In The Streets » Book

7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins

@itsthatsmith — Sun, 24 May 2015 21:19:51 +0000

Everyone knows of Tony Robbins the #LifeCoach and some of his famous quotes, so it was only natural for us to check out the November 2014 release of “MONEY MASTER THE GAME: 7 SIMPLE STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM ”

After doing a little digging, we found out that Tony is donating a minimum of 50 million meals* (monetary equivalent of $5,000,000) to Feeding America and member food banks from December 2, 2014 – December 3, 2015.

Tony Robbins has coached and inspired more than 50 million people from over 100 countries. More than 4 million people have attended his live events. Oprah Winfrey calls him super-human. Now for the first time – in his first book in two decades – he’s turned to the topic that vexes us all: How to secure financial freedom for ourselves and our families.

Based on extensive research and one-on-one interviews with more than 50 of the most legendary financial experts in the world – from Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett, to Ray Dalio and Steve Forbes – Tony Robbins has created a simple 7-step blueprint that anyone can use for financial freedom.

Robbins has a brilliant way of using metaphor and story to illustrate even the most complex financial concepts – making them simple and actionable. With expert advice on our most important financial decisions, Robbins is an advocate for the reader, dispelling the myths that often rob people of their financial dreams.

Tony Robbins walks readers of every income level through the steps to become financially free by creating a lifetime income plan. This book delivers invaluable information and essential practices for getting your financial house in order.

[DOWNLOAD]

Mastery | Robert Greene

@itsthatsmith — Sun, 24 May 2015 06:50:35 +0000

The #1 New York Times–bestselling sequel to The 48 Laws of Power

Mastery | Robert Greene

What did Charles Darwin, middling schoolboy and underachieving second son, do to become one of the earliest and greatest naturalists the world has known? What were the similar choices made by Mozart and by Caesar Rodriguez, the U.S. Air Force’s last ace fighter pilot? In Mastery, Robert Greene’s fifth book, he mines the biographies of great historical figures for clues about gaining control over our own lives and destinies. Picking up where The 48 Laws of Power left off, Greene culls years of research and original interviews to blend historical anecdote and psychological insight, distilling the universal ingredients of the world’s masters.

Temple Grandin, Martha Graham, Henry Ford, Buckminster Fuller—all have lessons to offer about how the love for doing one thing exceptionally well can lead to mastery. Yet the secret, Greene maintains, is already in our heads. Debunking long-held cultural myths, he demonstrates just how we, as humans, are hardwired for achievement and supremacy. Fans of Greene’s earlier work and Malcolm Gladwell’sOutliers will eagerly devour this canny and erudite explanation of just what it takes to be great.

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Design To Grow | David Butler

@itsthatsmith — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 04:09:22 +0000

Coca-Cola’s vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship reveals the soft drink giant’s approach to ‘designing for growth’ in new book ‘Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola learned to combine scale and agility’. Get a taste of his insights in this exclusive extract for Marketing.

I used to love my BlackBerry. It was simple to use and made email so much easier than using my laptop.Of course, I wasn’t alone. A few years ago, BlackBerry devices were so popular that many people referred to them as Crackberries; they were that addictive.From 2004 to 2010, BlackBerry owned the mobile phone market. Fast-forward to today: BlackBerry went from a 50 percent market share to near irrelevance. What happened? BlackBerry simply couldn’t adapt. When the market began to shift from cell phones to smartphones—from a focus on hardware to software innovation, handsets to apps—BlackBerry kept developing hardware solutions.

By designing for agility, companies can learn faster and become smarter

Why not? It had worked before. They saw what Apple was doing, but chose to stay the course. After all, Apple was a computer company. What did it know about mobile phones? Like most successful companies, BlackBerry focused on flawless execution— on what had worked in the past—designing beautiful handsets and marketing them around the world. They designed for scale, not for agility.

Designing for agility reduces risk

Unlike Apple, BlackBerry didn’t understand how to use design to learn and adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace. Frankly, Apple didn’t know exactly what would connect with consumers with its first release either. If you bought one of the earliest iPhones, you probably remember that it was very buggy and unreliable. However, this allowed the company to start learning what worked and what didn’t very quickly, which made them smarter.

By designing for agility, companies can learn faster and become smarter, which reduces the risk of being disrupted.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see how BlackBerry missed the whole industry shift. Far from being a toy, the iPhone was actually an incredibly smart design decision by Apple. It enabled them to leapfrog into a completely new industry, disrupt it, and take a leadership position— with the speed and destructive power of a startup.

“The world did not stop for BlackBerry, and we’re seeing the result of that today,” said Bill Kreher, an analyst with Edward Jones. By the time BlackBerry released its Z10 app-based smart phone in 2013, it was far behind the curve—at least two years too late.

Using design to learn and adapt is becoming more and more critical

It’s not like the executives at BlackBerry were oblivious to the world changing outside its doors. I’m sure they had a solid business plan, long-term growth model, and, perhaps, even an inspiring video to boost senior management’s confidence. However, unlike much of business history, the window that a company has to recognize its mistakes and take corrective action has become stunningly small.

As the stakes get higher, and the world gets more complex, using design to learn and adapt is becoming more and more critical. The environment in which managers must make potentially life-and-death decisions for their companies has never been more difficult.

You don’t have to be a CEO or head of state to understand this on a personal level. We have all had to make big shifts—pivots—in our careers just to stay relevant.

This requires an ability to be quick-witted, combined with the intelligence to see what change is coming, and how your own skills can adapt to an environment that is in constant flux.

Books About War | Vol 2 – Greek Tragedy by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles

@itsthatsmith — Sun, 25 May 2014 15:30:19 +0000

Greek Tragedy by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. There is no better reminder of the horrors of war than the work of these playwrights. From Euripides’ Trojan Women, which shows what happened to the innocent citizens of Troy after the Greeks pierced the city gates with their Trojan Horse, to Aeschylus’ Seven at Thebes (the battle between the sons of Oedipus, which reads like a video game), and The Persians, which tells of the massive defeat at Marathon and Salamis from the perspective of Xerxes, these are stunning works of art. People also forget that Aeschylus, known to us mostly as a great writer, actually thought of himself as a soldier. In fact, his epitaph makes no mention of his plays — which are now considered some of the best ever written — and instead highlight his bravery in battle against the Persians.

[DOWNLOAD HERE]

A wise man once said…

War is unquestionably mankind at his worst. Yet, paradoxically, it is in war that men — individual men — often show the very best of themselves. War is often the result of greed, stupidity, or depravity. But in it, men are often brave, loyal, and selfless.

I am not a soldier. I have no plans to become one. But I’ve studied war for a long time. I am not alone in this.

The greats have been writing and reading about war — its causes, its effects, its heroes, its victims — since the beginning of written text. Some of our most powerful literature is either overtly about war or profoundly influenced by it. Homer’s epic poems are about war — first, ten years of battle against Troy and then ten years of battle against nature and the gods. Thucydides, our first great historian, wrote about the Peloponnesian War — the great war between Sparta and Athens. Rome was built by war and literature, and the world has been influenced by that ever since. The American Empire is no different — our men came home and wrote about the Civil War, about the Spanish-American War, about WWI, about WWII. A new generation has come home and has written (and is still writing) powerful books about the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study of war is the study of life, because war is life in the rawest sense. It is death, fear, power, love, adrenaline, sacrifice, glory, and the will to survive.

As Virgil put it, “the sword decides all.” We must learn how: the strategy, the motivation, defenses. We must understand and respect the darkness and the consequences: pain, death, evil, greed.

This is a post about the canon of books about war. Each book is about a different civilization, a different set of tactics, a different cause. But timeless themes always emerge. The lessons are always there. They do not — despite what the History Channel and school teachers try to make you think — pertain to flanking movements, or dates, or locations. I don’t really know those things. What’s the point? What matters is what we can take from them and apply to our own lives and society.

I’m certainly not recommending every book about war ever written, or even every book I’ve read on the subject, but instead a collection of the most meaningful. I’m sure I’ll miss some great books you’ve loved, so please suggest them in the comments.

Note: I have them roughly organized by chronology and era but feel free to skip around. I know I certainly did.

Books About War | Vol 1 – The Persian Expedition by Xenophon

@itsthatsmith — Mon, 19 May 2014 16:30:59 +0000

The Persian Expedition by Xenophon. In 400 BC, 10,000 Greeks are hired as mercenaries by Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to steal the Persian throne. They win the battle but Cyrus is killed in the fighting, stranding the entire Greek force thousands of miles and dozens of hostile countries from home. Xenophon is elected to be a leader of the troops and encourages them to fight their way home. All sorts of wonderful tactical thoughts and stories of leadership and bravery are shown in their journey home. Xenophon was a student of Socrates and philosophy so this book is a chance to see those teachings in action.

[Download Here]

A wise man once said…

War is unquestionably mankind at his worst. Yet, paradoxically, it is in war that men — individual men — often show the very best of themselves. War is often the result of greed, stupidity, or depravity. But in it, men are often brave, loyal, and selfless.

I am not a soldier. I have no plans to become one. But I’ve studied war for a long time. I am not alone in this.

The greats have been writing and reading about war — its causes, its effects, its heroes, its victims — since the beginning of written text. Some of our most powerful literature is either overtly about war or profoundly influenced by it. Homer’s epic poems are about war — first, ten years of battle against Troy and then ten years of battle against nature and the gods. Thucydides, our first great historian, wrote about the Peloponnesian War — the great war between Sparta and Athens. Rome was built by war and literature, and the world has been influenced by that ever since. The American Empire is no different — our men came home and wrote about the Civil War, about the Spanish-American War, about WWI, about WWII. A new generation has come home and has written (and is still writing) powerful books about the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study of war is the study of life, because war is life in the rawest sense. It is death, fear, power, love, adrenaline, sacrifice, glory, and the will to survive.

As Virgil put it, “the sword decides all.” We must learn how: the strategy, the motivation, defenses. We must understand and respect the darkness and the consequences: pain, death, evil, greed.

This is a post about the canon of books about war. Each book is about a different civilization, a different set of tactics, a different cause. But timeless themes always emerge. The lessons are always there. They do not — despite what the History Channel and school teachers try to make you think — pertain to flanking movements, or dates, or locations. I don’t really know those things. What’s the point? What matters is what we can take from them and apply to our own lives and society.

I’m certainly not recommending every book about war ever written, or even every book I’ve read on the subject, but instead a collection of the most meaningful. I’m sure I’ll miss some great books you’ve loved, so please suggest them in the comments.

Note: I have them roughly organized by chronology and era but feel free to skip around. I know I certainly did.