, never mind, I will be awesome and pick it up for ya.

And we always make it worse by asking in a way that tilt the nature of gifting towards fulfilling obligation.
Wrong way of asking: Hey, I know you were busy and have things to do. I've tried to ask A and B and C but they all were busy and couldn't help. It wasn't very important so it is perfectly okay if you say no. I just wonder if you can help me to....
(The more apologetic and the more you try to justify of having a need, the harder for the other person to give in a gifting energy)

Good way of asking:

I really have a need for cupcakes right now. Can you pretty please make me a cupcake? I will be oh-so-thankful!
(Just do whatever you can to make sure the other person knows and sees it as a request and not a demand)

When solving the problem

Focus on the need, not the strategy. ("I need to feel safe vs I need to stay away from X")
See the need, not giving the diagnosis. ("He needs to make sure he is financially safe vs he is cheap")


*Warning: This book starts slow.*

The Facebook Effect - Review

The Facebook Effect pretty much is the play by play of the story the Facebook just as Delivering Happiness is on the story of Zappos.

The writer, David Kirkpatrick is a tech journalist and has been covering facebook and others tech company like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple etc for years. This in effect means that by reading this book you will:
1) Understand the dynamic of tech company today (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft).
2) Get some insight on the inside of Facebook, it's culture and how it grows.
3) Get to know Mark Zuckerberg and hopefully absorb some personality from him, mainly the quiet confidence, the ability to have a very long term view, and the Zen-ness in dealing with both crisis and fame.

In retrospect, it is easy to take the success of Facebook for granted. I always known Facebook as the better Friendster but never really remember (until this book) how and why Friendster faded away . I sort of just remember that we lost interest in Frienster, and then Facebook came along.

Notes I took for this book:
1) You can't predict success.
Facebook is never a sure thing until it became one.
No one was sure that it would be popular outside of Harvard until it did.
No one was sure that it would be popular outside college until it did.
There is no indication that it will be accepted by adult community until it did.

2) Step by step, methodical expansion is important.
This is how Facebook avoid becoming Friendster. Friendster over expanded and cause the service to become laggy, which is the big reason of it's demise.

3) Facebook is more powerful than I thought it is.
That data that it has. It knows your identity and hence can sell you ads tactically.
It is also the platform for many application.
Facebook currency may also be huge, look at bitcoin now.

4) Mark Zuckerberg looks at the data when facing crisis. This is a good habit for everyone. When there is a subjective problem, try to find some data, something that can provides an objective feedback on the issue.
(eg Newsfeed fiasco: User hates it, but user activity spikes: hence newsfeed need tweaking, not eliminating)

As many great man, Mark Zuckerberg also has the idea of "doing things that worth doing". It is a recurring theme that great entrepreneur and great people usually has the focus on living for a cause, while the rest of us is living to work for money and to buy stuff. 

One may not have the same status or intellect or vision of great men, but one may still choose to live with the same attitude that great men shares.

Facebook page of The Facebook Effect
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Do you remember when facebook photo is not a thing and all everyone have is just 1 profile picture?
Do you remember pre-newsfeed days?
Do you remember the days before having a wall?
I can't. I too, have took Facebook as granted.

Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill - Review

Remember those old technical manual you found buried in an old library or second-hand book shop? With it's page turn yellow and fragile, with unknown stain at the side? The content is old, mostly still functional albeit very outdated. You flip through the book, nodding at the content but ultimately decide to pick up a more contemporary counterpart for that book.
-This is how I felt about Napoleon Hill's famous book, think and grow rich.

Originally published at 1937, the book is O-L-D. The world was a very different place then, so was the style of writing.

The book aims to provide principles, knowledge and wisdom for success. Lifting lessons and examples from historical giants like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Mohammad Gandhi, Andrew Carnegie etc etc. While a more contemporary book will make a point and elaborate it with scientific studies and observations, Napoleon Hill's think and grow rich were written at an era where lesson and principle were derived from his personal observation and deductive thinking, relying heavily on anecdotes and personal opinion. I didn't really enjoy reading the book due to this method of writing. However, it is fun in comparing how far self-help book has evolved in 8 decades. I certainly would recommend this book as a material for researching on evolution of self-help book.

Style of writing comparison: theoretical VS empirical
Then: Perseverance is the most important quality of success. You can't find a successful person in history that were lacking in the ability to persevere. Take Thomas Edison, he yada yada yada; Mohammad Gandhi, he yada yada yada. Perseverance is important! Perseverance is number 1! U no persevere, you no succeed!

Now: A longitudinal study has shown that the most important factor that may predict success in life, is surprisingly not IQ, not family social status and not even the level of parental education. It was conclusively shown that the number 1 factor of success is the ability to delay gratification. A group of 4 years old has been brought into a study that we call the Marshmallow test.....

I guess this book is the pioneer of all self-help book. Most of it's principle may still hold true today, albeit in a "duhhh, common sense" way.

As all fix-your-life-and-be-successful now does, this book provides some checklist for you to reflect and improve upon one's habit/attitude/character/personality. However, to continue with my analog of "old manual lying in old library", I would rather instead pick up Anthony Robbins for that purpose.

At least I don't feel like my mum nagging at me when I read Anthony Robbins.

TD;DR, I would say this book has reach it's expiry date and belong to a Museum. Come on! Ghandi was alive when the book was written!

PS: Do you know who is Andrew Carnegie? I bet you probably knew Dale Carnegie better XD



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