Book Review
Quick review: Warfighting is insightful and packed full of wisdom, entirely devoid of fluff, and very much to the point (as one would expect from the military). It was striking how much of the book and its truths apply to warfare, but more broadly to business, investing, and life.
Read MoreI read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: Steven Pressfield is a prolific author (The Legend of Baggar Vance was his debut novel) and speaker, but his true passion is fighting the Resistance. Or at least that’s what he calls the force in life that prevents each person from following and finding their creative genius. The War of Art is Pressfield’s call to arms, his way of helping people overcome their fear of the empty page, the false weight of the blank whiteboard, and simply create.
Read MoreI read Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: Patty McCord is the former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix and co-creator of the famous Netflix culture deck. If the deck is the ‘what’ of Netflix’s high performing culture, this book serves as the ‘how’ and ‘why’. It’s a relatively quick read and offers some unique suggestions on developing and maintaining strong corporate cultures at fast growing companies. I was struck by how counter some of the suggestions were to the norms that exist in companies today.
Read MoreI read by Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: This is one of the better ‘business’ books I have read thanks to fascinating stories, a counterintuitive message and immediately useful and actionable suggestions. The author, Chris Voss, was an FBI negotiator dealing with negotiations most of us are unlikely to ever encounter: hostage situations. In a very easy and surprisingly captivating read (it is a book on negotiation after all) he instructs on a negotiation strategy that most people don’t usually consider: getting everything you want.
Read MoreI read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: I thoroughly enjoyed 21 Lessons, more a collection of meditations than a single tome. The book follows Harari’s two bestsellers, Sapiens and Homo Deus, in which he as a historian and philosopher explores how mankind came to be and where humanity is going. Both great reads in their own right, neither of the previous two books explore the challenges we face in the present age. 21 Lessons is focused squarely on the major themes and current affairs of today and, unlike previous works, Harari intends this book to me more of a conversation with the aim to “stimulate further thinking, and help readers participate in some of the major conversations of [the] time.”
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