“I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words” is a book edited by George Beahm. The book consists of quotations from Steve Jobs’ speeches and interviews. I chose a few of them that I found important.
I will start with one of them that is sort of funny: “You don’t need to take notes. If it is important, you’ll remember it.” Some people take note of everything. I find it valuable; it is something like making a double entry in the brain. However, I follow the advice of Jobs.
Read more I, Steve
“Business Lessons from the Edge: Learn How Extreme Athletes Use Intelligent Risk-Taking to Succeed in Business” is an extraordinary business book by Jim McCormick and Maryann Karinch.
The book examines the approach of people who are both extreme athletes and business executives. The athlete-executives featured in this book push the normal limits of human performance and in the process face unpredictable circumstances. In both athletic and business realms, having the courage to face these challenges has brought them opportunities to achieve things that most people find impossible. According to the authors, the athlete-executives achieve success in ways that demonstrate universally applicable lessons.
Read more Business Lessons from the Edge
“The E-Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” is a revised version of the famous book “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber.
It is one of the best books in the field of entrepreneurship. I’ve just read the revised edition and think it is still valid and vital for entrepreneurs.
Gerber says entrepreneurs should work on their business, not in it. When an entrepreneur works in their business, they become a technician, a doer, a problem solver, but they also become a slave of that small business. They cannot change results radically. Instead of doing the daily tasks of whatever the business may be, such as cooking pies in a pastry shop, designing a project in the office or selling goods on the street, an entrepreneur should be working on the business model.
For years, I tended to deny or ignore the effect of genes in human behavior. I had an environmentalist view that said our behaviors were shaped by our experiences.
Today I still believe this, but with a slight change. Genes provide the starting points of behavior, create tendencies and increase the odds. “Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affect Your Work Life” is a book by Scott Shane. Shane received a Ph.D. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His previous faculty appointments include the University of Maryland, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology.In this book Shane argues that our DNA affects pretty much all aspects of behavior, from educational performance to job satisfaction to entrepreneurship. For example, numerous studies reported in his book have shown that genes account for a big portion of the difference between people in both intelligence and personality.
Read more Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders
In “Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age,” Associate Professor Duncan J. Watts from Columbia University explores the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away from any other person on earth.
In other words, we can easily reach a prime minister, an employer or a famous singer in six easy steps. In the last century, this concept became popular, along with other network theories. Even if everybody knows that the right people in our networks can solve every kind of problem, people have difficulty in reaching the right people in their lives. Watts, in his book, tries to uncover the rules by which networks grow, the patterns they form, and the way in which they drive collective behaviour.There are lessons for a connected age, Watts explains. First, the science of networks has shown that distance can be deceiving; two individuals on the opposite sides of the world, even with little in common, can be connected through a network in six steps.
Sonja Lyubomirsky from Stanford University wrote “The How of Happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want,” a book in which she refers to extraordinary research about happiness that was done in the early 2000s.
The research found two very surprising things. First, it discovered that happiness is heritable and extremely stable over the course of people’s lives, and second, that people have a remarkable capacity to become inured to positive changes in their lives. According to this research, while circumstances and intentional activities play a role in determining happiness, everyone has a set point for happiness, which is the main factor in determining how happy they are throughout their lives. Read more The How of Happiness
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