Books

books, Great People, mindset, Reference Guides, Youngsters

Books are a man’s best friend….so the saying goes.

For me books have always been a huge treasure where I have spent a huge fortune. Till I bought my tablet, physical books were what I bought and there are more than a 1000 books in my house and I have also given away another 200 odd books.

Since I bought my tablet I have moved towards buying books on kindle for 3 reasons, the space for keeping physical books has fallen in my house, I prefer to not use paper because it reduces our forest cover and last but not the least, it appears on my Kindle immediately. When I ordered physical books, I had to wait for about a week or more before I got the books delivered to my home.

Some books leave a very strong impression on me and I write about those in my blogs as I read the books.

Last few days I have been reading Steven Kotler’s The Art of Impossible. This is an amazing book. Its very dense with.a lot of knowledge packed in it with lots of data to back it up. If you like to read non-fiction books, especially in the area of human performance then, Steven Kotler is among the few authors I would highly recommend. This is another book which is going into my categories of reference guides.

Now coming to the main point of this post.

Steven actually gives out a Return on Invested Time of reading various formats of written material. I am giving his logic below because I have not come across any author giving such a clear and concise argument for reading a book.

As per him for reading

a blog post which generally takes 3 min – the author would have spent about 3 days to build the content.
an article in a magazine, that would take about 20 minutes to read, the author would have spent about 15 days of research
a book which takes about 5 hours to read would have knowledge of maybe 15 ears of research.

While most blogs are free to read, include this one, you have to spend a little amount of money to buy a magazine, but you have to spend a decent amount to buy a book. The argument which Steven is placing is that for the 5 hours that you invest and the cost of buying, you are getting a bargain for the 15 years that the author invested in getting the knowledge in place.

I have never bothered about the cost of buying books as an issue because since my childhood, my parents inculcated the habit of not compromising on buying knowledge.

But this argument changed my way of looking at reading a book. With the 15 years of knowledge that the author puts in, you are accelerating your learning process so dramatically. That’s why most of the great people have reading lists and recommendations. However the learning would only if you have a growth mindset. Chances are that if you have a fixed mindset, you will not even pick up a book to read.

For the younger generation this could be an eye-opener. The only other way I can think of shortening your learning curve would be attending a live training where you can interact with the coach and other participants.

Let me know in the comments below if you also think alike.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Reference Guides

books, Frameworks, Questions, Reference Guides

While I write about my opinions on a lot of topics and give my view points on how to solve them, I myself end up in one spot or another every now and then.

As Joe Polish says – and I paraphrase it here – as you climb up the challenges take up more difficult formats – and you need to handle them , learn from them and move higher.

I have found books to be my source of support for the different kinds of challenges that get thrown my way. I have shared the different books I read from time to time. I also end up taking a speed reading course to help me increase the speed of my ability to read.

But sometimes you come across a book which you can keep going back to as a reference guide. It lays out the framework easily and then also puts the tools in your hand to ensure you get to use the stuff. When I was in school we had an English grammar book by Wren & Martin. I used that book from grade 5 to grade 10 for all my exercises. But I kept using that book even later as a reference to ensure I could check out, when I had a query related to English grammar. I even bought that book for my son when he was in school and I still have that copy with me.

In physics we had Resnik and Haliday which had such a well written basis that I took a liking to physics only because of that book. Marketing of course has been Philip Kotler.

Recently I have been mentioning about this book – The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunnigham. Its one of those books which I have reread multiple times. First it was end – to – end , subsequently it has been specific topics. But the book really helps you THINK.

I have written earlier about focused time and also shared with you the links to Dean Jackson’s videos on how to focus etc. Once you do that and you want to actually move forward, onto figuring out root cause issues and the right questioning frameworks to solving the right problems, then this is a reference guide. I would highly recommend you read this book in case your job is to figure out solutions everyday.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Personal differentiation

B2B, differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, relationships

This post was actually starting with nothing to write about. Suddenly a thought flashed across my mind.

I keep talking about continually marketing to your prospects and customers in the B2B space. It can be with your own products or with your partners’. But be in touch always.

But you need not always be making offers to your prospects or giving them more information.

Sometimes just a hand written thank you makes a more personal statement. In B2B selling, in most cases still, you need to have a relationship in place before you can sell anything.

As Mark McCormack used to say – all things being equal people buy from friends . If you have not read his book What they don’t teach at Harvard Business School and its sequel….they are gems. So much wisdom in such small reads

Which brings me to another thing which I have found useful to give, is a non-standard gift. Copies of paintings, books etc.

Sometimes your product has differentiation which is very unique. In most cases in technology marketing its rare. You create your personal differentiation in front of the customer by doing these small things

Some organizations do have a amount on the value of gifts that are considered inappropriate. You need to be cognizant to that. But within that you can be creative and give gifts which have a high recall value….sometimes much much higher than what your marketing webinar would give.

In B2B especially and otherwise also relationships matter. So keep working on that.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!