5- Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck
Do you think you got away with some crazy stuff as a teenager? You may have, but this is the story of Rink (15 years old) and Kern (17 years old) who rebuild an old Piper Cub airplane over winter, and then fly it from New Jersey to the Pacific Ocean and California! The epic coast-to-coast trip took place back in the 1960s, and the brothers take advantage of Kennedy fever to charm the press and a nation with their story. Their father was an old barnstormer pilot, who taught them how to fly early. Their heroes were the stunt pilots that flew out of the little airports where they grew up. Their guides as they flew west were the old airport geezers who gave them weather advice, fixed the plane when it broke, and helped them fuel up along their way. As my friend Phil said, this book “is all the best parts of Indiana Jones and MacGyver.” A special thanks to my friend Randy for this book recommendation.
I recommend this book to airplane lovers, and anyone needing an adventure story.
(Rated PG-13 for language, Score 9/10, Paperback, 368p)
4- Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
This is a little hidden gem of a book that I found to be super interesting and great for adjusting some of my perspectives on life, hardship, work ethic, and race. It added a ton of color and perspective to the Post-Civil War rebuilding effort that I had not been exposed to before. This is Booker T. Washington’s autobiographical account of his life. He was born a slave and emancipated as a youth as the Civil War ended. His greatest desire was to get an education. He made many sacrifices to this end. Eventually, he left home to attend a school called Hampton where the school administrator General Armstrong raised him up to be a man of education, hard work and invested in the betterment of all those around him. After graduating Mr. Washington endeavored to create a school in Tuskegee, Alabama, where young people could learn trades, hard work, and many other useful skills like reading and writing and so on. Mr. Washington was a strong believer that each student should learn a trade and the value of doing hard work for the value it provides to the worker and to the community. He insisted that they build their own school buildings and grow their own garden and many other projects that propelled the school forward in the community. By learning trades at the same time as getting a book education the students were able to secure their financial futures by learning how to do things that people were willing to pay to have done. In today’s society we seem to value school for its own sake, rather than valuing the skills and work-ethic it should be creating in our students. Mr. Washington believed that with hard work and skill, a man would be valued as a citizen for his worth no matter his skin color.
Ultimately, I found his perspectives, conclusions, and personal policies to be extremely practical and applicable across all types of people.
I recommend this book for everyone, especially those trying to better themselves and those around them. (Rated G, Score 10/10, Audiobook and ebook)
3- Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Extreme Ownership is the best leadership book I have read in a while. Jocko and Leif trade off writing sections in the following form: Story, Principle, Application to Business. The chapters are broken up into three parts: Winning the War Within, Laws of Combat, and Sustaining Victory. Of course, chapter 1 is Extreme Ownership, which shows how the most effective leaders have to take extreme ownership of everything in their world- the good, the bad, the wins, the losses, the failures, and so on. Only when a leader is willing to take responsibility for everything that affects the mission can they truly make the hard decisions and commitments it takes to lead and win in tough environments. The rest of the book is built on this principle as the authors cover other topics like Check the Ego, Cover and Move, and Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command.
My top 3 take-aways:
1) Prioritize and Execute. Relax. Take a look around. Make a call.
2) Simplify.
3) Don't ask your boss what to do. Tell him what you are going to do.
I highly recommend this book to anyone hunting for some actionable leadership improvement content. The lessons are simple, clearly explained, and supplemented with examples from the military and the private sector. (Rated R, Score 9/10)
1- Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden
“Everything we know about time management is wrong.” A pretty impressive way to start out a book. Turns out Rory Vaden has a good point, and he walks through his outline on how to change your thinking to multiply your time. First, of course, he describes why this is important and the benefits we would all get out of more time.
The core of the book is built around these 5 permissions:
- Eliminate- the permission to ignore.
- Automate- the permission to invest.
- Delegate- The permission of imperfect.
- Procrastinate- The permission of incomplete.
- Concentrate- The permission to protect.
So, what does all this mean? Rory argues that current time management schemes are missing a key dimension: significance. We know how to decide what is important, and what is urgent, but we fail to select tasks with the highest significance. We need to do those things that will give us more time tomorrow. How can we do this?
We use the Focus Filter on each task and ask questions based on the 5 permissions above to pick those tasks we need to address. First question: Can this task be eliminated? If the answer is yes, you win. Ignore the task and never look back. Quitting unnecessary tasks is the fastest way to free up time. Practice saying NO.
If the task cannot be ignored, ask question two: Can this task be automated? There are many ways to automate tasks: computer programs, process maps, tip sheets, and so on. Simplify, and organize so that the task can be done efficiently. Automation does for your time, what compound interest does for your money.
If the task cannot be ignored and cannot be automated, ask question 3: Can this task be delegated? Odds are, most things can be delegated. Let go of perfectionism, trust your people, and let them do what you are paying them to do. This doesn’t mean blindly delegate and set people up for failure. Expect to spend 30X the amount of time it takes you to do the task, training the task. Train it recursively, so that you can teach the why. This line stuck with me: Question: What if we train our people and they leave? Answer: Worse, what if you don’t train them and they stay?
If the task can’t be ignored, automated, or delegated, ask question 4: Does this task need to be done right now? If the answer is no, procrastinate. Kick the task back up to the top of the Focus Filter and let it go through again.
If the answer to question 4 is yes, you finally have something to do: concentrate. Get that task done! Until you get that task done everything else is a distraction. I guess this step is the subject of Rory’s other book Take the Stairs which is now on my reading list for later.
So, that’s a lot to think about. Basically, we want to shift our thinking from Priority Dilution, which is getting lost in the urgent, to focus on investing in those things that bring us more time, better results, and more life.
I recommend this book to anyone leading people, and it is a must for productivity nuts.
(Rated G, Score 10/10, Audiobook read by the author, 6:16)
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