Our Choice

I downloaded the app "Our Choice" by Al Gore. It is a book that includes full sized photos, interactive charts and videos. I guess then it is more than a book, but you can get a printed version of it.

I absolutely love the idea of this interactive book. I think this is a good example of what all books should be. It is perfect for reading on the iPad.

I started reading it before I even finished "The Art of Non-Conformity." I just could not wait to start it after I downloaded it. I really enjoyed watching "An Inconvenient Truth" so I was excited to read this book. So far I have not been disappointed. I have learned a great deal about what we are doing to the planet and why our weather patterns have started to change so drastically.

We need to stop denying the science and blaming other people and just take responsibility for our actions. The West can be a good example for the rest of the world and we can even satisfy our capitalist needs by creating better alternatives to our current energy sources and industrial practices. The developing world would have no other choice but to follow us or be left behind...again.

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First Change of 2011

I bought the 4-Hour Body at the end of last year. I started reading it as soon as I got it, but I was moving through it slowly. I read Tim's previous book and found it interesting, so I thought I would try this one.

Tim says that you should not read the entire book from cover to cover. Instead, you should focus on specific chapters based on your goals. My first goal is to lose weight so I read the chapters that deal with rapid fat loss. On Monday The Queen and I started our new eating plan, the slow carb diet.

We have drastically reduced our intake of sugar and carbs six days per week. On the seventh day, we can eat anything we want. We decided that our "cheat" day will be Sunday and we cannot wait. We have been thinking about what we will eat that day all week. It has really not been that difficult for me to stick to the plan, but The Queen has been struggling a bit. She is sticking to it, but she is not very happy about it.

I have been on this eating plan for three full days and as of this morning I have lost two pounds. At that rate I will be able to drop about sixteen pounds in a month. I have not even exercised at all this week and am still losing weight. That just goes to show you how damaging carbs are to your waist line. The only exercise Tim recommends at this point is the kettle bell swing. I hope to start that soon.

I will be travelling next week for business, so I am interested to see if both The Queen and I can stick to the plan while I am on the road. I have been cooking all of the meals this week and don't know if she will stick to it while I am gone. Our goal is the The Queen and I to both look good for our trip to New York next month. We need to stick to it!

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My Next Books

I ordered my next set of books on Saturday. I am in a real funk right now and it applies to my blog posting as well as my reading. I hope that these new books will break my funk and give me some inspiration. Here is the list of books I ordered:

• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston
• Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business: The Story of Clif Bar & Co. by Gary Erickson, Lois Lorentzen
• Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford
• Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World by Gary Hirshberg

I have wanted to read Stirring It Up for some time and have always put it off. I think that will be the first book of this new group that I dig into. I really hope these books will give me a creative spark.

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My New Book

Well, it isn't really my new book. It is just the book I am currently reading. I am now reading The Sign by Raymond Khoury. The beginning of the book seems strangely familiar to me. I can't put my finger on where I have read something similar, but I have.

I needed to take a break from all of the business books I have been reading to read something that is a little more entertaining. I am still on pace to read twelve books this year, but this new book is a big one. It has four hundred and fifty-eight pages and I am only on page sixty-one. That means I only need to read a little over fifteen pages per day, which is very manageable.

I will need to shop for my next set of books very soon to make sure I get them in time. I am open to suggestions from anyone.

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The Resistance

Linchpin is a great book full of some really good insights. I have already found myself talking about many of the points in the book. Just last night The Queen and I were talking about education and whether it is worth it for her to pursue a master's degree at this point. I told her that she needs to fight the resistance and get over her anxiety and do what she wants to do.

Seth focuses a lot of time in the book talking about the resistance. Some of what he says is a little counter-intuitive, but once you have a chance to sit back and digest it it becomes a little bit easier to understand. The resistance is what your lizard brain constantly does to try to protect you. It keeps making excuses for you to not do the things you want to do. It convinces you that you will fail if you try, therefore you should just not try. It is trying to protect you from this failure.

As I think back, I encounter the resistance all the time. There have been many things that I have wanted to do and most of the time I give in to the resistance and just decide that I can't do those things. It is really painful to look back and realize how often this has happened to me. I have not been in total control of my decisions and this is bad.

I would like to say that now that I am aware of the resistance I will not let it control me, but as Seth points out in the book it is not that easy. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You need to think about the things the resistance is telling you. If is difficult to overcome. It takes a lot of effort, but in the long run it will pay great dividends if you can overcome the resistance. I need to make a conscious effort to overcome the resistance before it is too late.

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My Independent MBA

I have been thinking a lot lately about my reading list. As I have mentioned before, it is my goal to read one book every month this year. I started to slip while I was reading "The Toyota Way," but I am back on schedule after taking a few trips in June. I got a lot of reading done on my flights to the Midwest and Mexico.

Last week while I was driving back from Los Angeles I started thinking about my reading this year being the first year of my own personal MBA. I have been very open-minded while putting together my reading list and while reading the books themselves. I am focused on learning new ideas that I can implement in my own life. My reading has already been put to use in my career.

I have given a lot of advice to some of my coworkers ranging from lean techniques I learned from Toyota to people management skills I learned from "Delivering Happiness." I even dispensed some advice to my sister last night about making sure your employees are happy. She doesn't think that is her job, so I was trying to show her how valuable it can be.

Last month I finished reading "Rework" and "Delivering Happiness." I have now moved on to "Linchpin" by Seth Godin and I am enjoying it so far. The Queen actually picked it up while we were in Los Angeles and we had a nice conversation about the book on our drive home.

I am going to put a lot more thought into the rest of my reading list for this year to maximize its value. I really want to learn as much as I can from many different sources. Next year will just be my second year of my independent MBA studies.

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Review of The Toyota Way

I finished reading The Toyota Way on Saturday. This book was packed with so much background information on the way that Toyota operates that it took me a while to get through. I read a book some time ago on Six Sigma, but TPS is totally different.

I learned a lot from this book, but I don't feel I learned enough to implement any of the ideas. I feel like this book was just an introduction to TPS that gave me a background to know what areas to pursue further. In particular, the idea of one piece flow is great. I just did not find any practical examples of how to implement it in the book.

I know my timing with the reading of this book was bad after all of the problems Toyota has been having, but the reaction I get when I talk about it is always the same. Everyone brings up Toyota's recent quality issues. What they don't understand is the level of commitment Toyota has had over the years to recreate their culture in every department in every one of their locations around the world. They do an outstanding job with creating a learning organization. They do so well that I have no doubt that they will bounce back from the recent issues and become an even better company.

Overall, The Toyota Way was a great book. I would recommend it to anyone, and as a matter of fact I have already done so.

I have moved on to my next book already. I have started reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. So far so good. It is an easy read.

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What is Happening?

I have hit the wall once again. I am not feeling creative. I am not tired, I just don't have too many ideas in my mind. I guess this just happens to me every few months. I can't explain why, but it is really a struggle for me.

Maybe I should be analyzing myself to find out why it is happening. But, It seems like a lot of other bloggers I read have slowed down now as well. There just does not seem to be a lot of interesting content available recently.

Apple previewed the new iPhone 4 OS today. Nothing was really exciting, but there were some good things. The best being multitasking. The only problem was that later we learned that it will not work on the 3g iPhone. Bummer. I guess I will just have to upgrade when the new iPhone goes on sale later this year.

The more I see of the iPad, the more I am contemplating getting one. It just looks really cool. I don't always take my current book with me everywhere I go, but I think I would take the iPad with me. The only questions would be if I would read my book or just mess around on the iPad. I don't know.

I started reading The Toyota Way this week. I know you are wondering why I would pick this book to read after all of the recalls Toyota has had recently. I actually bought the book a month or so before the recalls were announced and was just waiting for the chance to start reading it. I am only twenty-two pages into the book, but I have already read some interesting things about Toyota's culture and their TPS. I think they do a really good job with continuous improvement and I really think they have handled the recall very well.

According to the book, historically Toyota has handled recalls and other issues better than most auto manufacturers. I just think that they are better at a lot of things than most other companies. I am not saying that they are great or that they have no room for improvement because they certainly do and the recalls prove that fact. They just have a culture that allows them to attack problems with different thinking than most other companies.

The book is going to be a long read because it packs a lot of words onto each page. They type is smaller than most other books I have read recently, but I am looking forward to learning something.

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Productivity Improvement

I have been reading a lot about how to improve my productivity. I really need to focus a lot of attention on this task so I can be more efficient. I manage my time pretty well, but I do get buried by the less important tasks quite often. I am not usually late on my projects, unless there is a legitimate reason.

I see real value in becoming more productive. After all, that is the only way to effectively increase your income. I plan to start my own business on the side while I am still employed full time. In order to accomplish this task, I will need to be much more organized. I will also need to learn to prioritize items much better than I currently due. I am starting to see that the secret to business success is organization. It doesn't matter whether you pay someone to keep you organized or you do it yourself, but it has to be done.

I read some advice from one blogger that recommended that you hand write your task list. Her feeling was that if the task is important enough to be written by hand that it is important enough to be on your task list. I agree with this to a certain extent. I can see more shuffling and moving of items on an electronic task list. I also don't know if I want to have access to my task list at all times. If I keep my list in a nice Moleskine notebook, which I already have, it will take on more importance for me. I really like these notebooks a lot because they have an archival feel to them. They feel like something you need to hang on to because it will be important in the future.

I may give this a try, since I know I have to do something. My only problem with a hand written task list is that I make fun of one of my coworkers for walking around with a small yellow note pad in his back pocket. I guess I can still look down my nose at him if my task list is in a Moleskine notebook.

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The iPad

I am not sold on the iPad. I think it is too large and just does not fit into a well defined nitch. I think there is some very cool technology in the device, but I just don't think I will be purchasing one.

I like the size of the Kindle better and I like the fact that you don't need to pay for internet access to download a book from Amazon.com. I like that it has a paper-like display which will make it much easier to read books on. I don't like the navigation. I don't like that the screen is so much smaller than the overall device. I don't like that you cannot go into a store and touch one and try it out. I am impressed that it is the best selling item on Amazon.com.

When it comes to the iPad, I like that it has a color screen which will make it great for viewing magazines and browsing the web. I like the navigation because it is very intuitive. I like the fact that the screen dominates the device. I like the fact that it uses Wi-Fi. As I said before, I don't like the size of the device. I don't like the price tag. I am very impressed that they sold 51,000 preorders for the iPad in the first two hours it was available.

I am not in the market for one of these devices yet. I am going to wait and see how things shake out. I think Apple has a better idea of how it should work because they have experience with the iPod and iPhone and iTunes. Their system will be much easier to use and will be a much better experience. They just have years of experience with user interface design which Amazon.com is lacking. At this point I would lean toward the iPad, but I saw another reader in Popular Science magazine that had a paper-like display on one side and a color screen on the other. It opens like a book with one on each side. Now that is a great idea.

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Long Flight Home

I had a lot of time on my long flight back to Los Angeles from Puerto Rico. I read What the Dog Saw for quite a while. I read some magazine articles. I listened to the audio book Tribal Leadership. I even slept for a while. There are not many things to do when you are stuck in a seat for nine hours.

I found the free download link for Tribal Leadership on the Zappos website. I have been interested in Zappos and their CEO Tony Hsieh for some time. I think the he and the company do things differently and it works great. I would love to work for a company with a culture like theirs. Because they offered the free download link, I decided to give it a listen. It does not disappoint.

I got all the way through chapter seven on my flight. It was very interesting information. The authors of the book define 5 tribal stages:

Stage 1 is reserved for criminals or those who exhibit criminal or violent behavior.
Stage 2 is for people who believe that "my lief stinks." This is the dominant culture in twenty-five percent of organizations according to the authors.
Stage 3 is for people who believe "I’m great, and you’re not." An organization that has this stage as the dominant culture is a group of individuals who do not want to share information with coworkers and are out for themselves. It is not all bad though, because these people will out work their competitors. Salesmen are usually stuck in this stage.
Stage 4 is for the people who shift their focus to the group instead of themselves. They no longer believe that "I'm better." They now believe that "we’re better" and that "life is great." This is a big shift and is what makes an organization a great place to work.
Stage 5 is when people believe that "we can make a global impact." The authors of the book say that only two percent of organizations reach this stage and that they often oscillate back-and-forth between stages four and five. Companies that reach stage five are truly great organization.

As I was listening to the description of these stages, I began to identify which departments in my company are at which stage. I think some of the departments are in a mix of two different stages. I even think that you can break it down further and find out which stage each employee is in. I know that there are several people in my company who are stuck in stage three, but the majority of people are in stage two. I think of the people in stage three as being hoarders of information and people who have not necessarily earned respect. They try to do things their own way, but when they need something from you they expect you to drop everything and give them what they need. They are dysfunctional. I think we have a long way to go if we want to be a great company and I don't know if we have the commitment and leadership to change our culture.

I don't know when I am going to have time to finish listening to the audio book, but I need to make time. I even want to buy the book after I am done listening to it. I am also thinking about passing along the audio book to people in my company who I think are ready to listen, learn and try to take us to the next stage. There are only a few that I think are ready.

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From The 4-Hour Workweek to What the Dog Saw

I am still on track with my goal of reading 12 books this year. I finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek yesterday on the last day of the month of February. The book was not an easy read for me because some of the information is presented in a get rich quick type of voice. I don't particularly like reading this type of material, so whenever it started sounding like it was heading in that direction I started to lose interest.

Overall, there is a lot of good information in this book. There are a lot of things that I can put into place that will help me achieve my goals. I have started dream lining in my head and have also started to think about a muse. My dream line includes being free to travel the world within the next five years. In order to achieve this goal, I need to find a muse quickly.

Until I find my muse, I can start putting some of the other ideas in the book to use in my current job. I am really thinking hard about trying to reduce the number of times per day I check my email. It is going to be really difficult for me to change this aspect of my day. I really pride myself in getting back to people as soon as I possibly can. I need to realize that it is not always necessary and I need to train people to expect a delayed response from me.

I also need to start developing check lists that I can pass off to other people so that they can do some of my daily tasks. I am not in a position to outsource my work to a virtual assistant in another country such as India, but I can start passing tasks off to other people in my company. This could potentially free up a lot of my time for more important tasks.

Although I have finished reading the book, I know that I will continue to reference portions of the book as I move forward on the task to meeting my goals. I will start to use the book as a guidebook on my path to dream line realization.

I started my next book at lunch today. I am reading What the Dog Sawby Malcolm Gladwell. I have really enjoyed reading his other books, so I am looking forward to this one. I am practicing the speed reading technique that Tim Ferriss wrote about in The 4-Hour Workweekand am already reading faster. I will give some mini reviews of What the Dog Sawas I get through it.

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Is a 4-Hour Workweek Realistic

I am currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek and I have to say that so far I am finding the book interesting. But, I don't know if it is realistic. Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur who no longer needs to work a forty hour week to guarantee his income. He has automated his income by starting a company that he does not need to be involved with on a daily basis, which frees him up to lead the life he wants to lead.

I am a full-time employee, not an owner or a telecommuter. I am in the office every day. I cannot just work for an hour a day and leave. I am also in a position where several people rely on me to make decisions on a daily basis. How can I possibly apply all of the teachings in this book to my situation? At this point I cannot.

I have to admit that I am just over one hundred pages into the book and I have already read about some things I can start using. For instance, Tim suggests that you only check email, voicemail and return calls twice a day. I really could start doing this without too many problems. I just need to train people to accept this. I guess at this point I am being to helpful to people and need to make them a little more independent.

I can see how making this one change could really make me a lot more productive. It would allow me to focus on the more important items for the day without interruption. That alone would increase the quality of my work. The problem is that most people in my company do not have two or three really important tasks to complete every day. Instead, we spend our days putting out fires and accomplishing a few important tasks every week. I have seen for some time that this needs to change, so maybe this book will get me started.

He also recommends that you get rid of the busy work. I currently have a lot of busy work, as do most of my coworkers. This is work that I could very easily pass off to someone else. The only problem is that I work for a small company and we do not have the money in our budget for me to hire someone to do these things. The people who are already working for my company do not have the time to take on additional tasks, so I am left to do them. Maybe if I work with them to get rid of their busy work I can pass mine on to them.

As I am reading the book, I notice that my boss is accidentally doing a lot of the things that Tim suggests. He has not read the book, but he has embraced many of the practices and incorporated them into his work life. He is really pretty hands off on most aspects of the company. The only problem is that he is very reactive rather than being proactive. This means that he is hands off until something goes wrong, then he has to get involved in a hurry. He does not have the systems in place to automate the work like Tim suggests. I just don't think he has the mind for that.

At this moment a four hour workweek is not realistic for me. I hope to be able to achieve this within the next five years. I would like to go back to school and start another career in that time. I have always thought that I want to start my own business, so maybe this book will encourage me to get up and do that.

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What I Am Reading

I just finished reading the book Superfreakonomics. I read the original, Freakonomics, in 2008 and was really looking forward to the follow-up. I really enjoyed this book. Much like Malcolm Gladwell, the authors of these books find really interesting problems to apply microeconomics to.

Freakonomics featured research done on drug dealers in Chicago. In Superfreakonomics they discuss research done by the same economist on prostitution in Chicago. If I would have known that economics would be so interesting, I might have majored it econ rather than business.

I ordered several books from Amazon.com before I finished Superfreakonomics so I would stay on schedule for reading twelve books this year. As it happened, I waited too long to order them. It took six days for the books to arrive, which meant I went two days without reading. I really wanted to get ahead of schedule, but I guess I will just have to keep trying.

I am currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek written by Timothy Ferriss. This book was recommended to me by a former coworker who is now doing engineering consulting. I ran into him at our last trade show in Las Vegas. He told me that he was working three days a week and that was too much. He really embraced the ideas in this book and recommended it to me several times.

Since that time, I have done some research on Tim Ferriss and have read his blog and watched some of his videos. He seems to be an interesting person. He has some different ideas on life and success. He speaks multiple languages. He seems to be a bit self-absorbed, but that may be why he has been successful.

So far, the book is not very easy to read. It is not written like a traditional book, but more like a book you order from an infomercial that is supposed to teach you how to get rich. This is a bit of a turnoff to me as it seems like a method to get rich rather than a useful book. I am not going to stop reading it, so I have to keep an open mind.

I would love to lead the life he talks about in his book. In his ideal life, you are not tied to a particular place. You are free to move about the world freely, using technology to keep your link to your career. He says that it is best to take mini retirements along the way rather than wait until you are old enough to retire. I agree with him in that I would love to experience things now, while I am still fully functional rather than wait until I am retired. This book aligns perfectly with my current lack of satisfaction with my career.

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What Not to Buy in 2010

I came across an interesting article on Yahoo Finance today. It is titled "10 Things Not to Buy in 2010." Here is the list:

1. DVDs I think it is still safe to buy DVDs, especially Blu-ray. Internet downloads of movies just take too long and if you are looking for a high definition movie it will take even longer.

2. Home Telephone Service This one is a toss-up for me. I don't want to have a home phone, but I don't want salesmen bothering me on my cell phone. I have Google Voice, but have not really used it to its full potential. I actually have not even given out my phone number. It is a nice service because you select which of your phones you want to ring when someone calls the number. I will have to experiment with it in 2010 to see if I can eliminate my home phone.
3. External Hard Drives I strongly disagree with this one. There is still a place for an external hard drive. The online backup services are much more expensive and you are putting your cherished photos and music collection in someone Else's hands.

4. Smartphone Also-Rans Other than the Blackberry and iPhone, none of the other smartphones have really caught on. The Blackberry is still the business phone of choice. The iPhone walks the line between hipsters and wannabe hipsters. I personally really like my iPhone, but it does have limitations and annoyances.

5. Compact Digital Cameras I made the switch several years ago and have not looked back. I think there is still a use for a compact digital camera. The size is ideal and the ease of use is what many people like. A digital SLR is more expensive and is more complicated.

6. Newspaper Subscriptions Newspapers have been dead for several years now. They need to change their business model if they are going to remain viable businesses. Our society wants news now, not in in 12 hours.

7. CDs Song downloads are fast and the quality is good. There is no reason to buy a CD in a store or online when you can get it almost immediately from iTunes.

8. New College Textbooks With ebook readers catching on and Apples tablet about to be released, there is no longer a need for printed textbooks. The transition will take some time, but I see it happening soon. Printed books are bad for the environment and are too expensive. They stretch our education budgets thin.

9. Gas-Guzzling Cars These went out with the 70s. I love my Prius and while I am not looking forward to the projected gas prices in 2010, I am also not afraid of them. My car has enough power, cargo capacity and gets great gas mileage as well. I don't think there should be any new cars sold that don't get at least 30 miles per gallon and have a hybrid drivetrain. We have the technology, we just need the car makers to embrace it.

10. Energy-Inefficient Homes and Appliances Again, we have the technology we just have to use it. Appliances have come a long way. Home building technology has as well, it is just very expensive still. Appliance prices benefit from economies of scale. Home building technology does to a certain extent as well, but prices just aren't falling fast enough for most types of items. A lot of people just don't want to pay the extra money for energy efficient items other than windows, doors and insulation.

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Parent-Teacher Conference

I am so proud of Meg. Last night was her parent-teacher conference and her teacher had nothing but great things to say about her. She said that Meg is a quite leader and that she is really well behaved and scholarly. Wow! I was about to tell her teacher that she acts totally different at home, but decided not to.

I told her teacher that Meg is still interested in math and that I want to help her keep progressing before she learns to hate it like most kids. I asked her how best to do that. Her answer was not what I was looking for. She mentioned a website to go to that has math games and that was about it. Meg has played those games at school and seem uninterested to do so at home.

I am going to have to really start working with her on her times tables. Then, we need to keep working on her addition and subtraction. I really want all of it to be second nature to her so she does not get frustrated and start to hate it. I wish I had worked harder when I was younger so that I was faster with my math. Helping her should also help me, so it is a win-win situation.

Meg is very strong in the language arts. She really likes to read, has great penmanship and likes to write. Her teacher said that is her strongest area, and I agree. We need to keep encouraging her to read so she loves it like Tina does. I go throug reading spurts, but I would not go as far as to say that I love it. I wish I did, but I just don't. More on the book I am currently reading in a later post.

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The Lost Symbol

I just finished reading Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol. The main character of this book is again Robert Langdon and the setting is Washington DC. The story really held my attention like The da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Some of the plot of this story was more predictable than the previous two books.

I would give the book high marks overall. It weaves mystery, suspense, history and symbology seamlessly and there is a very surprising twist near the end that I could not even imagine would happen up to that point. The plot twist just comes out of nowhere, but it is a very important part of the story.

This was a good book, but my favorite of the three was Angels and Demons. This book does make me want to go back to Washington DC and visit all of the locations that are mentioned. I didn't really get that urge after reading the other two books.

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