Book Summaries Archives | Page 11 of 28

A Life Without Limits: A World Champion’s Journey by Chrissie Wellington .

April 29, 2022 In Biographies 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Four-time Ironman Triathlon World Champion and world record holder Chrissie Wellington OBE chronicles her rise in the triathlon world and the roller coaster of long distance endurance running. Chrissie holds the world record for Ironman distance (8hrs, 18 mins) and she is the only triathlete, male or female, to have won the World Championship less than a year after turning professional.

The Ironman Triathlon.

Every October, the World Championships of the sport are held in Kona on the Island of Hawaii. An ironman is the longest distance of triathlon – a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles on the bike, and then you run a marathon.

“In an ironman, even the world’s best face a challenge just to finish.”

Book Summary -Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

April 25, 2022 In Book Summaries 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle— when the sun comes up, you’d better be running. – Roger Bannister

In Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, Christopher McDougall writes extensively about the art of running, Tarahumara Indians, superathletes, and the rollercoaster of being a runner.

Running seemed to be the fitness version of drunk driving: you could get away with it for a while, you might even have some fun, but catastrophe was waiting right around the corner

My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future by Indra Nooyi

April 22, 2022 In Biographies 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Indian-American business executive Indra Nooyi was named PepsiCo CEO in 2006 making her the first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company. In My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future, Indra chronicles her journey from growing up in India, going to America to school, lessons she learned on her way to leading a fortune 500 company, the challenge of being a woman leader in corporate America, managing work-life balance and leading with the heart.

Indra is one of my favorite business leaders, she seems sincere, authentic, and vulnerable.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkema.

April 18, 2022 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

If you live to be 80, you’ll have had about 4,000 weeks

In Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, British journalist Oliver Burkema highlights some great insights about the brevity of life. Burkema notes “If you live to be 80, you’ll have had about 4,000 weeks. But that’s no reason for despair. Confronting our radical finitude – and how little control we really have – is the key to a fulfilling and meaningfully productive life.”

He writes about the finitude of our existence, brevity of life,

Where You Are Is Not Who You Are: A Memoir by Ursula Burns.

April 15, 2022 In Biographies 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In 2009, Ursula became the first African American woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation. In her memoir, Where You Are Is Not Who You Are, Ursula chronicles her story of growing up in poverty, being an outsider most of her life, her career trajectory, and the lessons learned leading a fortune 500 company as a black woman.

Burns writes about her journey from tenement housing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to the highest echelons of the corporate world. She credits her success to her poor single Panamanian mother, Olga Racquel Burns—a licensed child-care provider whose highest annual income was $4,400—who set no limits on what her children could achieve. Ursula recounts her own dedication to education and hard work, and how she took advantage of the opportunities and social programs created by the Civil Rights and Women’s movements to pursue engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York.

Book Summary – 12 Notes: On Life and Creativity by Quincy Jones

April 12, 2022 In Book Summaries 13 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Life is an absolute trip and you never know what’s going to come next.

80-time Grammy nominee and 8-time Grammy award winner Quincy Jones share lessons learned insights, and strategies that have helped him lead a life of creativity. Quincy grew up with a workaholic dad and a schizophrenic (dementia praecox) mum that was taken away to a mental hospital when Quincy was 7. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in southside Chicago with his baby brother.

Quincy breaks down his principles, approach to life, and philosophies, along with standout stories from his journey in twelve chapters called “notes”.

Learn to deal with the valleys, the hills will take care of themselves.

On Creativity

Creativity is made up of two parts: science and soul (left and right brain). The scientific side is that which needs to be learned and practiced. But the soulful side (which is composed of emotions) is something that can’t be taught—it’s simply the essence of who you are as a human being.

Growing up in an environment that stripped me of all ability to control my circumstances, creativity became the only way in which I could gain even an ounce of stability.

My Life And Work by Henry Ford.

April 8, 2022 In Biographies 12 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In My Life And Work, American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford highlights his business and life philosophies. He chronicles his journey of founding the Ford Motor Company, developing the assembly line technique of mass production, introducing the minimum wage, reducing working hours, the five-day work week, and producing the first automobile (Model T) that the middle class could afford. Ford’s autobiography is a great read and a good historical book on running a business during the world war and producing a product for the masses.

As of April 2022 Ford has a market cap of $60.80 Billion and the world’s 252th most valuable company by market cap.

Just for Fun by Linus Torvalds.

April 1, 2022 In Biographies 14 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Revolutionaries aren’t born. Revolutions can’t be planned. Revolutions can’t be managed. Revolutions happen…… And sometimes, revolutionaries just get stuck with it.

In Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, the creator of Linux Kernel, Linus Torvalds chronicles his journey of creating Linux and distributing it on the internet for free. On August 25, 1991, as a Finnish computer science student, Linus announced his hobby project on an internet messaging platform:

Hello everybody out there using minix – I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

Book Summary: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

March 28, 2022 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Without an understanding of profitability, every business, no matter how big, no matter how “successful,” is a house of cards

In Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine, Small Business author Mike Michalowicz describes a framework that he calls “Profit First”. It is a behavioral approach to accounting wherein the entrepreneur takes profit first and appropriates only what remains for expenses. Mike noted that by following this approach, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows.

A financially healthy company is a result of a series of small daily financial wins, not one big moment. Profitability isn’t an event; it’s a habit.

Book Summary: The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty by Leonard A. Lauder

March 25, 2022 In Biographies 16 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The Company I Keep, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned as well as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop business his mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand and ultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today.

In its infancy in the 1940s and 50s, the company comprised a handful of products, sold under a single brand in just a few prestigious department stores across the United States. Today, The Estée Lauder Companies constitutes one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of prestige skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. It comprises more than 25 brands, whose products are sold in over 150 countries and territories. This growth and success was led by Leonard Lauder, Estée Lauder’s oldest son, who envisioned and effected this expansion during a remarkable 60-year tenure, including leading the company as CEO and Chairman.

Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff.

March 21, 2022 In Book Summaries 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Messy and Finished beats perfect and incomplete every time.

Starting is not a challenge most of us have but finishing is the hard part. In Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, author Jon Acuff shares strategies and tactics for moving from being a chronic starter to becoming a consistent finisher. He writes extensively on the perils of perfectionism and ways of dealing with it.

If you want to finish, you’ve got to do all that you can to get rid of your perfectionism right out of the gate. You’ve got to have fun, cut your goal in half, choose what things you’ll bomb, and a few other actions you won’t see coming at first.

The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell From Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever by Steve Madden.

March 18, 2022 In Biographies 17 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell From Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever, American fashion designer and entrepreneur Steve Madden reminiscences how he took his eponymous shoe company from a startup selling shoes out of the trunk of his car with $1,100 startup capital to a multi-billion dollar global brand. Along the way, Madden made some mistakes that landed him in prison, he speaks at great length about his battle with alcoholism and drug addiction, family trauma, lessons learned, and his path to personal re-invention.

Madden writes about his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), his losses (Grief, Divorce), and his wins (Grass to Grace to the bottom and getting back up). As of March 2022, Steve Madden has a market cap of $3.13 Billion. From selling shoes from his car trunk in the 90s to a billion-dollar company. Very Inspiring.

Book Summary – The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

March 14, 2022 In Book Summaries 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, marketing strategist Chet Holmes describes 12 competencies & strategies for doubling sales and business growth. Chet shared tools for marketing, management, and sales mastery.

Key Insights: Pigheaded Discipline and Determination, Dream 100, Education-based marketing, Best neighborhoods sales strategy, Stacked Marketing.

Chet Holmes got his break by working for Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger. Chet doubled the sales of nine divisions under Charlie’s management purview. He shares 12 principles for doubling sales in the Ultimate Sales Machine.

Shoemaker: The Untold Story of the British Family Firm that Became a Global Brand by Joe Foster.

March 11, 2022 In Biographies 19 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Shoemaker: The Untold Story of the British Family Firm that Became a Global Brand, Co-Founder of Reebok Joe Foster describes the remarkable story of how he founded Reebok in 1958 with his late brother Jeff, following their family heritage back to 1895. From humble beginnings , they started from a small factory in Bolton and built a global brand with grit, persistence and focus. Joe’s Grandfather, Joseph W Foster founded J. W. Foster & Sons which pioneered the spiked running shoe and famously made shoes for the Worlds best athletes of the early 20th century, with World records and Olympics Gold Medals.

My story, the Reebok story, is not a standard business tale about how I worked hard, hunched over a shoe last for thirty-five years. Nor is it a linear journey along a well-thought-out path, or a tale of how I risked millions and came out smelling of shiny leather. It is a book about motivation and the importance of gripping onto an opportunity when Lady Luck presents it.

The Story of Lululemon by Chip Wilson

March 4, 2022 In Biographies 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Don’t waste a second of your life. You only have 40,000 days to live. The longer you live, the quicker time goes. To a toddler, 10 minutes feels like 10 years. To a 90-year-old man, 10 days feels like half a second.

In The Story of Lululemon: Little Black Stretchy Pants, Entrepreneur and Founder of yoga-inspired athletic apparel company Lululemon Athletica, Chip Wilson writes about founding Lululemon, creating company culture, lessons learned, building great corporate governance, working with family members, his thought process and insights he garnered along the way.

Chip is a voracious reader and he recommends loads of business books.

Book Summaries