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October 2020

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The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz

Book Summary – The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz.

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“Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path.” -LU XUN

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Jacqueline’s story is an inspiring and refreshing story on starting a sustainable nonprofit organization. She takes the reader on a journey of persistence, adventure across Africa, understanding poverty & world views, becoming passionate about your project, delivering a new model for empowering and funding sustainable projects. She shares heartwarming stories about forming a long-lasting bond with the community she was trying to serve, the need to listen, and determination to get things done against all odds.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded Acumen, a non-profit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty.

Jacqueline Novogratz left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters. She shows how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called “patient capital” can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives.

“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” -MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

“Poverty won’t allow him to lift up his head; dignity won’t allow him to bow it down.”-MADAGASY PROVERB

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz:

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Book Summary – Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin.

In Book Summaries 9 Mins Read By

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

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Purple Cow by Seth Godin is one of my favorite business marketing books, the key concept in the book is very simple: to convert people to become raving fans in our fast-paced world, you need to create something remarkable worth talking about.

Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows – but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. And it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It’s built right in, or it’s not there. Period. 

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading,Purple Cow by Seth Godin:

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A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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“A Psalm of Life” is a poem written by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, often subtitled “What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist”

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
   Life is but an empty dream! 
For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 
   And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
   Was not spoken of the soul. 

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Drew Houston’s 2013 MIT Commencement Address

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“I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting.”

Drew Houston CEO of Dropbox, 2005 graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a degree in Computer Science 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. 

Drew delivered the speech at MIT’s 147th Commencement held June 7, 2013.

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’s 2013 MIT Commencement address Speech

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Book Summary – The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson

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Perhaps the best analogy of intelligence is a car. A faster engine can get you places more quickly if you know how to use it correctly. But simply having more horsepower won’t guarantee that you will arrive at your destination safely. Without the right knowledge and equipment – the brakes, the steering wheel, the speedometer, a compass and a good map – a fast engine may just lead to you driving in circles – or straight into oncoming traffic. And the faster the engine, the more dangerous you are.

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The Intelligence Trap Book is about why intelligent people act stupidly – and why in some cases they are even more prone to error than the average person. The book focuses on the strategies that we can all employ to avoid the same mistakes: lessons that will help anyone to think more wisely and rationally in this post-truth world.

The Intelligence Trap by David Robson is a great read that sheds light on many cognitive biases we all have; David shares some great strategies for identifying them and some insights on working on them. It is not what we know that gets us into trouble; it is what we think we know for sure that ain’t so. The author gives various examples of how brilliant people make seemingly stupid mistakes.

Intelligence can help you to learn and recall facts, and process complex information quickly, but you also need the necessary checks and balances to apply that brainpower correctly. Without them, greater intelligence can actually make you more biased in your thinking.

Here are my favourite take aways from reading, The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson:

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Top 30 Quotes on Imagination.

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“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.”- William Arthur Ward

One of the major difference between we humans and other primates is the ability to use our imagination to create innovative products, execute on great ideas and bring to life what we imagined. As the popular saying goes whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.

We humans are the only mammals that can see things before they happen, we can imagine things before they happen. You can not take people farther than you have gone, your imagination is a preview of things to come.

In her very inspiring 2008 Harvard University Commencement speech, Author J.K.Rowling spoke about the power of imagination:

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

Here are some great quotes on the Power of Imagination:

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Sam Walton Biography (WalMart)

In Inspiring People 18 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

One of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time is Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Sam was a visionary, cheerleader, great salesman, serial borrower, tough competitor, relentless entrepreneur who built a retail empire without losing his common touch. One of the most interesting things about Sam Walton was his vision for Walmart and his focus on generational wealth. As long have observed the Forbes list of the richest people globally, his offsprings have always been in the top 20 Forbes richest list, which is very impressive.

The Walton family held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005. Two daughters of Sam’s brother Bud Walton—Ann Kroenke and Nancy Laurie—hold smaller shares in the company. The Walton family is an American family whose collective fortune makes them the richest family in the United States of America and the richest family in the world.

Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam’s Club. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world’s largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer in the world. For a period of time, Walton was the richest man in America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbqllUeX0Y&t=551s

Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, one of the world’s largest business enterprises in terms of annual revenue, and with just over 2.2 million employees, the world’s largest private employer.
As of December 2014, the Waltons collectively owned 50.8 percent of Walmart. In 2018, the family sold some of their company’s stock and now owns just under 50%. In July 2020, the annual Sunday Times Rich List reported that the Walton family’s net worth was $US225.2 billion.

Sam Walton’s Autobiography: Made in America is one of my favorite business biographies as it contains lots of wisdom, insights, anecdotes, in the trenches advice, a very good read. The book chronicles his starting out, major tough early business lessons, borrowing ideas from others, customer obsession, Small Town Strategy, battling cancer, raising kids, understanding the value of a dollar among other insights.

If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you’re headed the wrong way.

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Book Summary- The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind by Jonah Berger.

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“People change when they … Hurt enough that they have to, Learn enough that they want to, and Receive enough that they are able to.” – John C. Maxwell

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The Catalyst by Jonah Berger is a great and transformative book for me personally as I have tendencies of wanting to change people (Messiah Syndrome); for example, whenever I finish a book, watch a documentary, or get exposed to new information, I want to share it with everybody but have come to realize people are at different levels and period in their lives (they change when they are ready). Anytime I want to get frustrated with people and change, I remind myself that first: I might be wrong and I remember the words of Author John C. Maxwell on Change:

“People change when they … Hurt enough that they have to, Learn enough that they want to, and Receive enough that they are able to.” – John C. Maxwell

Berger shares a great framework called REDUCE (Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, and Corroborating Evidence) for effecting change, and I absolutely love it.

The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind introduces a revolutionary approach to change. Successful change isn’t about pushing harder or exerting more energy. It’s about removing barriers. Overcoming resistance by reducing friction and lowering the hurdles to action.  Discover the five hidden factors that impede change, and how by mitigating them, you can change anything.

Books Theme:

How to overcome inertia, incite action, and change minds—not by being more persuasive, or pushing harder, but by being a catalyst. By removing the barriers to change. Identifying what is blocking or preventing change. And eliminating these obstacles to action.

The book is about finding the parking brakes. Discovering the hidden barriers preventing change. Identifying the root or core issues that are thwarting action and learning how to mitigate them.

Here are my Favourite Takeaways from reading, The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind by Jonah Berger:

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Your Results would cancel the Insults.

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If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.- Jack Dixon

One thing that is hard to argue with is results; it is hard to argue with because, as they say: “you have the right to your opinion but not your own facts.” The thing about results is that it shows up as the truth, and as Winston Churchill once quipped: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”. Your Results would cancel the Insults, and you would eventually be called to Consult. Your results are the quickest way to access where you are right now and where you want to go.

Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. check the scoreboard.- Jayz

Result is what gets a young person like Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook) multiple invitations to the white house and Capitol Hill; Result is what makes Warren Buffett pledge $37 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Result is what makes Barack Obama through his manifesto of hope (Yes we can) become the first African-American president of the United States, Result is your six-packs showing up after repeated work out in the gym, Result is graduating with fly colors after consistent study. Result: They don’t Lie.

One of my favorite verses from the Christian scripture is Proverbs 22:29, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” Your results are a mirror of your discipline, efforts, and sacrifice in life, gym, library, body, and health. As Author & Motivational Speaker Jim Rohn often said: “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” Long term success requires paying the price through discipline, sacrifice, and effort.

“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes – that means your [preparation:]. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you’re going to get found out now, under the bright lights.”― Joe Frazier

We live in a world where an entrepreneur does not have a business, an author does not have a book, an artist does not have a single, a web developer does not have a website, a life coach does not have their shit together, a world where anyone can call themselves anything but the thing about results and number is that they don’t lie, like Jay-z said you just need to check the scoreboard.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill

In his great book, Developing the Leader Within You 2.0, Author John C Maxwell shares a great story about getting results:

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“Personal Renewal” Speech by John W. Gardner

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“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there.

You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.” 

John William Gardner was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) under President Lyndon Johnson. He was recipient of the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom and became known as “the father of campaign finance reform”. John delivered the “Personal Renewal” Speech at McKinsey & Company on November 10, 1990. 

Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves.

“Personal Renewal” Speech Transcript

I’m going to talk about “Self-Renewal.” One of your most fundamental tasks is the renewal of the organizations you serve, and that usually includes persuading the top officers to accomplish a certain amount of self-renewal. But to help you think about others is not my primary mission this morning. I want to help you think about yourselves. 

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How Did You Die? By Edmund Vance Cooke

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“Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” 

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful? 
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful? 
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce, 
Or a trouble is what you make it, 
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts, 
But only how did you take it? 

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that! 
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat, 
But to lie there-that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce
Be proud of your blackened eye! 
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts; 
It’s how did you fight-and why? 

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Book Summary: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By

BUMMER MACHINE (Social Media Platforms) “Behaviors of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent“

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In this insightful book, Jaron Lanier, Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft Research and one of Virtual Reality pioneers, shares 10 compelling arguments on the need to delete our social media accounts. Before reading the book, I was already out of most of the social media platforms, and I am only present on Linkedin for now.

Jaron argues in ten ways that what has become suddenly normal—pervasive surveillance and constant, subtle manipulation—is unethical, cruel, dangerous, and inhumane. Dangerous?

Not only is your worldview distorted, but you have less awareness of other people’s worldviews. The version of the world you are seeing is invisible to the people who misunderstand you, and vice versa.

  • Your understanding of others has been disrupted because you don’t know what they’ve experienced in their feeds, while the reverse is also true; the empathy others might offer you is challenged because you can’t know the context in which you’ll be understood.
  • You’re probably becoming more of an asshole, but you’re also probably sadder; another pair of BUMMER disruptions that are mirror images. Your ability to know the world, to know truth, has been degraded, while the world’s ability to know you has been corrupted. Politics has become unreal and terrifying, while economics has become unreal and unsustainable: two sides of the same coin.

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now:

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Top 30 Quotes on Leadership.

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Leadership is unveiled by vision, driven by passion, activated by planning, engineered by sacrifice, and actualized by tireless pursuit.

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times as Charles Dicken once quipped, that is the life of a leader. A leader is a dealer in hope, positivity, and optimism in trying times, and in crisis, the leader charts a course for recovery. A leader’s job is to create an enabling environment where your people can do their best work and become a better version of themselves.

Here are some great quotes on Leadership:

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Amina J. Mohammed Biography

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Ms. Amina J. Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group.

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment.

Ms. Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012 as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. She led the process that resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.  

Ms. Mohammed began her career working on the design of schools and clinics in Nigeria. She served as an advocate focused on increasing access to education and other social services, before moving into the public sector, where she rose to the position of adviser to three successive Presidents on poverty, public sector reform, and sustainable development.

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This Giant Beast That Is The Global Economy Docuseries

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Actor Kal Penn hosts this docuseries from Oscar winner Adam McKay that takes a look at the global economy. Penn, a former White House associate during the Obama administration, takes viewers around the world to meet key players behind some of the more serious and bizarre movements in today’s economy.

Each episode focuses on a central question about the global economy — such as how to launder a bag of dirty cash — as the show looks to discover surprising ways the economy interconnects and impacts the lives of people worldwide. The series features in-depth access to unique specialists, including extreme preparedness experts, and has cameos by such celebrities as Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis, Joel McHale, Ed O’Neill, Rob Riggle and Meghan Trainor.

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