Category: Random Thoughts (Page 1 of 2)

Two Books, Two Approaches: A Quick Take on Range and 59 Seconds

I read two books this morning—Range by David Epstein and 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman. Both challenge popular wisdom, but they do it in very different ways—and with very different levels of success.

Range is engaging, well-researched, and genuinely interesting. Epstein builds a compelling case for generalists in a world that celebrates specialists. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t just repackage familiar ideas—it gives you new material to think about.

59 Seconds, on the other hand, didn’t quite land the same way. To be fair, I only read the Shortform summary, so this may not be entirely fair, but based on what I read, it felt more like a reframe than a revelation. The premise seems to be: “Here’s a popular idea. Now let’s disagree with it.” But the disagreement doesn’t always feel rooted; it’s more like a clever pivot than a clear debunking.

Maybe the whole book makes a stronger case. But from what I saw, it felt less like overturning bad advice and more like presenting old advice in new packaging, with a contrarian spin.

My verdict: Range, compelling, and worth the read. 59 Seconds, not so much, not sure it’s worth the time.

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

Andre Gide

I just purchased his book Show Your Work, dreaded words from math class in my day.

But that’s not what this book is about. And it’s not what this TED Talk is about

April 21, 2025

Well, a couple of things. First, I don’t feel right sharing the full contents of Ryan Holiday’s Reading Challenge, it’s a paid course so that doesn’t feel ethical. I will say I’m disappointed in the course. I signed up hoping it would help me improve my reading and comprehension skills, but so far, it doesn’t seem like that’s what the course delivers.

That realization sent me back to my own bookshelf, where I pulled out Mortimer J. Adler’s How to Read a Book. This is my third try with it. The first two times? Practically unreadable. But this time, it’s working for me.

I’m not reading it cover to cover and that probably helps. I’ll read everything, probably more than once, just not in the order delivered.

March 25th, 2025

As I read, highlight, take notes, and attempt to post about what I’m reading, I feel increasingly challenged to get more out of the reading I’m doing. That’s what Ryan’s course is all about. I’m going to go ahead and post about the whole 5-week experience here, and we’ll see if I feel like I’m a better reader at the end. The cost was $99. We shall see.

Mar 26th, 2025

The first email and the first challenge. There was a lot in this email – 2 or 3 videos and lots of reference material. I spent about 90 min with it this morning. The first thing is to start a Commonplace Book, or if you already have one to, use it differently. I, of course, have my Zettlekasten, which serves the same purpose. However, I am considering using it differently, more actively than I’m currently using it. Ryan is a big fan of analog notes – I am not – but I may try them for one book, The Laws of Human Nature – I will probably also add them to my digital Zettlekasten. I don’t want to write off a practice that is used by the likes of Ryan Holiday, Robert Greene, and Ronald Reagan.

Ryan H. writes his notes by hand a couple of weeks after he finishes a book – I will probably do it chapter by chapter.

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 …

It’s not .. it’s about 4:30, but that was the first time I woke up this morning and asked Google for the time. Every morning right about 3 am I wake up.

Occasionally I can fall back asleep but most of the time I sleep for 10 minutes and wake up again. I find that “trying” to sleep just doesn’t work.

So, I get up and listen to videos I don’t have time for, and I read and I do this. The downside is by 8 am I’ll really want to sleep.

If I get lucky, I’ll have written something worth reading by then or read something worth writing about.

If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.

Benjamin Franklin

Today is the beginning of the 13th week of 2024.

In Jan 2019 I read a book called The 12-Week Year. I came away from that read with several take-aways and intentions.

1. Read the book annually (not done)
2. Take every 13th week off to plan the next 12 weeks (not done)
3. Use their system, including time-blocking (not done)
4. Set 12-week goals rather than annual goals (done)

So here I am again, week 13. With another opportunity to execute on my intentions.

I intended, again to re-read the book in December – that’s when I came up with the Reading Project concept – and here we are then end of March – time flies, whether we’re having fun or not.

So today, I’ll begin my first re-read. I don’t feel like I can take the whole week off – that was a bit unrealistic – I no longer have employees – so there’s that. But I can take some time to do what I said I was going to do.

“It’s not what you know; it’s not even who you know; it’s what you implement that counts.”

Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year

Day 5