Archive for the ‘books’ Category
Book Review: Young Guns, The Fearless Entrepreneur’s Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own
I’ll tell you right now, this review doesn’t do the actual reading of the book justice.
I’ve read many business books in my day. There have been some that have been a total waste of time and some that have helped me along my way of becoming an entrepreneur. This book, however, has been more of a gem than I ever thought possible. This book is less fluff and ‘Ra-Ra’ chatter, and more about an action plan, backed up with personal anecdotal stories from a person, who had a dream, thought, and passion for an idea and did something about it.
Young Guns is broke down into 16 chapters. Some of the chapters are:
The Decision (chapter 2)
The Big Idea (chapter 3)
April Book Review…
I was able to read 5 books in April. There were two non-fiction books and three novels. I learned something from every single one of them and now I’m ready for what my next big goal is going to be towards my passion. The books are: Outliers, Wild Mind, The Giver, The Pleasure of my Company, and Shopgirl. Some short, some long, but they all had a realness to them.
Right now I am in the phase of improving my writing. There are a couple of ways to improve one’s writing. I could either write as much as possible, write everyday, and believe it or not, read as many books. I have learned how people put together their sentences, use commas, colons, semicolons, and whatever punctuation known to man (and woman). I was constantly jotting down words I wasn’t familiar with (which is a lot), so I can go back and remember them for my writing and in everyday speech. I got a better idea of how people let their voice be heard through the story they were telling. And, the sure pleasure of sitting down and getting lost for a couple of hours.
Here is a quick report of the books I read.
Outliers:
So, What Was My Goal of The Day?
Exhaustion, commitment, the story, being lost, a goal that had to be completed was what I went through a couple of days ago. I am not surprised that I completed this goal, but more surprised with 2 things: it is intoxicating and Steve Martin is an unbelievable writer who I want to learn more from.
Tags: challenge, reading, Steve Martin
One Day Challenge: Read a Book in a Day!!!
I have a goal and will try my best to make it happen with all of the things that are going on today for me. I’ll see if I can do it!
One Day Challenge: Read a book in a day!!! from Oaks Real on Vimeo.
Outliers Reviewed, What Did I Learn?
I have done plenty of math and realize it is going to take me a total of 10 years to be an expert at my writing, 8 more years left! I have been writing for the past couple of years, but haven’t put in the amount of time to warrant even 1000 hours per year. In a year it is 8,760 hours. We spend 20% sleeping, another 25% working in order to pay bills, 20% bullshitting around, 10-15% with family and friends, and leaves about 20% of doing whatever else one wants to do. 20% of time in a year is equivalent to 34 hours per week. That is like adding another full-time job without necessarily getting paid from it, so what are our priorities?
Thoughts After Reading Outliers
I didn’t want to think about what I thought of the book until this morning. I was thinking all of it was the 10k hours and finding opportunity wherever and whenever it came around. But it is more than that, it has to deal with my past, where I was raised, and the lucky breaks I got throughout my life. As I kept reading I started to understand the shape of the world and how the majority of us are fucked, just by coming out the womb of a mother whose background warranted failure. The mother and probably the father were going to do what they were taught and through their life experience help their children with living a life of the past.
Tags: Book Review, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Success
Outliers, Taking my Passion to a New Destination With a Little Twist
I push the snooze button, yet for another time. It is now 6 a.m. and know it takes 40 or so minutes to get to work and still smell like shit. But, all I’m going to do is sit in my cubicle and look at my computer screen. So, I skip the shower, wash my face, brush my teeth, put on my wrinkle as can be collar shirt I wore last week and to the club (which still smells like smoke), and run out of the door to my car. I hop on the beltway and quickly realize that I have gotten on a paying road, where I am setting in traffic. I finally make it to work, as I get out my car I think to myself, “Should I take the stairs? They wouldn’t know exactly what time I got in? I should talk to a couple of friends so it looks like I have been here for quite sometime”.
I finally arrive inside my office and my boss gets on me for being late and said he will need this and that for a presentation later in the morning. I get started and complete the work, not caring one bit. I make it to lunch and decide to sit in my car. I sat there in the car (no a/c, started transforming the car into a race car) and thought. I thought about what I have been up to in my life. I thought I was a failure, and thought ‘is this it?’ Damn, I was having a quarter life crisis 2 years before the actual time and didn’t even realize it.
When I started to examine my life, I knew something was missing, I knew I had to do more for myself. I was an expert in the automobile field, but didn’t want to be that guy that could only talk about cars and didn’t care or relate to other topics that were important to people. I knew I sorta liked reading and eventually would read whatever I could, but knew this was a slow process. I didn’t want to continue to watch television and relate to people for 5 minutes on a show that wasted 30 minutes-1 hour of my life. So, I started to listen to podcast and to stretched my net as far as I could: while at work I listened to politics, audio-books, everyday life, current events, pop culture, social media, technology, business, and whatever else.
Tags: experiment, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, passion, reading
Hurricanes Suck, Especially When it Hits You
I have been with power for a week and can say that electricity feels so damn good. I never took turning on the light to the restroom or closet or taking a hot shower for granted, but being without all of the necessities for 10 whole days. I don’t watch much t.v., however I caught up on my reading, alone time, and seeing old friends. The activity that I missed the most was being able to get online to read blog post and write blog entries or whatever is on my mind. During the day there was no problem operating a normal life, but it really sucks ass that you are dictated by mother nature to stop all of what you are doing because there isn’t any light outside.
Hurricane Ike
All you really need to know is that hurricane Ike fucked up alot. He fucked up Galveston and the surrounding Gulf Coast as well as Houston and the greater limits of the city. The street lights are getting back to working, most of the homes and businesses have power, and the broken trees are disappearing slowly from people’s driveways. It is really amazing how quickly the city, Centerpoint, and other agencies have worked to remove the debris and turn the electricity back on for a population of nearly 4 million people.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz- Books Review
This book took me 4 months to finish. Not because it was boring, but it was a book that I look back and really understood why he did it that way. I am going to talk about the bad and it can really throw some people off if they aren’t patient.
The Bad…
1. Too much back into the future- The book is suppose to be about Oscar Wao, but it talks about the people that are really close to him quite alot and it got annoying. Again when the near was coming it all made sense. If you do read this book don’t let that detour you from finishing it, because all and all it is a good book.
2. Damn the footnotes- This book teaches you the same time about the Dominican Republic history, folk stories, and legends. In the beginning it seemed like there was a damn footnote on every page and some of them took up the whole page with half the font of the regular text = not cool.
- @YEAdamMcFarland The full screen editor are badass, I get plenty done, but there shouldn't be a reason for so many choices. 12:37:20 PM November 13, 2009
