Juan David
What I didn't like about this book is in my opinion its strength and weakness at the same time. In some sections of the book the story pace is slow and the author describes too many details of the scenario and the state of consciousness of the main character. It felt like going around the same thing over and over again, a fractal, turtles all the way down.
One of the measures of how valuable is an experience is to count the ways in which it changed you, or at least whether you learned something new after the event. I learned several new bits of wisdom from this book. At some point I even realized how wrong I have done things in the past. It turns out, relationships are a huge part of our lives and it is worth to learn how to build meaningful ones (relationship wise). The lessons have been listened to and read. Next step is to adapt them as a series of habits in my daily life.
This is an extremely useful book with science backed ideas and enjoyable narrative. It was a pleasure to follow James teachings and understand the different stages from which one can study habit formation and take action to create more consistency, less friction and more joy in my daily routine.
The fundamental idea of the book states the four elements of a habit: cue, craving, responde and reward. All these elements loop sequentiatly from the first to the last and in the repetition of a habit starts all over again from beginning. Associated to each element, there is a basic principle to increase the likelihood of a habit to stick: make it obvious/visible (cue), make it attractive (craving), make it easy (response) and make it satisfying (reward). If what we need is to avoid a negative behavior, we might try to follow the opposite advice: make it invisible (cue), make it unattractive (craving), make it difficult (response) and make it unsatisfying (reward). Then James expands on these ideas.
During the last three months, I have been creating several habits: meditating, reading, studying programming (data structures and algorithms), studying french, exercising and learning touch typing. All of this has been happening before and during the reading of this book. I have to say this book is such a treasure in my situation, I feel equipped with all I need to stick to my good habits in the long term. I will revisit this book in the future.
Great ideas here. Some of them are part of my life now, adapted to my mindset one by one throughout the years. There is still much to learn though. All these ideas contained in this book are described in a straightforward way, in a few words and pages. In reality, the assimilation, interiorization and daily practice of each one of those take years, sometimes decades. Personal growth is a long and bumpy road indeed.
For me, this is one of those books that change your view of the world and offer additional tools to experience existence in a richer and more contemplative way.
Sam Harris is a rationalist that constantly uses his understanding of the scientific method to derive new meaning and understanding. This is the key aspect that drew me to his ideas from the very beginning of the book. Consider this: we are talking about spirituality here, and in the way Sam frames it, science is not a contradiction but a complement.
The premise of the book is that consciousness and its contents is all there is. From this premise he proceeds to ask, given that all of our experience of life is about the subjective experience of consciousness and the variety of contents that can be drawn upon it, why not to explore them directly? - Through meditation and a contemplative framework.
This book is for those who want to explore the ideas behind meditation and are curious about what to make of it. Sam is a truth seeker, honestly looking for a deeper understanding of life, he is a good guide. Totally recommend this book and also the companion app, WakingUp.
This is an attempt to collect and summarize the most urgent threat we are facing on earth right now: global warming. The author goes to expand over the industries with the most damaging effect on the environment and looks into the specifics of technologies being used to reduce the carbon footprint in those sectors. Very informative for those wanting to understand more about this complex and important phenomenon challenging the status quo of human existence on earth.
I read it in my childhood. The magic it brought to my world with its universe full of mistery, intrigue and heart shattering events, has no equal. Djinns, princesses, kings, palaces ... Maybe it only happened to me. At that time I read it in Spanish anyway. And I have read it in English too after that, it is just not the same. In any case, the story is worth it.
A great practical set of ideas about how to tame your creative potential. The core idea of the book (and the guys from 99u.com) is that the creative world is too obsessed with “idea generation”, but in reality creative work takes 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The content is then provided in four chapters, each focused in specific requirements to integrate the creative mindset in your life: (1) Routines: the set of habits/actions/behaviors you practice in a daily basis (2) Focus: the act of putting your whole attention on the task at hand (3) Tools: how to take control of technology and use it in your favor (in opposition of tech taking control over you) (4) The process: tips and advise about how to run the long-distance and keep the momentum. As a whole the message is clear, creative (personal) work requires quiet spaces and a specific mindset -key triggers, metrics used for motivation, the long-term goals in mind, etc-, uninterrupted focus in blocks of time, the leverage of tech tools and strategies to keep the pace in the long run.
The Hardware Startup: Building Your Product, Business, and Brand
Great book to understand the elements of a hardware startup and how the ecosystem has evolved, from the artisans of the past to the internet and the arrival of the maker revolution. The book's authors intent to be the equivalent to the Lean Startup for SaaS but in reality is more of a complement and you should explore more authors to get a wider understanding of entreprenership. The people from YCombinator are a good start (Sam Altman, Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston). Also Steve Blank (The creator of the costumer development approach) and Alexander Osterwalder (Business model canvas) to name a few.
A great book full of anecdotes and ideas/concepts to consider while you are building the scaffolding of your startup. If you are looking for clear recipes about how to navigate the startup landscape (what to do now, next), the book by itself is not enough, but it is by not doubt the one that connects them all: the ideas of costumer development promoted by Steve Blank, its continuous interaction with agile development (with methodologies such as extreme programming or SCRUM) to improve the value proposition while finding product-market fit and the framework where hypothesis/lessons/facts about the rationale of creating/delivering/capturing value are stated, the business model canvas created by Alexander Osterwalder.
At the core of the lean methodology we find the scientific method. One of the kernel lessons is to use it to validate ideas in every step taken before, during and after the creation of the startup. In this regard, I saw lot of confusing comments about science and its relationship with the book contents. “The lean startup” is not about describing the act of creating a startup as a science (which it's not) but about how to move through a complex/uncertain process and use the scientific method (validated for centuries) to make progress: generate hypothesis, create experiments to evaluate those hypothesis, run the experiment, then redefine the hypothesis according to the new findings. Based on this idea, Eric proposes the cycle build-measure-learn as a way to explore the complex and uncertain landscape of starting a new venture. He mentions that management (understood as human systems engineering) is at the core of building a startup and that it can be implemented in such a way that reduces risk and uncertainty. He then goes to present all of the ideas of the cycle build-measure-learn and management in detail, with stories occupying a central spot in every chapter (these were after all, the most valuable lessons taken from the book).
I recommend it, specially if you think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur and want to bring more light to your understanding of the basics of the startup life as it did for me.
Beautiful insights of a life lived as he would have said “ to the point of tears”. In his lyrics Camus writes from the heart, illustrating those moments that took his breath away, moments full of awe and embedded in eternity - in his memories, in his writing -. Loved his observations about love, pain, transcendence, meaning of life and a life worth living.
Magia, sueños e ingenio. Las historias de este libro hicieron mas magica mi infancia. Recuerdo las ilustraciones a color, que no pararon de cautivarme y las moralejas -muchas de ellas filosóficas y existenciales-, las cuales aun siendo pequeño, me daban una pista de aquellas cosas por las cuales sentiría fascinación en el futuro.