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Book Summary – The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin.

In Book Summaries 9 Mins Read By

We don’t ship the work because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship the work.

The Practice is based on the Akimbo Creative Workshop pioneered by author Seth Godin. Seth insists that writer’s block is a myth, that consistency is far more important than authenticity, and that experiencing the imposter syndrome is a sign that you’re a well-adjusted human.

“The practice is there if we’re willing to sign up for it. And the practice will open the door to the change you seek to make.”

I am a super fan of Seth Godin’s work and from reading his very insightful books: Purple Cow, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Linchpin, The Dip, listening to his podcast (Akimbo), reading his blog, and his other great projects such as alt MBA. The book is a compilation of 219 nuggets for creatives and writers.

“The practice doesn’t care when you decide to become an artist. What simply matters is that you decide. Whether or not your mom is involved in the decision.”

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Book Summary – In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People by Dr. George K. Simon Ph.D.

In Book Summaries 19 Mins Read By

“It may have short ears and it may have long ears; it may have a lot of hair and it may have no hair at all; it may be brown or it may be gray; but if it’s big and has tusks and a trunk, it’s always an elephant.”

We all deal with manipulative, narcissistic, and people with personality disorders on a daily basis at work, marriage, family, and life in general. According to Dr. George K. Simon: “Manipulative people have two goals: to win and to look good doing it.  Often those they abuse are only vaguely aware of what is happening to them.”

When you’re being manipulated, chances are someone is fighting with you for position, advantage, or gain, but in a way that’s difficult to readily see.

Although the extreme wolves in sheep’s clothing that make headlines grab our attention and pique our curiosity about what makes such people “tick,” most of the covertly aggressive people we are likely to encounter are not these larger-than-life characters. Rather, they are the subtly underhanded, backstabbing, deceptive, and conniving individuals we may work with, associate with, or possibly even live with. And they can make life miserable. They cause us grief because we find it so hard to truly understand them and even harder to deal with them effectively.

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Book Summary – Deduct Everything! by Eva Rosenberg.

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Title: Deduct Everything!: Save Money with Hundreds of Legal Tax Breaks, Credits, Write-Offs, and Loopholes
Author: Eva Rosenberg.

Eva Rosenberg, MBA, EA, known as the Internet’s TaxMama®, publishes the popular www.TaxMama.com website, cited by Consumer Reports magazine as a top tax advice site, and a LIFE Magazine Editor’s Pick. In Deduct Everything, Eva shares tips, tools, and strategies for saving money through legal tax breaks, credits, write-offs, and loopholes.

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Book Summary – $ 2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer.

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By

After two decades of brilliant research on American poverty, Kathryn Edin noticed something she hadn’t seen before – households surviving on virtually no cash income. Edin teamed with Luke Shaefer, an expert on calculating incomes of the poor, to discover that the number of American families living on $ 2.00 per person, per day, has skyrocketed to one and a half million households, including about three million children.

The authors argue that in-kind benefits like SNAP (food stamps) are important—even vital. Yet in 21st Century America, they are not enough—cash is critical. The book is about what happens when a government safety net that is built on the assumption of full-time, stable employment at a living wage combines with a low-wage labor market that fails to deliver on any of the above. It is this toxic alchemy, the authors argue, that is spurring the increasing numbers of $2-a-day poor in America.

A hidden but growing landscape of survival strategies among those who experience this level of destitution has been the result. At the community level, these strategies can pull families into a web of exploitation and illegality that turns conventional morality upside down.

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The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

In Book Summaries 13 Mins Read By

“Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness.”

In the six pillars of self-esteem, Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer Nathaniel Branden introduces the six pillars-six action-based practices for daily living that provide the foundation for self-esteem-and explores the central importance of self-esteem in five areas: the workplace, parenting, education, psychotherapy, and the culture at large. 

“The greater the number of choices and decisions we need to make at a conscious level, the more urgent our need for self-esteem.”

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Book Summary – Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.

In Book Summaries 23 Mins Read By

A caste system endures because it is often justified as divine will, originating from sacred text or the presumed laws of nature, reinforced throughout the culture and passed down through the generations.

In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, American journalist Isabel Wilkerson, describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson delves into the origins and evolution of classifying and elevating one group of people over another and the consequences of doing so to the presumed beneficiaries and to those targeted as beneath them.

She compares the experience of African-Americans and other people of color in the United States to the caste system in India and the experience of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Wilkerson explores man’s inhumanity to fellow humans based on religious dogma, eugenics, Endogamy, politics, unconscious bias, etc. She defines eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations including divine will, heredity, and dehumanization.

Everything that happened to the Jews of Europe, to African-Americans during the lynching terrors of Jim Crow, to Native Americans as their land was plundered and their numbers decimated, to Dalits considered so low that their very shadow polluted those deemed above them—happened because a big enough majority had been persuaded and had been open to being persuaded, centuries ago or in the recent past, that these groups were ordained by God as beneath them, subhuman, deserving of their fate.

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You are already naked.

In Life 9 Mins Read By

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

 In his thought-provoking and inspiring commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford University, Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs said:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Jobs was right; almost everything falls apart in the face of death. He probably had this conviction based on his scare with pancreatic cancer that eventually took his life. We are all going to DIE at some point in our brief stay here on earth. It could happen any time; the challenge is we do not know when; hence we waste our time believing we still have lots of it, we procrastinate, we fail to prioritize, we major in minor things, and at the end of our life we are filled with regrets, should have and could have.

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Book Summary -Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Dr. Gordon Livingston.

In Book Summaries 16 Mins Read By

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now is a collection of thirty common sense wisdom by the celebrated psychologist and military veteran Dr. Gordon Livingston. He reflects on the lessons learned from his patients, time in the US Army, and most importantly on the roller coaster of life.

Favourite Takeaways -Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

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Top 30 Quotes on setting boundaries.

In Quotes 5 Mins Read By

Boundaries are limits and rules we set for things we are responsible for. We define who we are and who we are not. We can set boundaries for our time and energy, personal space, identity, possessions, culture, spirituality, ethics, values, marriage, thought process, etc. Our Boundaries or lack of boundaries are shaped by among other things our upbringing, caregivers, family dynamics, life experiences, personality type (Introvert or extrovert), life experiences, worldview, etc.

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The Karpman Drama Triangle.

In Insight 13 Mins Read By

The Drama Triangle is a model of human interaction that maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur among people in conflict.

The Karpman drama triangle was developed by psychiatrist and Transactional Analysis teacher Dr. Stephen B. Karpma. He was a student of Canadian-born psychiatrist  Eric Berne, M.D., the creator of transactional analysis psychology and author of Games People Play. The Drama Triangle is a model of human interaction that maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur among people in conflict.

The triangle of actors in the drama are persecutors, victims, and rescuers.

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Book Summary -Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist by Margalis Fjelstad.

In Book Summaries 18 Mins Read By

In order to move through the stages from Caretaker to self-care, you need to know what you think, how you feel, what you want, and how you want to live your life.

Marriage and Family Therapist Margalis Fjelstad profers strategies for dealing and living with people with Borderline or Narcissist Personality Disorders. In Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life, Margalis shares tools for breaking the cycle of drama and ways for developing a new path of personal freedom, discovery, and self-awareness.

The book looks at how someone can move from being a caring person to being a Caretaker and the effects of that role. Factors that contribute to these more extreme reactions, how they impact your life as a Caretaker, how Caretakers are set up for failure, how to get out of the Caretaker role, and how to become that loving, caring person you want to be.

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Book Summary – Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil.

In Book Summaries 7 Mins Read By

Models are opinions embedded in mathematics.

Algorithms control almost everything we do on the internet, from Google search, Netflix movie recommendations, our Facebook news feed, Job applications, etc. Algorithms are mathematical models used to solve a set of problems or to perform computational instructions. American Mathematician and Author Cathy O’Neil write about the impact of big data algorithms on increasing preexisting inequality in the world. In Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, she calls these algorithms Weapons of Math Destruction.

 WMDs, are mathematical models or algorithms that claim to quantify important traits: teacher quality, recidivism risk, creditworthiness but have harmful outcomes and often reinforce inequality, keeping the poor poorer and the rich richer.

Cathy defines algorithms as opinions embedded in code. These algorithms are being weaponized, and she argues that the algorithms are becoming more Widespread, Mysterious, and Destructive. She sights examples of how the WMDs are being used in various fields such as teacher assessment, predictive policing, insurance, the justice system, microtargeting politics, money lending, and how the algorithm decisions can lead to increasing inequality, reinforcing racism, and harming the poor.

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Top 30 Quotes on Endurance.

In Quotes 4 Mins Read By

Endurance is the ability to withstand hardship or adversity without giving in. It is the measure of a person’s stamina or persistence. Endurance is from the late 15th-century French verb – endurer (To withstand, bear, endure). Life is a roller coaster ride of challenges with its twists and turns; The key is to endure the hard time and hope for a brighter future even when you are down. Embracing the tough times can be very hard, but endurance is the key to finishing the race of life.

As someone who has finished 10+ Marathons, having the end in mind, enduring the pain, and persevering is the key to finishing any race. We all start the year setting goals, resolutions, wishes, and aspirations; the key to achieving your goals by the end of the year requires perseverance, endurance, and trusting the process.

Here are 30 great quotes on Endurance:

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From Learned Helplessness to Learned Optimism.

In Life 8 Mins Read By

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

Learned Helplessness occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try – even when opportunities for change become available. It is a behaviour exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control.

Neuroscience

 The brain’s default state us to assume that control is not present, and the presence of “Helpfulness” is what actually learned. First however, it is unlearned when faced with prolonged aversive stimulation.

According to  Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania‘s Department of Psychology, Dr. Martin E. Seligman: At the core of pessimism is the phenomenon called Helplessness. Helplessness is the state of affairs in which nothing you choose to do affects what happens to you. Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

Helplessness is the state of affairs in which nothing you choose to do affects what happens to you.

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