Archive

October 2020

Browsing
henry_ford

Henry Ford Biography

In Bios 6 Mins Read By

 “With the possible exception of Henry Ford, Sam Walton is the entrepreneur of the century.”- TOM PETERS, co-author of In Search of Excellence

Henry Ford was a man of vision who revolutionalized the automobile industry with Model T and, in the process becoming one of the richest men in America.

Henry Ford was an American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into an accessible conveyance that profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century.

His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. As the Ford Motor Company owner, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with “Fordism”: mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. 

‘Whether you think you can, or you think you can‘t–you‘re right.- Henry Ford

In his great seminal book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill writes on some of the qualities that made Henry Ford one of the most influential entrepreneurs of the 20th century.

Determination

A few years back, Ford decided to produce his now famous V-8 motor. He chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder gas engine block in one piece.

Ford said, “Produce it anyway.”

“But,” they replied, “it’s impossible!”

by
Continue Reading

Lessons Learned from Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius’s Great Courses Class: Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century.

In Great Courses 13 Mins Read By

“Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.” – George Santayana

History does not usually repeat itself but it often rhymes. The 20th century was raveled by two world wars, the great depression, the Spanish flu pandemic, nuclear weapon proliferation, the holocaust, mass genocides, ethnic cleansing & stereotyping, decolonization, the cold war, the fall of the berlin wall, Rwanda Genocide among other significant changes and events.

A century that produced leaders such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Stalin, Lenin. Mao, FDR, JFK, Woodrow Wilson, Eisenhower, and conflicting ideologies & revolutions such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, Imperialism, Feudalism, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Marxism, Capitalism, Totalitarianism, etc. The century showed man’s capacity for inhumanity towards each other.

Why was the 20th century so violent?

The Great Courses Class: “Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century” examines a fundamental question of our times: Why was the 20th century so violent? This terrible century saw bloodletting on an unprecedented scale. Scholars estimate that around the globe, wars cost more than 40 million lives, while government-sponsored persecutions, mass murder, and genocide accounted for 170 million victims.

Scholars estimate that around the globe, wars cost more than 40 million lives, while government-sponsored persecutions, mass murder, and genocide accounted for 170 million victims.

Political scientist R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii calculates that worldwide during the 20th century, wars and civil wars cost about 38 million lives, while government sponsored persecutions, mass murder, and genocide accounted for about 169 million victims.

by
Continue Reading

Sharpen the Saw.

In List 7 Mins Read By

“Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you can make a living, but if you work hard on yourself you’ll make a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey is one of my favorite personal development book of all time. The book had a great effect on me with various lessons, anecdotes, insights, and principles which is a core of my daily values.

The 7th habit is “sharpen the saw” in which covey advocates preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–YOU. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities:

Physical:Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
Social/Emotional:Making social and meaningful connections with others
Mental:Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
Spiritual:Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

“Sharpen the saw” basically means expressing all four motivations. It means exercising all four dimensions of our nature, regularly and consistently in wise and balanced ways.”

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” —Abraham Lincoln

by
Continue Reading

Matthew McConaughey’s 2015 University of Houston Commencement Speech

In Speech 32 Mins Read By


Texas native Matthew McConaughey, an Academy Award-winning actor, delivered a very inspiring and thought-provoking commencement speech to the 2015 graduating students of the University of Houston at TDECU Stadium on Friday, May 15.

Matthew McConaughey’s 2015 University of Houston Commencement Speech Transcript

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? You hear me? Okay. Congratulations class of 2015. You guys and girls, and young men and women are the reason I’m here. I’m really looking forward to talking with you all tonight. You heard my dad played football here and I believe he even graduated from here. That was some extra incentive for me to come. Short and sweet or long and salty? A sugar doughnut or some oatmeal?

Now, out of respect for you and your efforts in getting your degree, I thought long and hard about what I could share with you tonight. Did I want to stand up here at a podium and read you your rights? Did I want to come up here and just share some funny stories. I thought about what you would want, I thought about what you might need. I also thought about what I want to say and what I need to say. Hopefully, we’re both going to be happy on both accounts. As the saying goes, take what you like, leave the rest. Thank you for having me



So before I share with you some what I do knows, I want to talk with you about what I don’t know. I have two older brothers. One was in high school in the early 1970s. And this was a time when a high school GED got you a job, and the college degree was exemplary. My other brother, Pat, was in high school in the early 80s.

And by this time, the GED wasn’t enough to guarantee employment. He needed a college degree. And if you got one, you had a pretty good chance of getting the kind of job that you wanted after you graduated. Me, I graduated high school in 1988. Got my college degree in 1993. And that college degree in ’93 did not mean much. It was not a ticket. It was not a voucher. It was not a free pass go to anything. So I asked the question, what does your college degree mean?

It means you got an education, means you have more knowledge in a specific subject, vocation, means you may have more expertise in “what your degree” is in.

But what is it worth? In the job market? Today?

by
Continue Reading

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

In Poem 2 Mins Read By

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

by
Continue Reading

Book Summary – Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder by Chip Conley.

In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” – Edith Wharton

Print | Kindle(eBook) | Audiobook

At age 52, after selling the company he founded and ran as CEO for 24 years, rebel boutique hotelier Chip Conley was looking at an open horizon in midlife. Then he received a call from the young founders of Airbnb, asking him to help grow their disruptive start-up into a global hospitality giant. He had the industry experience, but Conley lacked in the digital fluency of his 20-something colleagues. He didn’t write code, have an Uber or Lyft app on his phone, was twice the average Airbnb employee’s age, and would be reporting to a CEO young enough to be his son.

Conley quickly discovered that while he’d been hired as a teacher and mentor, he was also in many ways a student and intern. What emerged is the secret to thriving as a mid-life worker: learning to marry wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to evolve, all hallmarks of the “Modern Elder.”

Part manifesto and part playbook, Wisdom@Work ignites an urgent conversation about ageism in the workplace, calling on us to treat age as we would other type of diversity. In the process, Conley liberates the term “elder” from the stigma of “elderly,” and inspires us to embrace wisdom as a path to growing whole, not old. Whether you’ve been forced to make a mid-career change, are choosing to work past retirement age, or are struggling to keep up with the millennials rising up the ranks,

“If wisdom were offered me on the one condition that I should keep it shut away and not divulge it to anyone, I should reject it. There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.” – Seneca

Here are my favourite take ways from reading, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder by Chip Conley;

by
Continue Reading

Top 30 Quotes on Purpose.

In Quotes 6 Mins Read By

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain

Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. He who has a strong WHY can deal with anyhow. With purpose, you go the extra mile because you have a compelling vision and why you are doing whatever it is you are doing. It gives you direction, drive, unrelenting perseverance, and resilience. Your purpose keeps you going when times are tough because you have a clear vision of the future.

Author and Entrepreneur, Gary Keller, Author of ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, share some great insights on the power of purpose:

Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of personal strength—strength of conviction and strength to persevere.

The prescription for extraordinary results is knowing what matters to you and taking daily doses of actions in alignment with it. When you have a definite purpose for your life, clarity comes faster, which leads to more conviction in your direction, which usually leads to faster decisions.

When you make faster decisions, you’ll often be the one who makes the first decisions and winds up with the best choices. And when you have the best choices, you have the opportunity for the best experiences. This is how knowing where you’re going helps lead you to the best possible outcomes and experiences life has to offer.

“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”— Abraham Lincoln

Purpose also helps you when things don’t go your way. Life gets tough at times and there’s no way around that. Aim high enough, live long enough, and you’ll encounter your share of tough times.

 That’s okay. We all experience this. Knowing why you’re doing something provides the inspiration and motivation to give the extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south. Sticking with something long enough for success to show up is a fundamental requirement for achieving extra-ordinary results.”

Purpose provides the ultimate glue that can help you stick to the path you’ve set. When what you do matches your purpose, your life just feels in rhythm, and the path you beat with your feet seems to match the sound in your head and heart. Live with purpose and don’t be surprised if you actually hum more and even whistle while you work.

When you ask yourself, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do in my life that would mean the most to me and the world, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” you’re using the power of The ONE Thing to bring purpose to your life.

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl

Here are some great quotes on purpose:

by
Continue Reading

Patrick Collision Biography (Stripe)

In Bios 8 Mins Read By

Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988) is an Irish billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. Patrick is one of my favorite silicon valley entrepreneurs, not only because he and his brother are building something great but because he is one of the most voracious reader in the valley.

In November 2016, the Collision brothers became the world’s youngest self-made billionaires, worth at least $1.1 billion, after an investment in Stripe from CapitalG and General Catalyst Partners valued the company at $9.2 billion.

Here are some thoughts of some other entrepreneurs on Patrick Collision:

Chris Sacca

“Patrick is quite literally one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. Like, he puts Larry Page on his heels smart. I don’t know anyone who has 1) read more books and 2) has the near photographic memory for what he has read. His thoughts are provocative and challenge the status quo. His success is no accident.”

by
Continue Reading

Lessons Learned from Professor Connel Fullenkamp’s Great Courses Class: Crashes and Crises Lessons from a History of Financial Disasters.

In Great Courses 7 Mins Read By

The course presents a history of financial disasters—crashes, crises, panics, and scandals that have occurred since the early 1600s.

Connel Fullenkamp is a Professor of the Practice of Economics at Duke University, where he also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Economics and the Director of the Economics Center for Teaching. He teaches core economics courses, such as Economic
Principles, as well as financial economics courses, such as Corporate Finance. Before joining the Duke faculty in 1999, Professor Fullenkamp was a faculty member in the Department of Finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

by
Continue Reading

Book Summary – Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman.

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By

“Anyone can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way—that is not within everyone’s power, and that is not easy”. – Aristotle

Print | Kindle(eBook) | Audiobook

Anger can be a powerful and positive motivator, useful to move us toward loving action to right wrongs and correct injustice—but it also can become a raging, uncontrolled force. Gary Chapman shares some very great insights on the very powerful emotion: “Anger” with lots of examples and learnings from the Christian scripture.

The dictionary describes anger as “a strong passion or emotion of displeasure, and usually antagonism, excited by a sense of injury or insult.” Although we normally think of anger as an emotion, it is in reality a cluster of emotions involving the body, the mind, and the will. Anger is a response to some event or situation in life that causes us irritation, frustration, pain, or other displeasure. Thousands of events and situations have the potential for provoking anger.

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” – Seneca

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman:

by
Continue Reading

It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

In Poem 2 Mins Read By

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
      There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
      The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
      Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
      That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
      But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
      Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
      On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
      That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
      At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
      And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

by
Continue Reading

Jim Carrey’s 2014 Maharishi University of Management Commencement Speech

In Speech 17 Mins Read By

I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.

Jim Carrey delivered this commencement speech to the Maharishi University of Management’s graduating class of 2014. The speech is very inspiring yet funny as Jim shares stories from his childhood, following his dream, courage, faith, among other skills needed to get to the top and other limiting behaviors that could lead to self-sabotage such as fear and ego.


As someone who’s done what you’re about to go and do, I can tell you from experience the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. Because everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.

Jim Carrey’s 2014 Maharishi University of Management Commencement Speech Transcript

by
Continue Reading

Book Summary: Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc.

In Biographies 11 Mins Read By

“As long as you’re green you’re growing, as soon as you’re ripe you start to rot.”

Print | Kindle(eBook) | Audiobook

Ray Kroc was a quintessential salesman with a bias for action before turning McDonald’s into a household name; Ray worked various jobs selling paper cups, as a real estate agent, sometimes playing the piano in bands, milkshake mixer salesman, among other gigs. The 2016 movie, “The Founder,” starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, portrays the story of his creation of the McDonald’s fast-food restaurant chain. 

The title “Grinding it out” brings to mind the long apprenticeship of over thirty years during which Ray Kroc worked for others as a salesman and sales manager and later in his own small business. For the great opportunity of his life did not come until 1954 when he was fifty-two, an age when some executives are beginning to contemplate the greener pastures of retirement.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. —Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

After World War II, Kroc found employment as a milkshake mixer salesman for the foodservice equipment manufacturer Prince Castle. When Prince Castle Multi-Mixer sales plummeted because of competition from lower-priced Hamilton Beach products, Kroc was impressed by Richard and Maurice McDonald who had purchased eight of his Multi-Mixers for their San Bernardino, California restaurant, and visited them in 1954.

By the time of Kroc’s death, the chain had 7,500 outlets in the United States and 31 other countries and territories. The total system-wide sales of its restaurants were more than $8 billion in 1983, and his personal fortune amounted to some $600 million.

McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain by revenue, serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries across 37,855 outlets as of 2018. McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer with 1.7 million employees (behind Walmart with 2.3 million employees). The $100 billion in sales generated by McDonald’s company-owned and franchise restaurants in 2019 accounts for almost 4% of the estimated $2.5 trillion global restaurant industry.

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc:

Everyman makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own  problems.

by
Continue Reading

Top 30 Quotes on Anger

In Quotes 5 Mins Read By

“Anger is like a red light flashing on the dash of a car. It indicates that something needs attention.”

The dictionary describes anger as “a strong passion or emotion of displeasure, and usually antagonism, excited by a sense of injury or insult. Anger is a very strong emotion that can be either harnessed positively or negatively utilized.

Martin Luther King Jr. was rageful towards racial segregation & discrimination; he used his anger to lead a movement and dreamt of a nation where people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character; that dream led to the United States of America to elect the first African American President four decades later.

The same anger drove Adolf Hitler Nazi regime to initiate world war II, the holocaust, genocide of about 6 million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) or socially undesirable. 

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin

In his book, Anger: Taming a powerful emotion, American author and radio talk show host, Dr. Gary Chapman points out that Anger can be a powerful and positive motivator, useful to move us toward loving action to right wrongs and correct injustice—but it also can become a raging, uncontrolled force.

“Anger is directed inwardly when you bottle it up rather than expressing it constructively to others. Anger is directed outwardly when you criticize or attack other people.”

by
Continue Reading

Drew Houston Biography (Dropbox)

In Bios 13 Mins Read By

If you were to look at my cheat sheet, there wouldn’t be a lot on it. There would be a tennis ball, a circle, and the number 30,000. 

Drew Houston of Dropbox is one of my favorite silicon valley entrepreneur; he attributes a lot of his success to his belief that everything is figouratable. In the early days of starting dropbox, when he needed to figure something out, he went to amazon.com and bought the top-rated books on the subject, he read the books, and he then tried to apply the principles to his business.

Andrew Houston is an American Internet entrepreneur, and the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, an online backup and storage service. According to Forbes, his net worth is about $2.2 billion. He attended Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in the 1990s. He later graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. It was there that he met Arash Ferdowsi who would later go on to be co-founder and CTO of Dropbox.

During his time in college, Houston co-founded a SAT prep company. Houston and Ferdowsi co-founded Dropbox in 2007. Houston currently is CEO and 25% owner of Dropbox. In February 2020, Houston joined the board of directors of Facebook, replacing Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who left in May 2019.

by
Continue Reading
Exit mobile version