How to Read A Book - Mortimer J Adler
I just finished up Mortimer Adler’s How to Read A Book. I give this a 4 out of 5. Here is the summary and my three take-aways
Book: How to Read A Book - The classic guide to intelligent reading
Author: Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
Pages 336
Read: 2021
Publication date: 1940 and 1972
Three Take-Aways / Actions:
Have an intentional reading plan for each book
Understand the author’s point and clearly articulate that point. Answer the question What does this mean for me?
Remain open to the author’s ideas while I am reading. Remember that I can’t fully understand a book if I refuse to hear what the author is saying
Have you read this book? Share your thoughts and key take-aways in the comment.
Review of Tiny Habits: Small Changes that Change Everything
Author: BJ Fogg, PhD
Pages: 306
Publication date: 2020
Three Take-Aways / Actions:
Set me up for success but setting tiny habits that are extremely low
Celebrate immediately after each success
Remind me that my bad habits are not character flaws, just bad behaviors that need to be adjusted.
Rating 4.5 / 5
BJ Fogg, a Stanford University Ph.D., used his extensive research to develop a methodology to creating lasting, sustained change. His Tiny Habits method espouses the approach of setting tiny, small behaviors that, through repetition, and celebrations can grow to more significant and more impactful change. He gives the example of building a flossing habit by celebrating flossing one tooth a day.
His Tiny Habits recipe is:
After I ….. I will ……. To wire the Habit, I will immediately celebrate by ….
BJ’s approach and mindset are to never personalize your habits but rather be open to adjusting your approach to get what you want out of the Habit and behavior.
He shies away from using willpower. Using the action/celebration chain and not willpower will drive change. He argues that willpower takes too much effort and adds unnecessary friction to the process.
To BJ, Motivation and Ability are the critical factors in determining the success of the behavior becoming repeated. You need to increase motivation and or ability to get the action outside the Action Line. Motivation and ability are complimentary. The amount you have of one affects the amount you need of the other.
Another critical facet BJ offers is the no behavior happens without a prompt. And the most essential prompts are action prompts. Prompts are imperative and vital in developing positive behaviors and habits and stopping unwanted ones.
BJ is all about striving for improvement and consistency and not perfection. Don’t get into a burst or bust situation. Consistent execution of your prompt, habit/behavior, and celebration will reinforce and grow your habits.
The action prompt needs to be precise as possible to help reduce the inherent friction. You want to reduce the need to think about what the prompt COULD be. You want to make it almost automatic. Positive emotions (built through celebrations) make the behavior even intuitive.
BJ also notes that hope and fear push against each other, and the net is your motivation. Works towards increasing your hope and reducing your fears.
In the end, habit creation is about mindset. Here are four successful keys to a great mindset:
Be open, flexible, and curious about the possibilities.
Lower your expectations for success
Celebrate every success
Change your process, don’t personalize your actions / bad habits.
You can’t force change on others.
When working with others, you need to help others do what they already want to do; you are influencing others, not trying to force change.
This is a great book and worth your time. In the end, after making tiny Habits, you should be able to ask yourself, “I now see me as the kind of person who…..”
Think Again by Adam Grant
Three Take-Aways / Actions:
Ask myself these rethink questions:
How do I know?
How would my view be different if I was born XXX?
Always try to get to scientist mode, so I am searching for the truth not to be correct. Run experiments, test hypotheses, and discover and understand knowledge.
Reward me for questioning and refining my beliefs and onions.
Rating 5 / 5
Adam Grant proposes that the way forward is to rethink constantly, question, challenge, and test our opinions, views, and beliefs.
Only through this constant challenging of ourselves do we get closer to the right answer.
Rethinking is a skill that can be exercised, developed, and strengthened. Adam talks about This Tennent of wisdom is only possible when we embrace these foundational ideas and ways of change. He describes three modes we get into depending on if we are trying to defend, convince or explore our thoughts—the Prosecutor, Politician, and Scientist mode. The Scientist mode lets us search for the truth by running experiments and testing our beliefs, views, opinions, or hypotheses.
Our ability to focus on moving towards the truth is key to improvement.
Adam also offers techniques that allow us to have meaningful discussions and tactics to improve our knowledge and move towards the correct answer. He stresses the skills and focuses needed not to make the discussions personnel.
I equate the notion of being wrong to failing fast. The quicker we acknowledge that we might be incorrect or not right, we will be free to seek answers quickly. Another key idea that struck me is that your Identify is what you value, not what you believe. Your beliefs, opinions, and interpretation of events are fleeting and can change. They are not you. Detach yourself from these, and you will free up to move towards the right answer.
He brings up a concept of Confident Humility, which opens our minds to rethinking and will improve the quality of our rethinking.
Understanding that you can be confident that you don’t know everything and that you are striving to learn and understand more. You have faith in your capability to acknowledge that you may not have the right solution or address the right problem. You have enough self-doubt to rethink your old knowledge and enough confidence to pursue insight. Remember, the purpose of learning is to evolve our beliefs and understanding, not to affirm our beliefs.
Overall this is an excellent book, and at 5 out of 5 stars, I highly recommend it.
Have you read this book? What do you rate it?
Book Review: Lead Yourself First - Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude
Book: Lead Yourself First - Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude
Author(s): Raymond M Kethledge & Michael S Erwin
Pages: 188
Copyright: June 17, 2017
Rating out 4 of 5
Buy or Rent: Get it from the Library
Summary
The authors' fundamental premise is that solitude is critical to your ability to be successful—the ability to set time for and use solitude as a skill to move you forward. The intentional focus on solitude can be compared to a slight variation on mindfulness. The authors define solitude as: "A subjective state of mind when the mind is isolated from input from other minds!" Kethledge and Erwin also describe solitude as disciplined thought.
The book uses historical figures and events to depict different types of solitude and the resulting successes. The areas of solitude include introspection, self-consensus (negative example), self-awareness, analytical clarity, clarity.
They argue that solitude allows you to reflect while others are reacting. Solitude will enable you to release the pressure gauge and open the mind to both intuition and analytical clarity. If you can honestly reflect on yourself, you can achieve grounding.
Final Thoughts
The book almost reads like a novel. The book makes an excellent case for why you need to include solitude in your life actively. I will become intentional about solitude.
Book Review: Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual
Book: Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual
Pages: 199
Copyright: October 1, 2017
Rating out 3.5 of 5
Buy or Rent: Get it from the Library.
Summary:
The author, Jocko Willink, a retired 20 year Navy SEAL officer, details the importance of discipline. Jocko argues that discipline is a foundational quality and the basis and the root of all good qualities.
Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual is laid out with two sections: 1) Thoughts and 2) Actions. The discussion surrounding discipline is focused on your physical and mental health.
From my perspective, there are a few key themes:
Discipline is all on you - When you control your self-talk, take action, and continue to improve, you are developing and using your discipline.
Choice = Discipline
Don't fade or make even one excuse. Adopt to use discipline to move forward. Use your Mind for Discipline.
My 3 Take-Aways:
1. Don't give in just once while exercising - always do something - I will procrastinate on procrastinating until tomorrow
2. Create a big enough emotional and logical why for my 12-week goals - that way, I can rely on both when one fails
3. Identify my weaknesses in relationships, roles and identify actions or systems to allow me to improve on all of them.
Overall:
This is an easy read, and I recommend this for anyone who responses to no-nonsense recommendations and wants to improve their self-management. The theme is "This is all on you."