Steven

Key takeaways:

- This book was horrifying. Reading such detailed accounts of the awful things people are capable of is stomach turning. Not just because you have to imagine what it would have been like to endure these atrocities, but because it brings you face-to-face with the fact that these acts were committed by normal people. If normal people could be made to do this, would I have been any better? Of course I believe I would have been one of the few to abstain and try to bring this senseless massacre to light, but it is naïve to dismiss the possibility out of hand. Build your integrity and character now, when there is little pressure to compromise, so that it is part of who you are, no matter the circumstances.
- You can condition people to do truly awful things. With the right methods, you can make ordinary people into monsters. Does it work the other way around?
- The message from the top is crucial to do this. If leadership encourages people to focus only on the numbers, the customer won't matter. If leadership encourages people to cut corners, they will. If instead leadership makes it very clear certain activities will not be tolerated or that certain actions are required, and that straying from these directives will be addressed, the people on the ground will follow suit.

Key takeaways:

- Do not let money turn you into someone others will not like. If you have money, influence, power, etc., people will judge you much harsher, therefore you must be that much better.
- First impressions matter.
- Be willing to change your opinion about someone based on evidence.
- Be careful sharing your opinions of people. It is hard to go back on those.
- Always choose to be kind.

Key takeaways:

- Perspective is everything. Look at the book from an outside perspective. Ask yourself what your advice would be if it was a stranger going through this same challenge.
- Just because someone says something is awful/hopeless/broken, doesn't mean you have to agree.
- We defeat emotions [control over us] with logic. Logic is questions and statements. With enough of them, we get to root causes which are always easier to deal with.

“We lost money” > “Aren't losses a common part of business?” > “Yes” > “Are these losses catastrophic?” > “Not necessarily” > “So this is not totally unexpected? How could that be so bad? Why are you so worked about about something that is at least occasionally supposed to happen?” > “Well...” > “And not only that, but you've dealt with worse situations. Wouldn't you be better off applying some of that resourcefulness rather than anger?”

I really enjoyed this book. I love learning about how people work subconsciously.

Key takeaways:

- People almost never order the most expensive thing on the menu, but they will order the second most expensive. The example provided: Add a new, more expensive option, and your current most expensive option will look more appealing. Revenue increases, even though few people order the new item. As a practical takeaway, I see this with our account packages.
- People like to make comparisons between things that are similar. The example provided: If you are house shopping and look at three houses, two contemporary houses and one colonial, most of the time you will ignore the colonial because you can't easily compare it to the other two. Then when comparing the two contemporary houses, if one has a bad roof you will likely choose the other because it is the better of the two. Can we recreate this with account packages?
- Anchoring is incredibly powerful, even if the number used to anchor you isn't related to what you are purchasing. If we mention how much higher rates were X number of years ago, would that make the current rates seem better?
- If you see a restaurant with four people waiting outside for a table, you are inclined to think it is a good restaurant and may join the line. The next person to walk by sees five people waiting, and is even more inclined to join the line. It is entirely possible that none of the people in line have any idea whether the restaurant is good or not. You can do this to yourself (self-herding). Say you normally make coffee at home, but one day stop at Starbucks because you didn't have time to make coffee at home. Next time you need coffee you are tempted to think, ‘I purchased coffee there last time. I must have found good value.' So you shop there again. Now you can point to two instances where Starbucks was worth your business, and the ‘line' grows.
- Free is a big motivator. If you have a product worth $5, and you offer it to one group for $0.01 and another group for free, you will have significantly more uptake with the free option, even when controlling for the inconvenience of needing to pull out your wallet.
- If we can find a way to help our members save more money, we will benefit from the increased deposits. We have the same goal. If NCU members save 15% when the average is 5%, we will have a significant advantage.
- Honda had many routine service items on their vehicles. Customers had a hard time staying on top of them and bringing them in every few months to service different parts. They switched to a more generic schedule: bring your car in every six months and have it receive many different service checks in that one visit. Somethings were checked well before they needed service, but customers had no problem following the new schedule. Can we do a similar concept with financial checkups? At 21, come in for a lesson on credit and the benefits of long term investing. At 25 come in for a mortgage preapproval, even if you aren't planning to purchase a house yet. At 30 come in for a conversation about RRSPs. At 45 come in for a conversation about retirement planning. At 65 come in for a conversation about retirement income, etc.
- More exotic, detailed explanations changed the way people view items and made them value them higher.
- Going to the movies, if you tell your friend it received great reviews, they will enjoy it more.
- There are two parts to marketing: Attracting new customers and selling to existing customers.
- Our products should have a unique component that we can point to and say, ‘See, this is better than the competition!'

Ebola is scary.

Key takeaways:

- If you are not careful, saying ‘yes' can become your default position. Have you ever found yourself stretched to thin? Would you rather to five things poorly, or two things well? Maybe one thing exceptionally? Do you catch yourself feeling busy, but not productive? The way out is the way of the Essentialist
- ‘Do less, but better.'
- It's not a new years resolution. It's about pausing constantly to ask, ‘Am I investing in the right activities?'
- I agreed with most components of this book, it seemed well supported, however I think there is a time early in a new career or young adulthood where it makes sense to be open to several opportunities until you find what you want to become an essentialist in.
- ‘Discern the vital few from the [trivial, mediocre, good] many'
- You can't have ‘ten top priorities.' Priority means one, the thing that comes prior.
- I like the concept where Frank O'Brian has a ‘thinking retreat. Once a month, he gathers his team into a room for a full day. No emails, no phones allowed. No agenda. The purpose is simply to think and talk. This meeting falls on the first Monday of the month, when everyone is at the top of their game. Clients know not to expect any response on that day. This allows them to take time to re-center on what is essential. That is nearly impossible to do without dedicated time to think. It's hard to grow or innovate without that space. The meeting also serves as a litmus test: if someone can't make the meeting because they have too much going on, either we are doing too much or we need more people. We don't get this time unless we force it into the schedule. It will not occur naturally.
- Focus is something we have, but it is also something we do. In order to have focus, we need to escape TO focus. An essentialist focuses the way our eyes focus, not by fixating on something, but by constantly adjusting to the field of vision. Turn off your phone, computer (literally). Take everything off your desk (literally) but a pen and a paper.
- Sleep is VERY important, both physically and mentally. Get eight hours of sleep. Take a nap during your lunch break. This supercharges your brain and is linked to high performance. Sleep deprivation is very harmful.
- The ability to prioritize IS the priority.
- Essentialism requires a systematic, rigorous approach to hiring. 1. Interview the candidate by phone - this strips away visual cues while forming first impressions. 2. Candidate is interviewed by multiple people throughout the company. 3. If they make it through several rounds of interviews, they are invited to spend a day working with the team. 4. After the day, management sends out a questionnaire to the whole team - instead of just the obvious questions, ask, ‘Would they love working here?' ‘Would we love having them work with us?' No offer or commitment is made at this stage. The objective is to allow both teams to see each other as honestly as possible. If the team isn't absolutely sure, then the answer is no.
- ‘If it isn't a clear yes, it's a no'
- ‘If I didn't already own this, how much would I spend to buy this?' ‘If I didn't already have this opportunity (job, project, client, etc.), what would I be willing to do to acquire it?'
- Rather than asking yourself, ‘What would I say yes to?' ask yourself, ‘What would I say no to?'
- Essential Intent: ‘If we could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be? How will we know when we have succeeded?' When looking at mission statements, grandiose is usually bad. Compare: ‘Eliminate hunger in the world.' vs ‘Build 150 affordable, green, storm resistant homes for families living in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans.' The concreteness makes it real, the realness makes it inspiring. This applies to way more than your work mission statement. Apply it to your life.
- I love this idea of saying no to most things firmly because you are so confident in what you want to do. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what I want to say yes to, at the moment. Saying no FIRMLY is important. When you get a request you don't want to say yes to, but you are having a hard time saying an outright no, say: “I'll need to check my calendar and get back to you”, “No, but I know someone who might want to help”, or, simply say nothing, make it look like you are thinking about it, and wait for the other person to fill the void. People are so afraid of awkward pauses they will probably let you off the hook.
- We can say ‘no' and regret it for a few moments, or say yes and regret it for days, weeks, months, or years.
- Beware of sunk cost bias. ‘If I was presented with this project right now, in it's current condition, what would I be willing to do to acquire it?' An essentialist asks, what else could I do with this time or money if I pull the plug now?
- The Endowment Effect: Nobody has ever washed a rental car. We tend to overvalue things that we already possess. How much would you be willing to sell a mug you currently own for? How much would you be willing to pay for it if you didn't already own it?
- If something doesn't suit the essential intent, drop it. What is the obstacle, that, if removed, would remove the majority of other obstacles?
- Look for small changes we can make in the things we do often, rather than big changes.
- Done is better than perfect. Minimal Viable Product

• Not quite as interesting as some of his other books, but it was a fun review of how we came to where we are.
  - I enjoyed the part toward the end of the book where he explored what would happen if we could go back to an earlier point and rerun evolution. Would humans evolve again? Doubtful. Some mutations, however, seem to have evolved multiple times independently. Sight, notably, has been evolved 40 separate times. Flight has evolved numerous times. It's likely that if evolution could be run again, eyes and flight would both appear.

Key takeaways:

- Take responsibility. If you have a job to do, do it properly.
- If you have good reason to be uncomfortable with a situation, say something. If your concerns aren't addressed, carefully consider how to proceed.
- Experts are important, but that doesn't mean we can sit by without asking questions and doing our due diligence.

Key takeaways:

These are the points I took away from Jeff's style, not necessarily points that I agree with or aspire to.

- Be relentless. Set your goal and work toward it without wavering.
- Expect a lot from your team. Be okay to lose people if they don't share your vision, passion, or style. Be okay to remove people if they don't produce.
- Predict the future. Knowing what is coming will allow you to stay ahead. Jeff seems unusually good at this. Be willing to cannibalize your existing business to move forward. Ex: Jeff saw the future of reading was digital. To be a leader in that business he had to hurt the bookstore component of his business.
- It's all about the customer experience.
- Offer the lowest prices.
- Be frugal, incredibly so.
- Have ‘Jeffisms', a set of values that are easily expressed in short, concise ‘mantras'.
- Never stop.

On a separate, side note, I should read more books of successful businesses and their leaders. I found many parts of this book hugely inspiring, even if I don't aspire to be like Jeff.

Key Takeaways:

- The world we live in today isn't so bad. I may disagree with some politicians, or occasionally complain about how slow or ineffective they can be, but we are very fortunate to have the systems we do.
- The transformation of the disciples after Jesus' death is quite astonishing. They all moved from terrified and timid to powerful and bold. They would have had to know they would die horrifically because of it.
- Be humble. Even if you disagree with someone, be willing to honestly review your beliefs.

Key takeaways:

- The main takeaway: Take care of your people (and treat them like people), then they will take care of your business.
- A team can only effectively face external threats when there are no internal threats. It's up to the leaders to eliminate those. You need a circle of safety.
- Leaders of great organizations don't look at people as commodities to grow the money, but they see money as a commodity to help grow their people.
- The story of the gazelle looking up when they think they spot danger, then that spreading to the rest of the herd was potent. It could be a positive, but, as outlined in this story, works the other way as well. If one of the teams senses ‘danger', everyone will feel it and become sensitive to it.
- We can change the chemical stimulation our team receives. Endorphins help hide pain; dopamine makes you feel good about accomplishing a goal; serotonin makes you feel grateful for the people who support you; oxytocin is responsible for love and released when bonding. You can use these to build a strong team with a circle of safety. Cortisol is released when stressed, which inhibits the other chemicals, and makes us more selfish.
- Abstraction Kills. If you make decisions after looking at numbers on a spreadsheet, you will be missing the human effect. Before deciding on layoffs, pay cuts, etc., put yourself in the shoes of one of the employees or customers who will be impacted by your decision.

Key takeaways:

- Most recommendations are based on the assumptions that most people will make the same decision when presented with the same data. This book is about giving you the data and letting you decide for yourself. I'll summarize some of the data I found most surprising or relevant, but it is not necessarily a view that I share.
- Light drinking doesn't have any impacts on your child.
- Many of the food restrictions are around getting sick. Fish and deli meats do not warrant the fear.
- There is a wide range of healthy weight gain. Your doctor will probably worry about this more than the data supports.
- Try to pick a hospital with a low caesarian rate, don't go to a hospital with routine episiotomies.
- Doulas help cut down on tearing and C-section.

Long, and into the weeds. I was hoping it would focus more on the banking, but it was more about the family. Interesting nonetheless.

Good read, interesting story, thought-provoking characters.

This series got more and more boring with each book. I couldn't finish, nothing was happening. The first couple books were good, then it became progressively less and less interesting.

Very interesting to read about John Nash's schizophrenia. It's not something I know very much about.

I did like the story overall and the chance to consider what it would be like to be so close to death, however it was a bit too cheesy for my liking.

Not much in the way of takeaways from this book.

I found the story engaging and thought provoking, especially with K and I expecting at this moment.

Key takeaways:

- “The decision to use force should not be determined by men who's careers depend on the use of force.” While I am rarely involved in conversations about the use of force, this applies to other areas as well. Compliance people will tend to see that the sky is falling. Sales people will tend to see the need for expansion. Do not ignore these people, but understand their viewpoint while weighing their suggestions.
- The Kennedy administration (and likely most others) seems to have been hamstrung by division and the desire to keep power. Decide what is important and what is worth working toward, then get everyone on board. Critics or people who see the world differently are not enemies.
- While it is important to rethink your views, it is also important to know when you have come to the point of no return (bay of pigs).
- Marry someone everyone loves and find other allies that people like. The reputation of the people you spend time with will begin to impact your reputation, for better or worse.

Key takeaways:

Of course, we have the benefit of hindsight now, but it's difficult to imagine making some of these mistakes, especially given these were supposed to be geniuses.

- Profit needs to be balanced with risk management and stability.

Key takeaways:

I didn't finish this book. It was strange. I didn't know what to do with a lot of his ideas, but there were a few pieces of gold that I took away. I didn't finish this book because the last 25% felt like he wrote this book just so he would have a platform to spread his rules for living. I disagreed with many of them, which I'm fine with, but the tone he used felt very abrasive–maybe I was in a bad mood while reading this book–but the last part was hard to get through, and eventually I stopped trying.

- When preparing for a disaster, we often use models based on the last disaster. The problem is, the last disaster was a surprise when it happened. The same will be true of the next one.
- When one person stands and rails against everyone and everything, I try to be cautious. They probably have some good in their views, but the odds that they have found the only way and everyone else is dead wrong seems unlikely. Presenting your ideas that way certainly makes it hard to take them seriously.
- Two brothers: One is a business man with a 9-5 job, the other is a cab driver. In a 9-5 job, your pay cheque is the same every week, you know how many hours you will work. As a cab driver, your pay will be different every week, and you could work 10 hours or 80. Which one is more fragile? The cab driver. They will learn to live with the instability and go for a stretch with reduced pay. They can sense changes and trends based on how many fares they have. The 9-5 may feel more stable, but if something goes wrong, you go from a steady job to nothing.
- A small forest fire burns up the deadwood. If you never allow small forest fires, eventually there will be a big one, with lots of deadfall to burn. It will likely be more catastrophic. In ancient civilizations, there was regularly small battles between neighboring cities and regions. Now, we don't experience those small battles, but the pressure builds until there is a large scale conflict, with more devastating results–like the world wars. Similarly, when we try to prevent the business cycle, fewer businesses go bust, times are good, until they aren't. Propping up the system without allowing deadfall to burn off leads to big market crashes and large scale recessions. Is it real stability or manufactured?
- We tend to over intervene when we shouldn't, and under intervene when we should intervene.
- Access to too much information and data makes it difficult to discern ‘noise' from ‘signal'.
- It's all about options. Most intelligent people are not necessarily making better decisions, they just have put themselves into a situation where they have more options to choose from.
- Order matters. Trying to earn 20% return if there is a chance you could return -100%, you're doing it wrong. Rather, focus on eliminating the risk of a black swan, then focus on earning returns. We often think success is the main concern of a business, with risk management being an afterthought. Success doesn't mean anything if you go bust. Make it so you can't go bust, then work on earning your returns.
- Wisdom when making decisions is more important that knowledge.
- I really enjoyed the section addressing ‘lecturing birds how to fly'. Birds knew how to fly, but a professor could go out and lecture them on how to fly. The professor is writing books, the bird is not. After a generation, people might be convinced birds know how to fly because we tell them how. This example is absurd, of course, but Mr. Taleb makes the case that this happens in business schools and other higher education. Instead, he proposes that many of the solutions we have today were discovered because some business person had a problem and tinkered with some solutions. When it worked, scholars started to teach lessons about it, and no one remembers that the problem wasn't solved by academics. ‘Science doesn't lead to inventions, tinkering does.'
- Barbell balance: If you keep 90% of your portfolio in cash and 10% in investments with a huge upside, the most you can lose is 90%. The amount you can gain is nearly limitless. If, instead, you invest 100% of your portfolio in moderate risk investments, your whole portfolio is at risk for limited upside. You might nicely make 7% per year, but when the black swan hits, all bets are off. In the reverse situation, you might lose every year, but when the black swan occurs–and it will–you have huge gains.
- Beware of over optimizing. If you optimize an airport so it functions smoothly everyday under normal load with no redundancy or waste, you will be in big trouble when under a significant loan. No one cares if there plane is 20 minutes early, but they will certainly care if their flight is 2 hours delayed.
- Bet on the jockey, not the horse. In venture capital, investors usually chose to invest in a person, not a specific product. Why? A person can change course. Their objectives change. When they are working on an invention, they might uncover something completely different. Tiffany's started as a stationary store. Dupont started as an explosives company. Raytheon started as a refrigerator maker. Nokia began as a paper mill, then moved into rubber shoes. Avon started in door-to-door book sales.

I didn't particularly enjoy this book, but I can see why others would have. I loved Mr. Bradbury's descriptive style of writing, though it began to feel like a bit too much halfway through.

Key takeaways:

- It's okay to be different.
- First rule: don't lose money. Second rule: See rule number one.
- Stick to the fundamentals, don't get caught up in the herd mentality.

An interesting look into different political ideals and how it is possible for a society to devolve.

Good story, ‘fun' to read.

While reading the book, I felt like I was able to understand some of the concepts he was talking about at a low level. Now, I'm not sure I would be able to meaningfully summarize them, so I'm not going to try.

I enjoyed the book, it moved at a good pace and was engaging.