My friend Jared recommended a good book to me the other day. It’s the Harvard business review’s “10 must reads on managing yourself ” . Usually when someone recommends a book like that to you you have to wonder why they’re suggesting it  (I can’t tell you how many times someone has recommended the “7 habits for successful people” To me)

In this case Jared was suggesting it because it really is a good read. The first essay is by one of my heroes, Clayton Christianson. He’s the author of quote The innovators dilemma”… in the past several years he’s had a devastating stroke and has battled cancer and has come back from both to be a wonderful public speaker. In this essay he describes how people often don’t use the same planning techniques in their lives that they use iN the workplace. It’s a simple idea but just basically having a set of goals and measuring yourself against them. Believe it or not it’s something that I’ve been doing for many years. I’m not sure I’m getting any better at it… but I know when I am in when I’m not living by my own goals.

Christiansen also talks about the danger of looking at marginal cost of things. That is the danger of ‘ just this once”. He describes in economic terms how personal failings such as alcoholism, infidelity, over eating can all be rationalized one discretion at a time. He tells a great story about a basketball game that he refused to play because he, a devout Christian, and promised never to play basketball on Sunday. It’s the decision that cost his team the   win… But defined his life… he tells it better:-)

The second essay is by Peter Drucker, a Harvard professor who passed away in 2005 at age 96. Drucker said three  things that struck me. First, he’s  the only person I’ve ever seen write what I strongly believe which is that it’s much more important to work on the things you’re already good at and leave the things you’re not so good at rather than worrying about the things you’re not good at and trying to bring them up in quality. His point is that people who discover their strengths and loves and put their energy in them are much happier and much more successful than people who concentrate on their failings. That sounds obvious… But all of our public schooling works in exactly the opposite that is we concentrate on what people are worst at and try  to bring them up to some modest level of capability.

The second thing he said which struck me is that people think in three different ways and that type of thinking is hardwired into their brain and is not likely to change. He says people are either readers, writers or listeners. And that not understanding what you are or what your audience is can be very costly mistake. Reading that I knew that I was a”listener”… No question. I often have trouble reading anything more than a paragraph without losing focus. On the other hand I can remember almost anything anyone is ever said to me. I have many friends who are very good readers and can learn all that they need by looking at a book. I have  few friends who actually think by writing and I envy how easy it is for them to make beautiful prose. Again I wish I could do that(instead of using voice dictation like I do here)… but as Drucker says you are who you are.

Drucker’s third point has to do with resilience. He points out that tragedy such as losing a child  or going through a  divorce or illness is a stressor that shows whether someone is resilient… not that it necessarily makes them more resilient. he points out that people who have survived a great test like that tend to be calmer because they’ve always already been tested. I found this interesting of course because of the profound effect that Sam’s death as had on me… I don’t know if I agree with Drucker on this… but I have no doubt of my own resilience. I would not be here if I were not resilient

Okay Time to dig into a few more chapters. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding how people think about thinking

Night all, night Sam

-me