Category: books

No, it is not about cars. I just finished reading Drive from Daniel Pink. I quite liked it as it is mainly focus in the daily working life. And you can find a summary at the end of the book of each chapter. Plus specific advises for different circumstances.

The books is about what is motivation, what motivate us, etc. Funny enough, again, there is a reference to “Thinking fast and slow” as a proof that we are not as rational as we think making decisions. As well there are a lot of references to “flow” from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Quite interesting and central to the book too.

Initially our motivations are survival and reproduction like any other animal. That heavily changed with the Industrial revolution and the move to a workforce based in offices were the motivation was based on carrot/stick policies. That works for repetitive tasks but not for creative ones.

And I feel identified about that. I am looking for that motivation, drive in myself. I want to enjoy my job, want to learn, want to see things happening due to my actions. And I dont want a massive salary, neither bonuses as it would be more a burden that a help. Just a decent salary (I am not going to become rich working) so you can remove the money from the table and focus in what is really fulfilling. But most of the work environments are not like this. Although the books shows some punctual places where they have applied a different approach and have produced results. This one is quite radical and motivating

As well, another thing I discovered in the book, it is the term B companies. Several links about it: definition1 definition2 example1 example2

So they are for profit-companies but with some soul. Really like it. And to be honest, as a consumer, want to support that. Even maybe one day work in one of those or even set up one (related to IT, but have no idea)

The author says the new motivation/drive for this century is based on your personality. If you are not influenced much for external things, then your drive is based on: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

If your goal is external things: money, promotions, power, sex, etc. Maybe you will not have enough.

You want to take responsibility if you want to give your best so you need to have the voice to choose how, when , with whom to achieve that. You want to master your task, that’s never a quick path, but slow and sometimes hard, but that makes it worth it. And finally, you want to see a meaning for all that.

You have those 3 ingredients in your life (and they are not going to come to your), you are in a fulfilling trip.

One day when I was a child, I recollect an interview (TV or radio not sure) about a basketball player who have been playing for a long time without an injury. And that was reported as something extraordinary. I think the interview said the moto of this player was “My body and mind are a temple so I look after them very well”. I can’t say who was the player, if it was NBA or something else. I dont think it was a famous player neither. Or maybe this is something that my mind made up from something. Not sure, but that sentence has been with me since them although it has taken years to fully understand. For many years, I have been trying to look after myself (body and mind) as best as I can. And there is always way to improve and things not to forget.

For that reason I read this book. I have already read Ross’ first book back in 2018, so the new one was appealing .

One of the central subjects of his adventure is taking stoicism as a philosophy base. And that is something I feel quite close lately.

Apart from the philosophy, there are many points important for succeeding in such a challenge (without being sick!)

• preparation: getting wintered
• control your pace
• strength training / stress
• manage pain
• manage fear
• humor
• importance of food (hunger)
• importance of digestion
• sleep
• your pyramid of needs (Maslow’s)

As the author says, there is no superpower or birth gift. It is just you and the cocktel above to achieve whatever you want.

Just finished this book. I heard about it from my goland training… and actually it is quite good. You see the extrapolation of negotiation techniques from a FBI negotiator to the business world. One the first things I noticed is how he highlights the importance our the lack of rationality based on “Thinking, fast and slow” when making decisions.

I dont consider myself a good negotiator or bargainer but you can always learn something new like about how to negotiate a pay rise 🙂

It is interesting the focus in:

• Mirroring the other side: create rapport
• Labelling: create trust reusing words. Proof you are listening.
• Look for the “No“: This is quite unusual as you are always pushed for the “yes”. The “No” provides a lot info for getting to the real deal.
• Use “How”, “What”. Avoid “Why”.
• Body language is very important and how you say things. Keep feelings at bay. Remember the night show’s DJ voice. Be ready to take a punch.
• Create the illusion of control in the other side
• Find the lair/time-waster. Ensure the next steps.
• Ackerman Bargaining: start at 65% of your target price. Increase to 85%, 95% and 100%. Use empathy and different ways to say “no”. Use precise, nonround numbers for the final offer.
• Not all is about the money. You can use non monetary items to get the deal (free publicity, etc)
• Find Unknown Unknows (aka the black swan)

As the author says, it is better “no deal” than a “bad deal”.

I hope I can remember things for the next time I am in negotiation situation.

I finished this book. It is quite good, I have read about Wim Hof through another book that mentioned the benefits of cold for physical recovery in sports. And after a bit of more searching I was interested in reading more.

The book shows the benefits of breathing and how disconnected we are from our environment. And we have the tools to change that.

In other books about depression and trauma, mentioned the disconnection from our environment as one main cause, and getting back to it (nature) gets improvements.

I have never been a strong swimmer neither have a big lung capacity but I remember that when I was swimming as a teenager in my hometown, after doing the breathing exercises I could hold much longer. And the second day I tried the breathing exercise from the book, I managed 4 minutes. I was quite surprised. So I am adding this to my meditation practice too.

Regarding the cold, the days I am going for a run, I finish my shower with cold water (based on the fittest book) so I can give better recovery to my legs (and knees). And to be honest, It feels very good afterwards. If you don’t fight the cold (don’t shiver) it is interesting how your body relaxes and heartbeat slows down.

So I will carry on with the cold and breath exercises.

I finished this weekend Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Yes, this is the Emperor in the movie Gladiator. Since I have reading about Stoicism, watching videos and actually doing meditation, I was curious about MA’s writings. I have read about Epictetus so looked like a good follow up.

The intro of the book is quite good. Give you a lot of background about MA, his time and his “meditations” itself. To be honest, I gathered more from the intro that the book itself. The meditations are divided in 12 books but doesnt looks like there is a plot. I felt that MA was repeating his stoicism mantra in all books.

I was surprised about his very stoicism believe with insisting points about anything outside your soul, it is something you can’t control and it is going to perish sooner or latter. You should care only about your reasoning and following the “rational” nature.

Any pain, insult, feeling is is something external and if it affects you is because you are not following the human nature. Dont look for fame, fortune, etc. At the end, the atoms of our body will go back to the nature, the source. And this is for everybody.

And very interesting, he is very clear in the existence of a god and there is a reason for everything.

In summary, I am taking several points of stoicism in my own believe. It fits in my core values and find it useful. Like meditation itself.

Just finished reading this book. I wanted to follow up with more info about how to improve my concentration and attention after “Deep Work”. This book is more dense. I liked the first part as there was a strong focus in the person’s psychology for distraction. We have our internal and external triggers that push us to traction (what we have to do) or distraction, and we need to identify those triggers. We need to master our internal triggers and hack back the external ones (email, app notifications, etc). We need to make time for traction and prevent distraction. And a simple timetable can give you visibility to where you are “spending” your time. Even more, you can adjust the timetable to be aligned with your values. I see connections with meditation and that works for me.

And the attention needs to start with ourselves. Then the important people around us and finally work.

I enjoyed the examples of companies like Slack to help employees to disconnect and be productive. And how important is “psychological safety” in a team..

Nowadays it is the social media the evil for our lack of attention. But in the past we have had others like television, video games, radios, books, etc. It seems Socrates complained about the written word. So there is nothing new. I liked the example of Tantalus’ curse. And now I understand the curse. He was trying to reach for things that he didnt actually need.

This is a nice screensaver:

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need do”

And at the end there is a section for kids that I think it is very useful and original.

In summary, I have enjoyed the book and gives me more reasons to carry on my goal of better focus ( deep work / indistractable).

I hope I re-read this book at some time in the future.

I finished this short book about Stoicism. As I have been meditating for over a year, I am interested in ways to keep learning and improving my quality/health of mind. I like feeling fit in my body, and my mind.

After watching some short videos about Stoicism, I liked the ideas and felt they can fit in my way of thinking.

Most of the times, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are the most common figures mentioned about Stoicism so I tried something written from them.

I went to the “How To Be Free” as the main source from Epictetus. I learned that he was a Greek born slave from the Roman times who earned his freedom and became a philosopher. Who more entitled to write about freedom that a slave? And I didn’t know that the stoicism had started some centuries earlier, around 300BC in Greece. As well, the “Encheiridion” was actually written by Arrian (I read a book about Alexander The Great and didnt know about his philosophy side) that was one student of Epictetus.

The book centres in what it is under our control and what is not. Things that we control are just inside us, and they are the ones that makes free (and content). As soon as you start to give away that control to outside things, you are doomed to suffering. It can be brutal in some cases. If a love one dies, it is not in your control that event, so you shouldn’t bee affected, just accept that is part of nature. Nature is nature and is not bound to our will. That reminds me too Buddhism too.

I like this philosophical approach, it matches well with me. In the world where we live with so much attention to the outside, it is good to get back to basics. We should be happy/content how we are, if we dont hurt anybody/anything and we life in harmony with nature. Suffering is part of life and we shouldn’t sell our freedom to external factors. Somebody insult you? Somebody has done something bad to you? Things are not going according your wishes? These are timeless sources of suffering and we had people already talking about this and providing guidance for a couple of millenniums. And I think we haven’t learned much apart from taking the wrong approach: take this pill, buy this, be like that person, etc etc

There is so much we can do for ourselves by ourselves. Why schools don’t teach more philosophical thinking? When I was in high school we had a subject about Philosophy that was mandatory to get access to University. But at the end of the day, they prepare you to pass an exam. Not to learn. How important is a good teacher…

Keep hungry, keep learning, keep applying, repeat.

I have just finished “Deep Work” from Cal Newport. For a long time I have believed that multitasking is the best thing to be productive but with the years passing by I realised that like a computer, context switching is very expensive on me. You can’t really concentrate in some demanding thing and then try to be on top of small things and interrupted by everybody. I am happy that I am not use social media but still at work I am easily distracted by people demands, emails, etc.

And I am pretty sure that It is not just me. Most people suffer this. And to be honest, I want to improve, I want to make a more meaningful job with my time. And life (like Winifred Gallagher) Cal’s examples (himself and others) are really good. I liked quite a lot the one regarding Daniel Kilov and how to memorize a deck of cards. I think this is a good exercise to execute deep concentration in small chunks of time, that is actually the most probably outcome in (most people) normal day.

You can do it. But you need to work hard for it. The society, working environment and yourself are not going to make it easy.

I think with the lockdown period, it is a good moment to put these techniques in practice.

I need to pay less attention to the emails and slack. I dont have to be the quickest answering something… (that is so good for your ego….) I need to really prioritize my working hours and tasks to focus on with a time frame. I need to make myself accountable, stop blaming somebody else. And communicate, make my peers that I will focus in things I will not answer immediately (if you are my CTO, maybe not 🙂 And as a manager, make my team members better: make them to take more ownership so they can deal with problems by themselves. And schedule times of the day to check emails and/or attend meetings.

One thing I have done, it is to put a pink sticker close to my screen saying “ONE THING AT EACH TIME”. I did this before reading the book as a reminder from a speech at work of a brilliant guy in his last day. And he said he learned that sentence from our CTO. That got burned in my mind. I have used it mainly from troubleshooting. It has been a critical tool that I have applied successfully many times since then. But I can be applied to more things as “Deep Work”

All very nice words. Let’s make it happen.