Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow can be defined as that moment when an footballer is about to take a last minute free kick or penalty, everything fades and time feels like it has slowed down. His mind is sorely focused on the ball and nothing else. Flow is that state of mind were one is entirely focused on achieving a single purpose or target. He feels in control and there's clear feedback of success or failure. Mihaly goes deeper in this concept and gives a model were one can achieve flow even during the most tedious of jobs. Flow is not only for olympians and formula 1 drivers, everyday activities like cooking, eating, walking and singing can bring flow if one applies the flow model to them. This model includes setting clear targets for oneself, concentrating clearly on the task at hand, loosing your self completely and there must be a clear feedback of either success or failure. The flow concept highly requires the participant to match skills and the challenges at hand. If skills are more than the challenges then it results in boredom and to overcome this, one must increase his targets in order to achieve flow. If the challenges are greater then the individual will suffer anxiety.

Mihaly emphasizes how the control of consciousness can drastically increase the quality of life. He mentions that mental disorder is the normal state of an uncontrolled state of mind and one must find an activity to maintain order in the mind. In the final chapters he encourages people to adapt a dissipative structure type of an attitude. In nature these are structures that can turn waste into order and life. The ability to turn bad situations into challenges to be prevailed can make life including the bad days to be enjoyable. This is a must-read that I would recommend to everyone. Its difficult to summarize this masterpiece and one can only grasp the full concept through reading all of it.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

 

Malcolm Gladwell, author of one of the best books I have ever read, OUTLIERS, I decided to dig into another one of his works hoping to get the same thrill but sadly BLINK is not as good. I would say its fair in my opinion. Malcolm describes blink as a moment when the body limits the flow of information to focus on a certain target goal. It is often referred to as rapid cognition and it takes place primarily in our subconscious. He begins by mentioning the infamous Getty kuoros, a good example how loads of information clouded experts into thinking the statue was real. Malcolm argues that the human mind is constantly processing in the background which he refers to as thin slicing. Thin slicing allows marriages experts to predict if a couple is going to end in divorce just by listening to a few minutes of them discussing a regular topic. Thin slicing allows music maestros to tell either an artist is bad or great just by listening to a few minutes of them play. Although thin slicing happens in our subconscious, Malcolm claim that we can train this ability. The subconscious is highly influenced by our surroundings and changing our surroundings will change the way our subconscious process. Cops often involved in high speed chases or gun fires often describes moments of extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision and diminished sound, this is how the body reacts to extreme stress and can either improve performance or render us useless. Famous athletes also describe similar scenarios during tight game moments.

Malcolm also mentions how this rapid cognitions can also blind us if our subconscious is not properly trained. He stresses that humans can sometimes fail to describe their choices and end up misinterpreting this rapid cognition. A famous example is how Pepsi was winning the blind test against Coca-Cola and how women in the 90s were prejudiced during musical auditions. The moment auditions were conducted behind screens the more diverse the orchestra world became. Malcolm concludes by mentioning how training our subconscious can improve the way police officers operate, the way bodyguards can perceive dangerous situations before they happen and prevent salesman from judging customers according their race or gender. This is a good read in general and can change the way you think about everyday issues like racism and gender biases. It helps you understand the people around you even better and how to make rational choices during times of extreme stress.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Written by a former IT consultant, his screen adaptation of The Rosie Project won several Australian awards including best romantic comedy script. From my perspective this is well deserved because this is a great book. I'm not a fan of romantic novels or movies but this one pulled me IN. Don Tillman, a slightly middle aged, well educated professor embarks on a journey to find a life partner using scientific methods of selections eg interviews. This was after a series of bad dates including my FAVORITE, the ICE CREAM INCIDENT. He called this the WIFE PROJECT. His project went sideways when he is introduced to a young, beautiful and adventurous lady named Rosie. Rosie went against everything Don believed in, she was a smoker and unable to cook. She was completely unsuitable to Don as a life partner according to his questionnaires.

Don eventually finds himself breaking each and every rule of his including drinking on a Tuesday and dumping the standardized meal system. He finds himself feeling strange feelings he never knew existed when he volunteers on a adventurous task to find Rosie's unknown father. He oftenly found himself questioning his rationality of decisions he made just for the sake of Rosie. He eventually discovers that he designed his questionnaire to find someone who would accept him not someone he would accept. After a serious evaluation of a series of events he eventually decides that he was in love with Rosie. This is a must read that I would definitely recommend. You won't regret it.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

This is great book for the readers particularly interested in History and Science as a whole. It gives an insight on the history of our species Homo Sapiens as well as a peak behind the curtain into the future. Yuval through hard evidence describes how humans went from bieng an animal of no significance to become gods answerable to no one not even to natural selection itself. It begins to explain events from the Big Bang theory 13.5 billion years ago up to the Cognitive revolution that occurred approximately 70 000 years ago. This revolution was particularly fueled by the emergence of the fictive language which allowed humans to participate in large numbers. The ability to imagine things that do not exist led to the emergence of imagined realities such as religion and cultural hierarchies which further strengthened the corporative abilities of our ancestors. The cognitive revolution was succeeded by the Agricultural revolution which foresaw the emergence of permanent settlements, domestication of plants and animals appropriately 12 000 years ago.

Universal money was popularized about 2 500 years ago which later soon was followed by the formation of popular religions like Buddhism 2 000 years ago. The scientific revolution emerged approximately 500 years ago when humans admitted ignorance and began to acquire unimaginable power. This was around the time European nations started to map the world and capitalism was on the rise. The replacement of family and and community by states and market led to the rise of the Industrial Revolution and a lot of other idealogies like individualism and communism. It also foresaw a massive extinction of plants and animals that humans did not deem beneficiary. Professor Yuval in the end speculates a future dominated by bioengineering and cybernetic organisms that may possibly replace our species as we know it. It is impossible to summarize this book in a few paragraphs and one needs only to read for themselves. It is loaded with lots of history events that shape our today as we know it. I would definitely recommend this book to my fellow book absorbers.

Business & Life Lessons From the Black Dragon by Vusi Thembekwayo

Vusi Thembekwayo aka the black dragon, he earned that nickname when he featured as one of the judges on The Dragon's Den. I learned about him through YouTube. He also featured on TedxTalk with his speech entitled "The big lie of small businesses". He's the founder and CEO of Mygrowthfund, a company which focuses on investing and buying startups. His resume is impressive and it compelled me to buy his book. He explains his journey from having nothing to loose to owning a mansion on a golf estate. From humble beginnings in a small township of Wattville, raised by a single mother until he became a beneficiary of the Nelson Mandela scholarship to study abroad. He sharpened his skills in public speaking and that is his greatest weapon. He mentions in his late chapter what he calls "the lie of the land". He stresses out how as black people are obsessed with owning land whilst companies like Google and Microsoft do not own much land but are influencing the global community. 

Vusi explains how he is inspired but the A-Team, a group of differently abled individuals that could build a tractor from a junkyard and achieve exploits. He said that's his basis for selecting employees, he prefers to work with the best of the best. The black dragon mentions how we should be vigilant to the dynamic world, he gives examples of how Netflix went from renting movies to producing their own movies but Blackberry couldn't adjust until the barbarians were at their gates. Their empire crumbled. Blackberry was a frog whilst Netflix metamophosed from bieng a cartepillar to a butterfly. I wouldn't label this book a must read because it's not filled with experiences that are relatable. It's full of shortcuts and a success story is supposed to be a process just like in the Shoe Dog. From meeting with Mandela to owning a Mansion, it leaves the readers wondering a lot. I'm looking forward to read his next book 'The Magna Carta of Exponentiality'. 

 

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

This is one of the books that's very difficult to summarize because every single word is as important as the next one. This is one of the most influential reads in the psychological world selling over 12 million copies world wide. It was written by a German psychiatrist who was imprisoned at one of the concentration Nazi camps during the World War 2. The book is devided into 2 parts, the first part he describes his agonizing inhuman experiences from physical torture, epidemics, starvation and death. In the second part of the book he described a method of psychoanalysis which he called LOGOTHERAPY(logos from the word meaning). His psychiatric knowledge combined with his experiences at Auschwitz allowed him to have a deep insight to what really drives a man when he is forced to live through the worst and how he can find meaning despite all of it. Viktor mentions that the worst suffering in a concentration camp was caused by 'provisional existence' caused by not knowing when the suffering was going to end. By envisioning a better future, fixing his thoughts on his loving wife and holding on to his unfinished book, Viktor managed to rise above the situation, above all momentary afflictions and observed them as they were already in the past, this allowed him to survive even the deadly Typhus. "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how".

Viktor asserts that it doesn't matter what we expect from life but rather what life expects from US. Viktor goes on further by highlighting how many people suffer from an "existential vacuum", an inner emptiness that manifests itself through boredom, will to power, money, sexual pleasures and drug addictions. According to LOGOTHERAPY, meaning can be attained through SELF TRANSCENDENCE, pointing towards something or someone other than oneself. This can be attained by doing a deed, encountering someone (loving) and by the attitude we take towards suffering. When you love someone you are able to see their greatest potential and by making them aware that potential can be actualized. The author described what is known as "anticipatory anxiety" which is a fear that produces exactly what one is afraid of like sexual nuerosis. He says that pleasure should be a side effect or by-product and it is spoiled when it's made a goal. This can be cured by shifting the attention away from oneself or through what Viktor called the paradoxical intention. The cure is always self transcendence as people there days have a lot to live by but not a lot to love for. One needs to read this book for themselves because it's just full of content that's impossible fit on one page. It's definitely a must read and it redefined for me the meaning of suffering and the definition of pleasure. I highly recommend this and I'll probably read it again multiple times. 

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

 It's an autobiography written by the co-founder of Nike Inc. He is regarded as one of the most influential business executives with a current net worth of over 45 billion dollars. This memoir feels like a roller-coaster journey inside Phil's mind as he takes you through the ups and downs from 1962 when he decided to take a trip around the world to seek his calling. He eventually landed in Japan were he got a deal to distribute shoes in America for Onitsuka Shoe Company. His journey around the world was an adventurous one and just by reading the details I felt like I was there from the Pyramids of Giza to the Nike temple. Phil convinced his former coach Bowerman and founded Blue Ribbon. However, his trade disputes with his sole supplier Onitsuka forced Phil and Bowerman to design and sell their own line of shoes under the name 'Nike'. The journey can be summed up by a vicious lawsuit, bankruptcy and betrayal but Nike pulled through. Phil met his wife Penny when he was an assistant professor and they settled and bore 2 kids together (Mathew & Travis). Today Nike is almost 60% bigger than Adidas according to revenue and it was a pleasure to get to read each and every enticing detail of how Phil breathed life into it, nurtured it through illness and brought it back several times from the dead.

In his closing remarks, Phil advices the younger generation not to follow a profession but to seek a calling, he says when you do that, the fatigue becomes easier and the disappointments becomes fuel. Just like Malcolm Gladwell, he acknowledges the power of luck by saying that hardwork is essential but luck determines a good outcome. Mr Knight also stressed out the importance of having faith in whatever one may do. I would recommend this book to anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit like mine. I related a lot to Phil maybe because he was the same age as me when he started or the fact that he was an accountant by profession like me as well. I learnt that giving up is not the same as stopping, it's ok if I give up but I will never stop. 

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

 Malcolm despises the phrase 'self-made', he argues that all the successful people we see today like Bill Gates and Bill Joy are as a result of a web of advantages that includes patronage & cultural legacies. These advantages allow them to make sense of the world in a way others can not. The tallest trees are not the tallest because the seed was healthier than others, it's the tallest because of the soil around it that was nutritious and no other plants were blocking its view of sunlight. Malcolm concludes that talent is something that can be developed rather than inborn. He mentions the '10 000 hour rule' which is a theory that assumes that it takes roughly 10 000 hours to develop a mastery of something. He gives an example of the Beatles and Mozart who started as just average individuals but perfected their traits over time. I loved when Gladwell mentions that you don't need to be a genius to be exceptional. Most geniuses pass the cognitive test but tend to fail divergence which is a test of the imaginative part of the mind. It is the dreamers who change the world not the thinkers.

Individuals like Joe Flom are great examples of how factors like religion, parentage, and the year you were born matters to who you can become. What is considered a disadvantage now can turn out to be the reason one can become an outlier. In the 'Harlan Kentucky' chapter Gladwell stresses out how our culture and where we are from can actually influence our behavior and decision making. He mentions that being a great pilot can be influenced by absurd factors such as the country you come from. Pilots from countries with a high Power Distance Index (PDI) tend to fear authority and hence cannot convey important instructions with effectiveness. For example, they give hints instead of commands. "Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from—and when we ignore that fact, planes crash". Malcolm sheds light on why  Asians tend to be better at Maths than everyone else. He says much credit is to be given to their cultural heritage of rice farming which instilled a culture of endurance as well as utilizing small resources. The Chinese number line is much easier and makes sense hence Asian children are more motivated to continue studying. Math is not a talent it is an attitude that can be developed.

This is a great book that I would definitely recommend to anyone. Malcolm also wrote The tipping point and Blink which are also great reads that I recommend.