Today I Learned
This book was quite quick and easy to read. And to be honest, I had a bit of high expectations as it was commented by some friends.
Most of the concepts weren’t new for me. I could find connections to other books or concepts that I have already read like “Thinking Fast and Slow“, Flow, Buddhism, meditation, “The body keeps the score“, etc.
And there is a reference to Ramon y Cajal that now I fully get it:
“Todo ser humano, si se lo propone, puede ser escultor de su propio cerebro”.
I havent finished this book yet. It was something recommend from another book or autoher I follow so I bought it and started reading it. But after watching a video from one of the few authors I follow, I realized that I dont have to finish it.
The subject is interesting, but I didnt have any background about the book and I didnt expect much Antisemitism content although after reading about the author, it made sense. It is a 600+ pages book and after several chapters I realized that there were many concepts repeating. I had the feeling that most of what I was reading could be summarized in a few pages. And I struggled going through the book. I found interesting details though but I think it shouldnt be that difficult.
I have completed two out of three parts and I will get back to it step by step.
The book is divided in three parts: Antisemitism, Imperialism and Totalitarianism.
The first part was a bit more interesting for me as there were many historical facts regarding the Jew people spread around the word, culture, habits, etc. As well, about social facts in countries/emperies like Prusia, Austria-Hungary, etc. It was interested about the banking/financial influence of Jew families in several countries and for several centuries like Rothschild. And how this financial dependency on Jew families was lost. A point that is repeated many times, is the lack of integration of Jew people in the each society and the different conspiracy theories about them ruling the world… (you dont need Covid for creating conspiracies).
One figure that is highlighted is Benjamin Disraeli who was UK Prime Minister, Jewish born (although not follower) and claimed the empire for Queen Victoria.
Then in France, the Dreyfus affair, it is showed as another example of the complexity of the integration of Jew people in the societies and one of the main antisemitism acts in the early century that had the French society divided.
The second part is a focused in the next “evolution” of European societies to the Imperialism, mainly in Africa. And how the “winners” and “losers” took their role. France, UK, Belgium and Italy took most of Africa. For example, Germany had nothing… There are many interesting details about the Boer society in South Africa, how it started, how it evolved and how it ended in a war. The book says that Boer emigrants took the social structure of the local tribes and the attempt of control from the British Empire and the creation of society like in Europe was a total clash for them.
As well, in this part, there are many comments about the Nation vs State struggle. Something like the the imperialism raised the concept of Nation and defeated the state. I dont think I understanded properly. As well, there is an important point about the immigration and how was a source of problems for lack of acceptance, lack of integration, etc. So again, nothing new that we dont see nowawayds. We have learned nothing
Another point is the pan-european movements. Something like the pan-Slav (Russia) and pro-Germany movements that it seems it was one of the striking points for Far-Right regimes in Europe and the raise of Communism. And something I didnt know about the Balkans: Congress of Berlin
I have the feeling that I am missing out many details as the book is quite dense.
One of my favourite things to do is to pick up a fig from a fig tree and eat it straight away. I lucky to be able to do that a couple of times a year in Algarve. The fig trees are amazing, big, like a huge octopus, very flexible and holding hundreds of figs. And it doesn’t need much attention as much as I know neither lot of water.
But something that is even better, dried figs. I loved them when I was a kid during Christmas but the ones you can make with these natural figs, it is a totally different game.
This is how I have seen doing it. As the trees produce a lot of figs, you want to keep them somehow. If not, they will fall down and mainly wasted as even the birds and other animals can’t eat that much. So the ones you can’t eat, you leave them to dry outside. Algarve is very sunny so the nature will do that for you for free.
But I was told that you need to provide a final step. As the figs are outside, a lot of insects will feed from them. So in batches, clean them with water (they will hydrate a bit), then spread a bit of olive oil (just one/two tsp) and put them in a tray in the oven at 75C or so for 30 minutes. After that, use fresh fennel, whole threads of it, not just seeds or the bulb. That will keep insects away and give some anise flavour.
After that you can store them in a dry place (avoid sun light) for months!!!
Simple, natural, delicious.
I have read before about Stoicism and from the author but somehow I needed a refresh and this book helped me.
The books is a kind of a how-to for Stoicism in XXI century. It is divided in three parts:
While I was reading the book, I was thinking about my current problems / issues at work and personal life. I felt a bit weird because depending on how I interpreted some points in the book, I thought I was doing the wrong thing regarding changing jobs. But then I realised, this was just a battle, another stage in the path, another boulder in the way. Sometimes you can climb the boulder, after a lot of hard work. But sometimes, you fail, miserably. So learn from it and move on. And actually that happened yesterday climbing, I managed a hard route after several weeks working on it (and I was shocked that It wasn’t that difficult) but then I failed in another one that I was always scared to try (because it was beyond my level a.k.a comfort-zone…) I made some good progress, but not enough to complete and it was going to removed too.
So at the end, it is seeing the world as it is, imperfect. Not taking it too seriously, that was my mistake at work (again).
So let’s see how it goes the next chapter. But I see clearly that I should try to review this book or similar a bit more often to refresh myself and keep up to date my internal citadel.
This is a kind of snack dessert that I had in mind for a long time. I found this recipe and decided to give it a go.
Ingredients:
Filling
Process
To be honest, the picture from the recipe looks better than mine but I am still happy with the result!
I have never been very keen of Sci-Fi novels but I can read nearly anything. Some months ago, one big boss mentioned that one of the things he did during one of the lockdowns was to re-read Dune. So I added it to my list and finished it last week.
I was hooked. Thinking that I struggled with NLP, this was a blessing.
I felt it was a mix of ecology, religion, politics and a bit of love. This book was released in 1965 but it feels timeless.
But now, like with Foundation, I want to keep going with the next books.
I have a good friend that is vegan and some time ago bought a book to find some recipes so I had some to cook when arranging a meal at home.
So last week, I had a broccoli in the fridge and I wanted to do some nice with it. So checking the book I found a vegan version of “Mac & Cheese”. I didnt follow the recipe to the dot as I used real butter for the white cream.
Ingredients:
White sauce:
Marinade
Process
Happy with the result.
To be honest, the marinade gives all the flavour!
After some time, managed to finish NLP. This is Neuro-Linguistic-Programming. First time I read about it was in The Game as a technique for picking girls. From that book, I learned only one thing, you have to go for it, everything else, it is just glittering, it doesnt matter it is about a girl, a job, whatever. And just several weeks ago, in a email from Edmond Lau, he mentioned he was learning about it. I have read Edmond’s book and it was good and most of his emails are interesting. But I dont think I am putting his advice into practice. Anyway, I was curious about NLP, and bought a book that had some positive references.
The first part made reference about our cognitive process: the part we are not conscious, the amigdala, the flee-or-fight response. Concepts similar to “Think Slow, Think Fast“. A lot of concept relay in “anchoring” positive experiences and increase them. I struggled with that part.
As well, there is another part about social interaction. That is more about body language and how to communicate and understand the position of the other person. These concepts are useful for negotiations. The Disney example is quite good. It seems Disney followed the below process, taking the role of each character one at each time, to define his new ventures.
One thing I found interesting was about the SEAL training. Dr Eric Potterat introduced some modifications in the training to increase the graduation rate. It seems it worked. His technique was:
In general, it took me a bit to finish it but I think I learned a couple of things.
I finished this book during the week. It is about how good companies became great ones. They set some tough requirements as 15y performing below market and then after a transition point, 15y performing three times above market. The book was completed by 2000 so just in the middle of the .com bubble so I would be curious what the result would be now (and after the subprime crisis in 2008). And all of them are companies trading in USA and public markets. As well, for each candidate there is a counterpart to demonstrate how two companies in similar circumstances, became one great and the other not.
To be honest, from the eleven companies passing the exam, I knew five: Gillete (shaving stuff), Kimberly-Clark (paper based things), Phillip Morries (tobacco), Fannie Mae (mortgages, that collapsed in 2008 crisis..), Wells-Fargo (bank). And I was surprised for the lack of other big names.
It is interesting the history of each company and most of them related to very different sectors. So there is no really lucky strike as the study covers nearly 30y history of a company.
So the goal is to identify the traits that all these great companies had to made that transition.
The book treat the following points in each chapter:
And what after being great? It is to last as great. This is another book from the author that was written before this one about this concept.
So, based in the book, all these concepts make a great company, but it is not the recipe to last forever.
Gillete was merged by P&G in 2005. Fannine Mae didnt do very well during the mortage crisis in 2007/8. Tobacco is not healthy business, etc.
In summary, interesting book, as I used to think only the “big” corporations, famous CEOs were great companies (at revenue level) and here you can find more successful companies (at revenue level) with much less glitter around beating them very badly those for long runs.
During this holidays, I finished “The Antidote“. I think I bought it based on some article from Mark Mason. I was a bit sceptical because I didnt really understand the concept of “Positive Thinking”. In the first chapter, got the point quickly.
Main subject is focused on the wrong approach to extreme positivism and how could be better to focus in the negative, because the way we are defining happiness, we are sabotaging ourselves. That can be difficult to swallow and even more difficult to explain for me. But it is mainly based on the concepts of Stoicism and Buddhism. You are not your feelings, you are not thoughts, and you can’t control others or anything external to yourself. We can’t remove suffering from the world.
As well, there is another chapter for goals. I think it is important to set goals, meaningful ones, for your life but the some extreme (again) goalsetting is counterproductive.
One thing I liked is how we put in a pedestal successful people, how we write and read about them, how we try to find the magical formula for that. But we never read about the failure. And it was quite interesting to read that there is a museum for failed products, that is rarely visited from product managers, marketing executives, etc. The older I get, the more I realised that the kind of success we cheer and read in our cut-throat capitalism, it is just a mere coincidence and probability. I am pretty sure we could find hundreds of examples from people who have the same treats as those successful ones, followed the same process, and failed miserably. So yes, embracing failure and being comfortable with it, is something I believe (and I need to put in practice more often)
As well, the book talks about insecurity and death (memento mori). For the insecurity subject, he makes a lot of references to the “Wisdom of Insecurity” that I have already read but to be honest, I struggled with it. And again, the extreme obsession with security, it is counterproductive, and it is a return again to Stoicism/Buddhism concepts. And for the obsession with death, we are missing the point of leaving the current moment, and accept that is part of “life”. The book mentions “The power of Now” although not directly in this chapter. I have that book in my pile but struggled with it in the very beginning and had to put it back. I will have to give it another go.
In general, I liked the book, it was better than I expected. It touches a lot of subjects that are important for me and I want to follow and I needed a refresh, as I think I lost track lately.