Entries Tagged 'Non-fiction' ↓
February 7th, 2010 — Book Review, Inspirational, Kindle book, Non-fiction, Troll or other beads
Flipping Brilliant is a short little inspirational book based on penguin life, but it is filled with wonderful, wonderful pictures of penguins.
It is also available as a Kindle book for $6.39. But I’m not sure you’d want it as an ebook yet, because you would lose the color photos. I don’t think black and white would be quite as good, despite the majority of penguin color being black and white.
I had no idea there are 17 different kinds of penguins!
Ever wonder why the Emperor Penguins march so far from the sea before making their nests? This book has the answer — because when the ice begins to melt, if they are too close to the sea, the entire colony would be lost.
I rate this book 5 star for the photos, and the inspirations drawn from them are better than I expected.
Have you read it?
Trollbead/Pandora/Chamilia/etc. penguins
BTW, for those of you who collect trollbead bracelets or Pandora, there are plenty of different styles of penguins to choose for your bracelet. Barbara Maria has one (she designed TB geese) that is really cute.
Another management book: Our Iceberg Is Melting by John Kotter
If I had time right now, I’d read this book among the first of the books I have to read. But it will be on a later agenda, even though it is an approximately 45 min read. It looked very interesting at the book store. Additionally, you can find it at $9.99 for your Kindle. This fable is about a penguin colony faced with a potentially fatal problem. Along the way, the author teaches 8 insights into how to understand and manage change.
Have you ever thought that change either comes too quickly — or not soon enough.
Managing change, the unexpected kind, might be a good thing!
Karin
www.savvythinker.com
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January 25th, 2010 — Book Review, Kindle book, Non-fiction
$8.00 in Kindle.
$9.99 in Kindle
These books were given to me as Christmas presents. They are not easy reads, but they have information that everyone should have some knowledge of, if they don’t already. I had some awareness before I read these books, but I had no single book that would be a reference book on the subject.
The young reader’s edition is like a Reader’s Digest take on the adult book. The book is an abbreviated version, but it includes all the highlights. It is not something I want either my teen or pre-teen (or maybe even Book Girl) to read. Suffice it to know a bit about it, without reading it.
The author claims that those who are vegetarians begin to eat meat again, after reading his book, or conversely, those who eat meat become vegetarians.
He talks a lot about how corn has taken over, and what that means even for a cow’s digestion.
He takes us from cattle ranching to small, green type farms that are self-sustaining. He helps on the latter for a period of time and on the day that chickens are processed. This particular farm was very interesting to me. I definitely recommend reading this section — how the chickens are brought into the pastures where the cows had been a couple of days earlier. They clear the manure of eatable bugs, adding food to their diet and clearing the pasture for the safety of the animals. The systems of moving the animals is very interesting.
He finds large packing plants won’t let him in. He describes in detail how a cow is killed for food, humanely.
These are not easy books to read, but they might be necessary for one’s education.
Have you read either of these books?
Karin
www.savvythinker.com
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November 30th, 2009 — Book Review, Business, Non-fiction
Anybody who’s ever had a bad manager, knows it’s true that your manager counts.
Keeping up with ideas — Do you?
I like to keep up with ideas in the business world (ex-IBM’er) as well as in the fashion world (ex-multi-store owner.) On the latter, I recommend Nathan Branch’s blog for a weekly rundown of all that matters. Also the Sartorialist and Bill Cunningham for on the street photos.
I sort of know a little (or a lot) about a lot (or little) — not particularly a master of any of it, just aware and interested across the board in a multitude of issues including books of all sorts.
Anyway, I have a stack of RL books to read (this isn’t counting the ones on Kindle) and decided to begin three last night. I hit the jackpot with each of them. My son had given me one to read; the others I picked up at the library book sale. I just love finding good reads!
First, break all the rules
This title and subtitle is one of the longest I’ve ever seen, but I had to laugh at the main title because I am a closet-rebel or perhaps a not-so-closet-rebel. Sometimes that is a good thing, and sometimes that is a bad thing. I have been known to be called a flower child (meant and taken as a good thing.) I wonder which my friends would say about me being a closet-rebel, if I hadn’t told them.
Rules are meant to be broken — at least some of them — or we’d never have any progress.
Here’s the full title: First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. And the rest: based on in-depth interviews by the gallup organization of over 80,000 managers in over 400 countries — the largest study of its kind ever undertaken. The book is (c) 1999 so I don’t know how much might have changed. Likely not much, unless some of the successful companies in the book have gone under.
I’m only on page 36, but so far I highly recommend the book. It is given 4.5 stars by 274 Amazon readers. ( Full disclosure: 14 gave it 1*; 11 gave it 2*; 13 gave it 3*)
The authors summarize important points in retaining key employees. If your employees can answer the following questions affirmatively, you are in better shape than if they do not:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow? (p 28)
Of the 12, the 6 that are more key to employee retention are these:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
5. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
6. At work, do my opinions seem to count? …
Even more than the rest, these five questions are most directly influenced by the employee’s immediate manager. … It tells us that people leave managers, not companies. … If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. (p 33)
Not surprisingly,
managers trump companies (p 34)
Immediate management
I’m here to tell you that I know of several people who left companies because of their immediate manager. They just didn’t want to work in that atmosphere any longer.
The stories told in the book, so far, hold my interest. I always read with a critical eye. Stats can be used to prove anything, especially if one is trying only to prove a given point vs. looking for new information. Issues might have more complexity in today’s economic times. Or, conversely, it might mean employees might put up with more because there are seemingly less options.
One story is told of a woman who was leaving American Express to join another company. 13 had been in her immediate group; all of them had already left their manager, except for her, and she was leaving too.
Surely that should say something.
It isn’t easy being management.
I have been on both sides of management — under an incompetent manager (I felt) and also as a manager. I remember letting an employee go. She was very young (I was too) and only wanted to help younger customers. She didn’t really have any interest in the older customers or their needs. She would have been a fine employee where the dynamics of the customers were a better fit. I often wonder whether she stayed in the industry or not — and if I could have brought her along better. I think it was a matter of cutting our losses (both of ours) quickly.
Here’s what I think
Work with what your employees have — use their strengths. It is very difficult to instill something that isn’t already there.
Give them as much autonomy as you can — give them the freedom to use their strengths. It’s why you presumably hired them in the first place.
Do I have a best friend at work?
I thought this question was very interesting. There is some discussion over the need to put the word best in the sentence — not just a friend, but a best friend.
So, is this indicative only of a friendly atmosphere, one in which friendships are fostered — or where one serendipitously happens? Or does friendly indicate knowing about each other lives and that we matter vs. everything we do being looked at askance?
I know people who have left jobs because there was no friendship — and I know of others who stayed at jobs (and even found mentors) because of friendships. I know a woman who stayed with her boss, moving into other areas of the company when he did, asking him to ask for her (and he did) knowing he would promote her (and he did.) Both of them are still working well together.
Leaving a company is less of an option when the work atmosphere has friendships. And if you are eligible for retirement, why would you necessarily leave to double dip, when fellow workers like and appreciate you…
What do you think?
Have you read this book? Have you had good, bad, or indifferent managers? How has it affected your work or whether you stayed or went?
Karin
www.savvythinker.com
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October 27th, 2009 — Anger, Book Review, Books, Emotions, Grief, Humorous, Inspirational, Joy and happiness, Non-fiction, Resentment, Romance
A friend loaned me her copy of the book eat, pray, love, because she liked it so well and felt I would too. I knew by the first few pages that I wanted a copy of my own.
It took me quite a while to work my way through the book, but in that way I could savor it. It’s a rare book that is so enjoyable.
Gilbert has a wonderful way with words.
And the good news is that it is being made into a movie with Julia Roberts starring. That should be interesting!
The book is her chronicle of searching across Italy (where she eats her way, while learning Italian), India (where she is in an Ashram searching for God, finding herself in silent devotion and in words and communion with others), and Bali (where she finds love and helps a woman buy a home.)
Along the way we see her work through the angst of her difficult divorce. She moves from a sense of no belief to profundity. It is by turns funny, touching, endearing, sad…
If you’ve read it, how did you like it? And if you haven’t, treat yourself.
I rate it 4 out of stars.
Karin
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October 22nd, 2009 — Book Review, Books, Inspirational, Kindle, Kindle book, Non-fiction
If you love quotations, and if you think you’d like to read positive quotations, this book is one of the best out there.
But it’s a thinker’s book, as much as a feel-good book.
You have to read this book slowly and in little word bytes. Don’t think you can sprint through it. I can only digest a few pages at a time, and even that is difficult. Many of the quotations are new to me.
I want to speed my way through, just to read all the quotes, so periodically I let the book fall open in order to read a random quote. The pressure, the pressure!
To give you some idea, out of 755 pages, the index alone has 50 pages. These are the authors of the quotes; only a few direct you to the idea in a quote.
There are 38 pages that deal with different aspects of happiness. I’m on page 23. It’s interesting to read so many quotes about happiness at one time, because you can see similarities and trends.
Here’s one I liked:
Make someone happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time, at least. Charley Willey
It’s quite amazing to think of how the little things add up. And that is one of the things pointed out in the happiness quotes — that it is the little things that bring and determine happiness.
Available for Kindle?
Unfortunately no, but I requested it. It might be nice to have the Kindle search a word, but then again if you searched for happiness (pun intended) you would pull up the entire chapter dealing with happiness.
Have you read this book?
Karin
www.savvythinker.com
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October 19th, 2009 — Blessing, Book Review, Books, Historical, Hope, Inspiration and creativity, Inspirational, Non-fiction, Prayer, Safety, Spirituality and God
The Third Man Factor is an interesting concept. Evidently it should be The Fourth Man Factor, but
It was [Sir Ernest] Shackleton’s experience that inspired the term “Third Man factor” (although for his group it was actually a “fourth man” — T.S. Eliot misremembered the number when he wrote his poem The Waste Land, which popularized the idea). Geiger
The new book out by John Geiger sounds like a fascinating read.
Plus you can get this book for your Kindle.
The Third Man Factor is an extraordinary account of how people at the very edge of death experience the sense of an unseen presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. This incorporeal being offered them a feeling of hope, protection, and guidance, and left the person convinced he or she was not alone. There is a name for this phenomenon: It’s called the Third Man Factor.
If only a handful of people had ever encountered the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to 9/11 survivors, mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, sailors, shipwreck survivors, aviators, and astronauts. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having sensed the close presence of a helper or guardian. The force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else. Amazon
You can read a long excerpt from his book here. One of the stories he relates is of Ron DiFrancesco who was the last person to make it out of the South Tower alive. He felt such a presence. It came to him as a voice, telling him what to do, encouraging him to survive, changing the direction in which he headed.
One of the interesting things to me was to learn this phenomena has existed in many places. I suppose I would prefer to think of the man as an angel or of Christ. It reminds me of the Biblical story of the three men thrown in the fiery furnace, but witnesses saw a fourth man walking.
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Dan 3:25
Do you find this interesting?
Do you find it as interesting as I do to have a kind of substantiation of the Bible story by modern day experiences? I take things on faith, but it is good to have proofs of a sort anyway, not that all the proofs in the world would change someone’s mind that is already made up.
I can’t say I’ve ever felt a presence per se, but I have had words come to me as thoughts. I have never been in any extreme survival situation.
Karin
www.savvythinker.com
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July 18th, 2009 — Books, Non-fiction, Quotations
Here are some miscellaneous quotes from The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
In statistics you are given the odds, but in real life, it’s a different story. This seems so obvious to me that it hardly needs to be stated, but it is especially astute. Statistics don’t translate directly to real life.
127 In real life you do not know the odds; you need to discover them, and the sources of uncertainty are not defined.
He brings in the concept of the unknown unknown.
128 Unknown uncertainty
And more:
149 What matters is not how often you are right, but how large your cumulative errors are.
154 I know that history is going to be dominated by an improbable event, I just don’t know what that event will be.
I especially liked this one:
170 …collect opportunities
There are others, but I’ve not transcribed them yet.
Do you have a favorite quote or section of this book?
Karin
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July 17th, 2009 — Book Review, Books, Business, Non-fiction
Nassim Nicholas Taleb weaves in excerpts from experts, mostly philosophers, as noted in 26 pages of Bibliography.
There was a lot that was easy to read, and a lot that was difficult to read through, but it was all interesting. You might not agree with all of his conclusions.
The basic premise is that life will throw us a Black Swan somewhere along the way — the unexpected (not necessarily a negative, but nevertheless unexpected) and it will throw us a curve. We need to prepare for this, though we can’t predict what it will be, that’s the nature of the Black Swan concept.
If all you think exists are white swans, then if you see a black swan, you might think it is not a swan at all. But if you accept that it is indeed a black swan, your world view has changed.
It’s no wonder that he has an affinity for this concept. One of his early stories is from Lebanon, his birth place. Once upon a time in the not so distant past, it was a place of refinement and multiple cultures living together happily (for centuries.) Then the unthinkable happened — war — in the streets where he grew up — and people in transit, thinking they would be back home in days. Not so.
Everything changed.
Then like history books after war, trying to make sense of it, trying to find the reasons, when in truth they don’t particularly exist — or maybe they exist on different levels for different folks depending on the perspective. It’s too simplistic to think there is an xyz for the unthinkable, for that which is outside one’s realm of reality.
Much of this book is heavy duty, lots of math, philosophy, bell curves…lightened by his sense of humor… specific words and language that he likely made up for which I wish I’d made a dictionary so I could refer to it easily. I got so I just read over those words to the concepts behind them. If I reread the book, I will do just that.
I can see having the book as a reference to all the philosophers he quotes. It’s the short and sweet version of the unabridged version that he undoubtedly knows.
I’m not quite through with it yet, but I expect to finish it shortly.
I like his idea of clasping every opportunity, as they might not come up again. And there are other quotes that I might tuck in here tomorrow.
Have you read this book?
I’d like to give it a 4, but I suspect for difficulty of read, I’d have to say 2. I like the concepts. I believe in the concept of the Black Swan, do you?
Karin
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March 31st, 2009 — Admirable people, Books, Emotions, Guest writer, Inspirational, Non-fiction, Sharing
I’d like to meet this Captain, wouldn’t you! “Serve with passion,” — indeed!
Here’s a story to make your day happier:
When I wrote the book, Customer Love, I shared this story about Captain Denny Flanagan:
As flight cancellations and delays wreak havoc on weary travelers, and planes are fuller than ever, the Wall Street Journal has managed to find a bright spot – United Airlines Captain Denny Flanagan.
On a flight headed your way, there is a pilot who is literally a gift from the heavens. For 21 years now, Flanagan, a former navy pilot, has put the friendly in friendly skies.
With his sense of humor and personal touch, he individually welcomes aboard every passenger on his United Airlines plane.
A father of five, Flanagan has also been known to buy food for planeloads of passengers on delayed flights. He snaps photos of dogs in the cargo hold to show owners their pets are safe and calls the parents of children traveling alone.
“I want to treat them like I treat my family and it works. It’s like hospitality. You stand at the door and you greet people when they come in and you say goodbye on the porch and wave to them,” said Flanagan, who is 56 and lives in Ohio.
His unique brand of hospitality includes sending handwritten notes to frequent flyers and raffling off bottles of wine.
“How ’bout that? A bottled of chilled chardonnay from a pilot,” said a delighted Paul Schroeder, a lucky United passenger.
He has developed quite a following in the air and online. One of the many posts on FlyerTalk.com about Flanagan read: “His effort rubbed off on the crew too, they were great.”
Attitudes are truly contagious, and Captain Flanagan’s is certainly worth catching!
But here, as the late Paul Harvey always said, is…”the rest of the story.”
Not long after the book’s release, I received a call from Captain Flanagan, who said, “Mac, I loved your book about customer service and I just wanted to thank you for including my story.” we talked for about 15 minutes and when I hung up, I knew that Denny Flanagan was “real,” and very passionate about not only being a good Captain for United Airlines, but making a positive difference in the world.
The next day, I sent Denny a signed copy of the book, thanking him for making a difference and here is the letter I got back:
Dear Mac:
Thank you for my personal signed copy of Customer Love. I am honored to be included with the 24 other great stories of customer service. People try to make service complicated, but it’s really not rocket science. The recipe has two ingredients: choose your attitude each morning and anticipate your customer’s needs.
In fact, one of the things that I’ve enjoyed doing over the years is having dinner with my customers during my long layovers. It just gives me the opportunity to know their needs and determine ways we can serve them better. It also allows me to introduce my first officers to our customers, to show them how they can make a difference when they become Captains.
From a dinner with one customer I have now expanded it to having dinner with twenty customers. I frequently get asked by customers how they can book one of my flights. At first, I just let it roll off my shoulders as a silly comment, but when they kept asking, I posted one of my upcoming flights on FlyerTalk.com and 26 people booked it as a result of that post. I guess I’ll need a bigger table for this one!
Denny Flanagan is a wonderful example of customer love. In the book, I share his, and 24 other great customer service stories. My goal is to have you read them, have your team read them, and talk about them together. In fact, you may be inspired to write your own customer love stories while making your service culture all it can be.Also, if you’d like to thank Captain Flanagan for setting the example for the rest of us to follow, his email address is captdennyflanagan@gmail.com. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you!.
For more information on how to receive a free autographed copy of Customer Love or to look inside the book, just click here.
Serve with Passion,
Mac Anderson
Mac Anderson
Founder, Simple Truths
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July 26th, 2008 — Book Review, Books, Non-fiction
Deborah Rodriguez has written a must-read book for those interested in other cultures and the fate of women world-wide. She has changed the names and stories, but the stories are true.
I’ve wanted to read this book ever since I heard of it, but never got around to having the time to do so.
My questions would be how endangered are any of the women she helped as a result of her book? and how accurate is the telling? I don’t think identities could be withheld that thoroughly, and the stories are enough similar than any abusive husband could suspect it is his wife they are talking about.
Rodriguez has led an interesting life by anyone’s standards. In 2002 she traveled to Afghanistan with a humanitarian group. Not only did it given her the opportunity to flee her second husband who was abusive and she later divorced, but she found her niche. A hairdresser by trade, she doesn’t realize how much her skills would be welcomed.
She contacts Paul Mitchell who donates truckloads of product. Then she has to figure out how to get them, not only in her garage and away from her husband, but to Afghanistan. Another western woman in situ has also been moving in this direction and the two of them work together to establish a beauty school in Kabul.
Meantime, Rodriguez learns of the daily tragedies of Afghan women who are subjugated in many ways, including being beaten by their fathers or their husbands with impunity, groped on streets, made to serve in prostitution or worse, in a society that has generations of patriarchy behind it and no male incentive or desire to change.
Marriages are arranged to men often double digit older than their wives-to-be, men who go back to the lives they led in Europe who then divorce this wife, leaving her to her fate, or bring her to the foreign country where she disappears from her family. (The preparation for a wedding is interesting, including such things as waxing all body hair from both the bride and groom.)
Women are little more than chattel. They must prove their virginity, even after marriage to another; be subjugated to their husbands and their in laws; and etc.
Rodriguez finds herself loving the country and the women in a unique time when many men are unable to find work so they are willing, albeit with pressure, to allow their wives to learn the skills in order to support the family.
It is not a pretty picture, but it is one we would do well to heed. Unless we want the fate of women to deteriorate to such a state, we must hold the line with laws and regulations in countries outside of this culture where these women are brought to live — even with second or third wives in the home country. (Men will visit every couple of years so these women become pregnant again.)
Rodriguez manages to open the school, standing up to officials and husbands. She finds a way to bridge the cultural gap to explain the logistics of hair coloring, by finally describing the underlying color as Satan that must be obliterated in order for the color to take effect. Then she allows the woman who grasps this concept to teach it to the other women.
Along the way she gathers a third husband, Afghan, in an arranged marriage, that she allows herself to be swept into, while at the same time realizing she needs the protection of a man in order to resolve some of the issues. The story of this marriage is woven into the book. She also knows she is the second wife. His is still married to his first wife who lives in another country with their children — and has another child while Rodriguez is married to the same man.
She touches on the various ethnicities that are represented in Afghanistan; the compounds in which people live; the difficulties of having a beauty school when electricity and water are issues; and much more.
I understand the school is now closed and she may be living outside the country. I don’t know details, but would be happy if someone could provide them.
Have you read it? I give it a 3.
Karin
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