Review: Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I would like to thank the reviewers who said everything useful could be found in Chapter 8. I ended up reading that, and then going back to other chapters for details (mainly chapter 3).


It contained some great nuggets for any type of learning, whether it's for school, business, language learning, etc. I'll be applying these to my chinese language learning so let's see how it goes.


https://4201mass.blogspot.com/

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Review: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I probably wasn't the right target market for this book, in that I already agreed with everything he said. I've never gotten rid of all social media on my phone in order to give it a break, and then start from there, as he advocates. But I make it a point to keep very few apps (especially social media apps) on my phone. Only keeping the ones I use for work, and using my desktop for anything else. 

I also use Rescuetime to analyze how much time I spend on every app/website, and my numbers are nowhere near some of the crazy numbers he mentions, luckily. 

Regardless, some good points were made. I believe this would have made an excellent article, maybe with relative website to sign a pledge, or join a group, in order to enact what he mentions. As a book it's a bit long-winded. 

https://4201mass.blogspot.com/

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Review: The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence

The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence by Josh Waitzkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is like a self-help book in the sense that a biography can be a business book by teaching you business lessons. He talks about his experiences and then extrapolates the lessons he learned from different incidences and accomplishments in his life. 

If you are looking for easily digestible to-do nuggets, like "don't check your email first thing" or "never go to bed angry", you won't find them here. His advice requires you to dig deep, but they seem quite worthwhile nonetheless. 

Some of my notes:

Children who are told they are smart, tend to go for results, thereby avoiding any challenge where they might fail, while children who are taught to put more effort, tend to apply more effort to greater and greater challenges (Entity theorists vs. incremental theorists)

He discusses repeating what you learn until it becomes automatic, and then adding to it, and repeating again, and adding again, etc. 

I liked his discussion about how to deal with distractions. Rather than trying to do away with them, increase them, so they don't bother you (he applies this to chess, but it probably translates to many other endeavors)

I also liked his talk about constraints being liberating. He broke his hand, and learned to compete with one hand, deflecting with one so as to attack with another, so that once it healed he almost saw it as an unfair advantage. I like this idea, that average people would see an injury as 6 weeks doing nothing, but professional athletes find ways to take advantage of it. Allow yourself not to be at peak performance, so that you can learn/try new things to improve.

Creating your own trigger: Identify a moment when, or activity wherein, you're in the zone. Find other habits/activities you enjoy. Engage in these in a set routine, then start activity where you're in the zone. Repeat several times. 

At this point, you should be able to engage in the set routine and you'll automatically be in the zone. 

While playing chess he would eat 5 almonds every 45 minutes for alertness. (or bananas/ protein bars, etc.)

Anger: 3 steps: flow with distraction, use distraction, recreate internally

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Review: Born To Win: The Ultimate Seminar

Born To Win: The Ultimate Seminar by Zig Ziglar
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I'm on Chapter 6 (over 5 hours in) and he still hasn't stated anything practical. A very smooth talker who said we shouldn't read horoscopes because they're the work of the devil, and we've had 7 songs so far, by the Zig Ziglar singers (seriously, with titles like "The magic of believing"). A lot of talk like "You're gonna get a lot out of this course, but this course will also get a lot out of you", and "sitting on an acorn is a mighty slow way to get on top of an acorn tree". 

Right at the beginning he stated that we need to help others and we'll start reaping rewards. A tad simplistic, but good advice nonetheless. Since then, however, there hasn't been anything I can follow up on. I can get over the references to how great God and country are if he gives me something to work with. 

To be fair, he is probably the best speaker I have ever heard. 

But seriously, I'm over 5 hours in. Is he going to start dispensing any actionable advice? I know there is a worksheet, so something concrete should be coming up at some point. 

If it weren't for his reputation and the glowing reviews on Goodreads, I would be giving up on this. 

**Update**

I think I'm done. He just told an 'anecdote' about a lady who was being beaten by her husband regularly, and one day told him that next time he beat her she would take photos of the bruises and mail them to the newspapers and all his friends, and that he was "cured of his sickness just like that". And then another story about another man who beat his wife, so her friends beat him up and so he stopped his beating. Really not sure what the point is (I think he is trying to be poignant about wife-beating not being a 'disease' for some reason), but regardless, I think I'm done.

No star review because I didn't finish it. 

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Review: The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't think there's anything earth shattering here, but then again it might be because I ready many business books of this type. By and large, 10x means what it sounds like. He's less of the Tim Ferriss type of "find hacks" mentality, and more of the Gary V "hustle your ass off" mentality. I do like the way he puts it. Someone might think that to hustle means doing an extra sales call at the end of each day, or something along those lines. But by labeling it 10X, he makes it clear you need to think bigger. So you should be up making sales calls in your PJs and maybe even hire an intern or part-timer to get a sales team going (or something like that, I'm sort of inventing here) so you can make ten times as many calls as before.

I saw he has a TV show now (The Turnaround guy), which I'm interested in checking out.


Some of my notes:
Never diminish your target
Instead increase your input
Success is your duty
Average achievements are worse than no achievements, because people feel like they're putting in the effort already.
Don't get the victim mentality. If bad things happen to you, it's your fault, even when it isn't. Just think of a way to make sure it never happens again and move on.
Competing is copying
Don't let a good recession go to waste
Go all in (unlike with poker, you don' t have a limited number of chips)
You want new problems (means you're growing and doing new things).
Don't give Fear time to grow
Trying to avoid complaints is wrong (just another way of avoiding expansion). Complaints are direct ways customers give feedback. Encourage them, and you can improve.
Don't try to get money. Try to get wealth.
It's unethical not to achieve your full potential. You're robbing others of possible well-being
Be uncomfortable

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Review: Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm not sure how I feel about these books that try to make a point without any sort of comprehensive study, just some personal anecdotes of the author's. Granted, the author giving the personal anecdotes is one of the biggest success stories out there.

This also seems to apply only to people trying to make their businesses go viral, so it might not be applicable to B2B companies, or local restaurants, etc. To be fair, he addresses this (around halfway through the book), but he then states that most businesses will be online businesses (or already are). While this is true, it would have been handier (and frankly, more honest), to state this at the beginning, or on the dust jacket, so people who pick this book up know who its target market is right away.

All of this isn't to say I don't believe in his message. On the contrary, for some businesses this book is probably essential reading. This may even, at some point, include mine, in which case I should probably re-read it at that point. In the meantime, these are some of the notes I took:

The only time to blitzscale is when you have determined that speed is THE critical strategy to achieve massive outcomes. (This means greater uncertainty)

8 Transitions in Management Innovation:
1. Small teams to large teams
2. Generalists to Specialists
(Marines, army and police analogy)
3. Contributors to managers to executives
4. Dialogue to Broadcasting
5. Inspiration to Data
6. Single focus to multi-threading
"Freedom just means you have nothing to lose"
7. Pirate to Navy
(If I wanted to compete with myself, what would I do?)
8. Scale yourself (Founder to leader)

Always have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan Z

Launch a product that embarrasses you (no time for perfection)



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The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz

The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A surprisingly useful book. His tone was annoying at times, but that didn't really detract from the substance. This book is very actionable and all the steps seem concrete and are ones you will probably figure out at some point, but reading this book can save you years of wrong turns.

The advice of dumping all the "average" pumpkins to concentrate on the biggest one is good. I also liked other tidbits, like "under-promise and over-deliver 80% of the time (not 100%)", "don't let your chosen clients know they're getting special treatment", and "be transparent about your methods with your clients".

Also, I don't understand those reviewers saying these pieces of advice are "obvious" or "common sense". Are they basically saying they've already followed all his steps and they've attained success thanks to them but they're too obvious to qualify as advice? Otherwise I'm guessing they'd say it's "incorrect" or "incomplete" or something. Or maybe I'm overanalyzing the book reviews.



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The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else by Daniel Coyle (Goodreads Author)

The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else by Daniel Coyle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Actually an excellent book. From the renaissance to Korean female golfers of today to the Bronte sisters to the Z-boys in the 1970s, he examines clusters of talent and genius and how they came to be.

Oddly I feel like it should have been either shorter or longer. It would've made a great article, while as a book it could have expanded more into how we can apply what he says in different settings (have there been other studies on this? Are there differences between applying his steps to one main endeavor and trying to apply them to many different aspects in our life, such as getting better at our job, learning a new language, playing a musical instrument, and sports, all at the same time?).

Obviously I don't know enough to confirm or refute the science, and it sounded a tad snake-oil salesman-y at times, but it does seem like a very interesting premise. A step up from the whole "10 years' experience" or "10,000 hours rule" theories.


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