Bryson’s Shakespeare: of genius and confabulations

The Dutch subtitle of Bill Bryson’s book Shakespeare is “Een biografie” (A Biography). I read the book and found this subtitle misplaced.

The subtitle of the english original is “The World as a Stage”.  How does that translate to “Een biografie”?bryson shakespeare nl

Bryson writes right in the beginning of the book that very little is known about Shakespeare. So little, that you realistically can not expect more from a book about Shakespeare than the description of a handful of meagre facts, augmented with assumptions, phantasies and preliminary conclusions about the life and times Shakespeare.

Bryson even admits this is the reason the book has such a modest modest size.shakespears_bryson-en

Austin Kleon and Johnny Rotten: a desire to constantly evolve

I hate self-promotion.

To start with the same introduction that Austin Kleon uses at the beginning of his book Show Your Work.

I just read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a book that I had to let go of. I could not consume these elaborations on his simplified way of life any longer. However, I found his worldview interesting. I also liked the way he exchanges philosophical elaborations with down-to-earth statistics and lists of stuff he bought and sold for his house or from his gardening.

But Show Your Work reads very well. It is practical and motivational.

And the conclusion: Do The Work. This keeps coming back so often. Pressfield wrote a book about it. Get the fuck out of their chair. Start typing.

Kleon takes the myth out of most things. Everything is basically common sense. Don’t bullshit. Find an easy way of sharing work.

Do not do networking, but let the network do the work while you add value to your network.

The amateur is king: the amateur is not afraid to do things a new way, another way than the established professionals.

Naivety = openness to new things.

“Watching amateurs at work can also inspire us to attempt the work ourselves. “I saw the Sex Pistols,” said New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. ‘They were terrible. . . . I wanted to get up and be terrible with them.’ Raw enthusiasm is contagious.”

Interesting, as Johnny Rotten/Lydon has always referred to punk as a similar notion:

“Punk is a state of mind open to new ideas, with a desire to constantly evolve, to find the next step, not only in music but also in the world around us.”

Full article (and the french original article): Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten On The Real Meaning Of Punk

“I constantly try to deliver this message: “Admire someone’s work, but don’t imitate it, don’t lose your personality.”

Kleon is a Buddhist, I think. He writes:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

Some time go I read Buddhism for Dummies, Jonathan Landaw, Stephan Bodian, and Gudrun Bühnemann:

“Buddhism has always considered death to be one of the most powerful teachers, but this doesn’t make it a joyless or life-denying religion. Buddhism simply acknowledges that death has an unparalleled capacity to force you to look deeply into your own heart and mind and recognize what really matters.”

Kleon later on expresses:

“The experience of shaping the work is what matters”

Klein does bother about sharing his knowledge and experience with competitors. He knows his value. He even put it stronger as a competitive advantage:

“Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it.”

The rich mindset, the idea muscle and on-the-side-business

the rich employee

A whole book in James Altucher’s typical style. 

Packed. Informative. Entertaining. A little chaotic. Jumping quickly between styles, digressing, then getting back on track. Interlaced with stories illustrating his points.

Do expect the “rich” in the title to be taken literally. Although the book offers monetary advice, the “rich” mostly relates to a mindset.

And it is not just aimed at employees either.

Typical James. Very commercially smart title to broaden the audience for the book. It suggests richness is also achievable for the employees. And of course there are many more employees than non-employees (probably implying entrepreneurs). And these employees are craving to be rich. In many ways.

antifragile

I am thinking how you would summarize his main idea. Independence comes to mind. Make yourself independent from your employer. Make your value independent from where you work. Make sure you have plan B and C. Prepare for disaster.
Become antifragile, comes to mind (Nassim Taleb).

Even become independent of your own streams of thought, I mean do not let them dominate you. Get on top of them.
That is probably a very buddhist idea

If you have read James’ post you may have seen a lot of the content already.

Start a business on the side.

Influence - cialdini

Refers to Cialdini a couple of times. Read that one some time ago. Influence. Recommend that too.

Read about this idea muscle, how important it is to train it. And then how lazy i am writing down the stuff racing through my mind during the day. Ideas I then forget because I don not write them down. I think starting to even write down ideas you have even how stupid they may sound is a great idea.

One of these is an idea for an internet media company. Any media but video. Well, also video, but not just. Podcasts, radio, whatever.
I do not understand why cable companies do not heavily invest in this. The carrier is commodity. Content is king. That is what they said in 2000 about the internet, refering to web sites, when the carier was still important (or rather: limited. It was important because badnwidth was so scarce). And today it is even more true, now all deregulation of cables has been realised. Sorry, I mean with the disappearance of the big state owned telephone / cable companies.
That was one of my ideas today.
It probably exists already, but I am too lazy to go find out now.

Another idea, for Amazon kindle. You can put books purchased elsewhere on your Kindle (using Calibre for that great stuff), but notes will not be sync-ed with your kindle.amazon.com. Provide it. I guess it is a stupid measure to make sure you purchase your books on amazon. Is there already a service extracting notes from your kindle? O I googled and found Calibre might be able to. Will check that out.

Another one: be able to search books and add to wishlist from Kindle.

Another one: integration with Evernote (typing this in evernote).

James tosses the idea of choose yourself meetups. Chooseyourself.me. AA type gatherings. Might work, but definitely not for me. Nor James I am sure. Too shy.

References in the back great: to Fedora training creation – O now I have a new business idea for courses. I can turn any business problem from my job, generalise it and create a (micro) course out of it. In the media company too? Was just talking to my wife last night how out of date the current system for higher education is, with all the new media courses (for free) coming online.

That’s it.

Nice read.

The Monk and The Riddle and Rework and others

monk-and-riddle

The one is more imperative the other more loose.

Both are No BS.

I read The Monk and The Riddle and then Rework shortly after eachother.

The Monk etc is a great book about how startups really work. From the mouth of a top advisor of VCs in Silicon Valley. That sounds strong and confident and so is the book.
Illustrated with great real life example and stories around that – funeral.com, the Amazon of funeral goods, for heaven’s sake…
Talks about the business side, but also discusses the need for a vision the founders need on what they want the startup to achieve.

Rework

What are investors really look for. For them your business plan is one in very many.

Is there a big market? Can the product win and defend a large share? (Peter Thiel – look for a monopoly in Zero to One). Can the team do the job?

They are looking for passion. Money should not be the driver. Passion should.

Make plans, but don’t assume you can stick to them for very long. Be flexible. Also the investors should recognize this.

“In a Brave New World startup, there’s no existing market, no incumbent competitors, and no economic model, you’re literally investing the business as you go along.”

I take that opportunity to link to Fried and Heineman say in Rework – a plan is ok but it is all guesswork, they say, so do not worry too much if it needs changing; actually expect it to change (or you would be psychic).

Jason Fried and David Heineman Hansson are furthermore a lot less stern but and take a more relaxed standpoint. But they are from the other side of the table.

Their book has a number of nice bangs:
Learning from mistakes is overrated. I like that one against the “fail fast” silicon valley hype.
Do it for yourself – ignore the world (Ignore Everybody from Hugh Macleod).
Do not listen to your customer they do not know either (read Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma“).
Working too hard is stupid.
Small is fine – big not an objective.
Entrepreneur, a word that it sounds like a members-only club.

I like that.

Very practical no-nonsense advice.
In short: don’t bullshit around, do the work (Do The Work – Steven Pressfield).

Both very informative, funny. Read like a novel.

Tony Robbins, an abundance of words

Money Master the Game

Tony Robbins, Money Master the Game. A big book on personal finance from a big hyperactive guy. A 600-page book that could have been 60 pages.

First Impressions

I first saw Robbins at TED. Schwarzenegger on fast-forward. That voice scared me.

Then Tim Ferriss interviewed him. The podcast promised simple rules for investing. I wanted those rules. I bought the book.

The Problem

The introduction is endless. Page after page of “I did this, I talked to that billionaire, I discovered this secret.” Full of himself.

Then I read he does this on purpose. The repetition, the long-windedness—it’s his method. To make things stick.

It does make the book readable. Lively, even. But it never stops.

The Good Parts

Strip away the self-promotion and repetition, and there’s solid advice:

Investment basics:

  • Avoid complicated products
  • Use cheap index funds
  • Diversify: domestic stocks, international stocks, real estate, treasuries

Savings hacks:

  • Save salary increases instead of spending them
  • Cut costs where it doesn’t hurt
  • Understand compound interest (10% annual growth doubles money in 7.2 years)

The secret Robbins drags you through multiple chapters is simple: diversify your portfolio. That’s it. Something you can learn in one paragraph.

The US Problem

Halfway through, the book becomes very American. 401(k) rules, US tax codes, American investment products. Useless if you’re not American.

I started skipping pages.

A sort of verdict

Robbins’ abundance of words is both the book’s strength and weakness. The repetition makes concepts stick. But information density is so low that reading becomes nauseating.

The math is basic. The advice is solid. The delivery is exhausting.

A 600-page book with 60 pages of content. We need a European version. But please, make it concise.

What I Learned (Despite the Word Count)

  1. Index funds beat actively managed funds – Lower costs, better returns
  2. Diversification works – Spread risk across asset classes
  3. Compound interest is powerful – Start early, be consistent
  4. Save increases, not income – Lifestyle inflation is the enemy
  5. Simple beats complex – The simplest investment strategy usually wins

The irony: Robbins’ book proves his own point backwards. More isn’t better. Less is.