the subtle lessons

  "The illiterate of the twenty first century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." - Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock. Just a couple of centuries back, education was limited to those with privilege.  Today, we have access to information literally at the tips of our finger tips.  That was an obscenely short summary on the evolution of education, here's a fun read of its detailed history . In fact, we're being bombarded by too much information, most of the time today.  Jonathan Levi leverages on Dr Malcolm Knowles' work in Adult Learning and presents the key tools that adult learners can use to learn better and more efficiently in today's fast paced world. 5 Conditions to learning Although we tend to envy children for being 'better' learners, Levi suggests that adults bring their own advantages to the table when it comes to learning.  In fact, these conditions make us better learners. 1 - Exp...

There are many causes of midlife crisis.  But if the workplace is the main trigger, it could very well the fault of the manager.  At least that's what Lencioni suggests in his book:  3 Signs of a Miserable Job Using a long fable to illustrate his triangle of job misery, Lencioni has kept me on edge for a good 2+ hours as I followed the journey of Brian and his adventures to revitalize a small single owner restaurant and a chain of sports stores using: The Triangle of Job Misery Lencioni busts the myth about the role of a manager, which is often assumed to be to strategize and push profitability or pushing papers and reporting on financials.  Rather than the above, a manager should...manage.  And the Triangle of Job Misery gives managers a simple framework to manage their team. They should aim to reduce the following. Irrelevance: This is when a member feels as though their work isn't important or relevant. People need to be needed, and they need to be told so of...

Rich Dad's Guide to Becoming Rich Without Cutting Up Your Credit Cards: Turn "Bad Debt" into "Good Debt" Just completed this book. Its a very thin book of only about 90 pages. However there was much more information than I had expected! The book was written from the view point that every possible future we have comes with a 'price'. There is a price for becoming rich, which was simplified to be twice the price of what the average people paid. Kiyoasaki mentioned many concepts in this short book. Some of these include the importance of education, the importance of a personal financial report and the learning pyramid. He also touch upon some of the differences between the mindset of the rich and the mindset of the poor. One of it was that the rich used the assets to pay for their liabilities. A major takeaway for me was the concept of the learning pyramid. Kiyosaki pointed out that the learning pyramid had 4 major points; mental, spiritual, phy...

Man vs. Markets: Economics Explained (Plain and Simple) Just completed this book recently. It was a good summary of the financial markets and how it works, in USA. The basic way the markets work would be similar, and thus I think this book is a good overview to the financial market. The author was successful in explaining various terms and concepts by simplifying and giving excellent examples which most of us would be able to relate to. Some examples include the use of "toy lending" between kids to explain the components of a bond, and the use of the 3 little pigs' plight to explain the concept of stocks. He even simplified derivatives such as options, futures and swap through the use of stories and examples. In his words, these are simply tools which we use in our daily life, packaged in different terms. ————— Just went for a talk and book signing by Hirsch last night. He explained that futures is similar to the system we use to reserve airline tickets. Futur...

The Starbucks Experience : 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary The Starbucks Experience was an interesting book which introduces some of the key ideas principles that the Starbucks management use. It explains the success of Starbucks from the perspective of the 5 principles mentioned in the book. The 5 Principles are: 1. Make it your own -> taking ownership, and having employees take ownership 2. Everything matters -> importance of details 3. Surprise and Delight -> go the extra mile to provide customers with more that what they expect 4. Embrace Resistance -> listen, differentiate between constructive and non constructive complains, and take action to improve 5. Leave your mark -> contributing to communities Although this book was marketed as a publication written by and outsider, I felt that the author was positively bias toward Starbucks. Perhaps this was required in order to show the expected results from implementing the 5 princ...

Outliers: The Story of Success The first book of Gladwell's which I have read. Liked the style of writing, with reasons and experiment details to back up his views. Due to the style of writing, I found myself agreeing to what he wrote, a little too easily. The analytic side of my mind did not like that. Interesting read nonetheless. It did convinced me that successful people are not the outliers or rare talents that they are portrayed to be. Rather they are average people who are able to identify opportunities, take action, and work damn hard. Major takeaways from this book were: > the 10,000 hours rule (work damn hard rule, and the importance of passion) > effect of culture > concept of power distance I look forward to reading other books from Gladwell.