Aug 3rd 2024 (This is when I bought it)
A book about improving performance by Brendon Burchard
Author: vienna (Page 4 of 9)
March 3, 2025
A Book about systems thinking by Donella Meadows
Reflections and Random Thoughts
I’m afraid I didn’t take much of value from this read. Her political agenda was woven throughout, and I found it more distracting than enlightening.
Quotes from the Book
“In fact, we don’t talk about what we see; we see only what we can talk about. Our perspectives on the world depend on the interaction of our nervous system and our language—both act as filters through which we perceive our world.”
This next quote, according to Amazon, was highlighted by over 15,000 Kindle readers;
“Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.”
Key Take-Aways
Something Actionable
What Everyone Else Thinks
4.6 out of 5 Stars on Amazon.
A Top 5 Star Review
There are a few books that encapsulate a way of thinking so simply, so clearly and so compellingly that I find myself giving little kisses of delight to the cover. I read this on a Kindle, so this resulted in quite a lot of smudging. (this was a long review so you can read the rest here if you are interested)
A Top 1 Star Review
I got this book because we develop systems for patient compliance, the reviews were high, and I was eager to learn from such an expert of high acclaim. In fact, the book is a superficial collection of high-level ideas with little to no added value or insight. The book is a spectacular example of what Feynman called “cargo science”. Do meaningful, not just quantifiable. Indeed. The book is also heavily influenced by the author’s environmental agenda, which should be disturbing to anyone with an engineering or physics education used to system analysis. Read Bellman’s classic “Adaptive Control Processes – A guided tour” for real thought and insights on systems.
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Post Progress
The Story of a Father & His Son by Pat Conroy
Reflections and Random Thoughts
Key Take-Aways
Redemption and forgiveness are possible even in the most difficult of circumstances.
Something Actionable
What Everyone Else Thinks
This book holds a 4.3 rating on Amazon, with only 60% of reviewers giving it five stars. On Goodreads, the rating dips even lower to 3.9 from over 9,000 reviews.
I was surprised! I loved this book and got teary reading it more than once – half a dozen times, really. I am in awe of his mastery of the English language and his ability to write with such candor and grace about such a difficult topic.
I turned, as I often do, to the 1 and 2 start reviews to see what other people didn’t like. It seems some folks find him a bit tedious and whiny.
I find that kind of review somewhat tedious and whiny. At least Pat Conroy had something to whine about –
Just getting back here after the holidays. Grammarly doesn’t like it when I leave out words – but isn’t it apparent that I’m just getting back? Seeing as how I’m the only one writing on this blog?
Anyway, I’m checking out ShortForm – it’s a book summary service, and I’m doing a 5-day free trial – I’m testing it on Thinking Fast and Slow – an extremely well- reviewed book, referenced I swear, in over 50% of the books I’ve read in the last 2 years. But I hated reading it.
I see from my notes I downloaded it with Ninja Summary as well, but it looks like I never read it.
We’ll see how it works out, here’s the revised post …
A book about accomplishing more through delegation by Dan Sullivan
My rating of this book is based not on the quality of its writing or content but on how practical and valuable it has been in my life or business.
“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
Ronald Reagan
Reflections and Random Thoughts
I lowered my star rating to a four because while this book offers valuable insights, the entire book is a sales pitch for Strategic Coach.
Their eight-hour workshop, already sold out for 2025, comes with a hefty price tag of $13,500 as of late 2024. A one-day workshop for $13k isn’t practical for me, thus the lowered rating.
Insights
Key Take-Aways
Something Actionable
What Everyone Else Thinks
A Book about Life’s Scarcest Commodity By Klein Stefan
Reflections and Random Thoughts
When does now end?
“How long does the present last?”
I started this book in February 2024 and finished it in December 2024. I’m not sure it lives up to its name, but it was worth reading. It seems like it was mainly about the relativity of time when it goes slow and when it goes fast. He also talked about time and memory.
While reading it, I paid more attention to how I was spending my time; it got harder to enjoy playing my game – I tried considering what value the hour I had just lived had to me. What did I remember of it?
Insights
Key Take-Aways
As I read this book, I find myself paying more attention to how I spend my time – considering more seriously if I’m willing to give my life to the activity I’m engaged in.
Everyone says that time is money, but it isn’t.
Recollections vs Memory
According to this book, children acquire their first conscious recollections at about 18 months.
A recollection is not the same as a memory; I looked this up because I thought they were the same and replaced the word recollection in the sentence above with memory, rendering it inaccurate.
Recollection is the active process of retrieving specific memories, while memory is the system or ability to remember something, which begins to develop in humans at birth. A baby can recognize its mother’s face within 2 hours.
Something Actionable
This is a stop doing. Stop spending so much time playing my phone game.
Especially during times, I could be doing something I can see later.
What Everyone Else Thinks
This book only has 82 reviews on Amazon, 3% 1 star and 62% 5 star. On Good Reads, it has 23 ratings, an average of 4.17, and only three reviews.
Looking at the 1-star review on Amazon, I see that it’s a complaint about formatting with no discussion of content.
By David Graeber
Reflections
Insights
Key Take-Aways
Something Actionable
What Everyone Else Think
A book about doing better by Seth Godin.
“The number on the car’s speedometer isn’t always an indication of how fast you’re getting to where you’re going. You might, after all, be driving in circles, really quickly,” Seth Godin
Reflections
Insights
Key Take-Aways
Something Actionable
What Everyone Else Thinks
Mental Models and Second-Order Thinking
This is the time of year I start asking myself – what do I wish I’d started at this time last year – no, to be more concise what do I wish I’d started and consistently kept doing since this time last year?
Or I’m asking myself that question because I just read a the chapter on 2nd Order Thinking in Shane Parrishe’s 1st edition of Mental Models. Deciding whether or not I was going to sit down and record the books I’ve been reading – as I said I was going to do last year. I suppose this isn’t a precise application – in fact it might be a combination of several of the mental models he’s written about – inversion – instead of asking or before I ask – what will happen if I record all of the books I read – here on this website – I’m asking what would have been the consequences of having done it already. Every year I wish I had kept track of everything I’d read and every year I don’t.
What if I’d started doing 1 actionable thing from every non-fiction book I’ve read going back for all time – my time that is. Had I done that how might my life be different (thought experiment)