Review of "Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us authored by Daniel H Pink

Book Review Of "Drive -  The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"     A Book Review by Chris "Crispy" Garrah

The Book Review

The author Daniel Pink allows the reader in the book to tweet this message about the book.  "Carrots & sticks are so last century.  Drive says for 21 century work we need to attain autonomy, mastery & purpose."

Do I believe the book is straight-forward?   Well, I think a book entitled Motivation for Dummies might be easier.   But concepts I gleaned from the book are that intrinsic motivation will motivate someone more than pay and that pay might actually discourage an activity that someone enjoys.   So I think the book discourages parents for paying for good activities a child may engage in.  In the above tweet the words autonomy, mastery & purpose are the key words in motivation.

I believe the book is saying autonomy - the ability to direct oneselve is going to motivate someone to excel.   I believe the book is saying that the enjoyable feeling you get when you are immersed in something rewarding or "flow" is the key ingredient to allow someone to follow the pain that ten years required to master something.   (the "mastery" part)   And lastly I recall somewhere in the book that the author is indicating that money accrual can leave someone feeling empty so a higher purpose is important to stay motivated or have a good feeling.   Of course, these are my interpretations and if someone is an excellent summariser of research please steer me in another direction.

For Further Research

One of the key researchers Daniel H Pink notes is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.    And be sure to read Daniel H Pink's book to read what he actually meant.  ...... rather than my book review interpretation.

What this could mean for leaders

Could it mean that leaders need to allow followers to have more independence in deciding on a purpose ie. having autonomy?   Does it mean suggesting to students to find what they enjoy/  what make them have flow 
in order to endure ten years of mastering something?   I know that there are over 200 pages of information and that key concepts can be missed in a quick read.   Please let me know what you think the book is about  if you are inclined.   Many thanks.

Upgrade - Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary Book Review

Upgrade - Taking your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary (2013) By Rana Florida  ..... Book Review.

The Review by "Surfer Chris"  Garrah 

 

  The book focuses on how a person can change ones life and provides impetus.  The  youth of the author and the connection with her husband in business, a professor,   are key ingredients in making the book a smart, breezy  book.  The economic collapse of 2008 is in the mix of why people should move forward with what they can do to create independence in life and work.   Rana Florida is the author and she  is also  a CEO of  a management business that is also headed by  her husband .   Her husbands' research on the "creative class" is a key component of the management business.  The "creative class"  is a group of people attracted to work in certain cities where knowledge workers and artists enjoy living.

In the course of  the book encourages people to do things and fail because their are opportunities to learn from failing.   The steps to changing one's life appear very doable to this reader  because of the book's encouragement.  The approach that many people can succeed  even  by failing at first is non-threatening.  There is a natural progression of ideas through the chapters..   The books arguments are supported by  interviews  with  successful business people the author has encountered.

There are also mentions of other books that have been read by the author,   In the motivation or personal development areas are  The author points other seminal books like "Good to Great". "Who moved my cheese" , "Made to Stick" and  lastly, the book "Drive".  For further reading on the "creative class"  I recommend the book  "The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited" (2012) by Richard Florida.     Or the earlier book "The rise of the Creative Class - and How It's transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Every Day Life" ( 2002) also by Richard Florida.

Review of "Coaching For Breakthrough Success ..." by Jack Canfield and Peter Chee 2013

Book Review by Chris Garrah

 

Brief Review of the Book "Coaching for Breakthrough Success".

This is an immensely readable book on coaching.  It has many personal cases and the reader can immerse
himself/herself anywhere without feeling lost.   For example I had tried to review another book, really a compendium of another author who had reviewed 100's of books in motivation.  But I was left with the impression that that second book was written by an academic with an immense ego.   But with this book the complexity is not built up, this is concrete and personal.   There are no confusing diagrams.

 Definitely I Recommend this Book as an Immensely Readable and Useful Book on Coaching

 This is an excellent go to book for a supervisor or sales manager for example.
 There is material that the reader may not have been exposed to - as one example "back-casting" - a technique of visualizing the future and then working ones way backwards to the present.
You will not be wasting your time reading an academia book or a circuitous, vague book.  This is a five star book on coaching.

Book Review of Trading for a Living By Alex Elder 1993 Book review with a Canadian Perspective

Introduction to "Trading for a Living" (Alex Elder author 1993) reviewed by "Surfer Chris"  Garrah

 Overview of the book

This is an important book written on investing in the market.   The author is  a psychiatrist who makes the comparison of investing as an addiction and I would have to agree in the sense that I have known acquaintances who are gamblers that are attracted to investing because it gives them the same emotional highs and lows of gambling. But by learning more about investing and risking a smaller proportion of your portfolio on one stock you can reduce the gambling element in investing.
 

The Essentials of the Book

The author introduces concepts to reduce the risk of investing.  One of the key concepts is to only a risk a small portion of your investments in one stock.  He also points out that commissions must be kept to a minimum.   From a |Canadian perspective my solution is to ask your bank to match the Royal Bank commission of ten dollars per trade.   This breakthrough in commissions I believed happened in the spring of 2014.   versus commissions of thirty dollars per trade previously..

The book is comprehensive and introduces charting as well as fundamental analysis.  Where other investment books may look at companies financial well being and growth this book covers in detail the importance of finding more opportune times for buying a stock.

There are many indicators in the book to indicate if bears or bulls are controlling the market.   A starting indicator to look at is "New Highs minus new lows"    Check this out and if the number of companies reaching new highs (after subtracting out the companies reaching new lows) is rising (day after day )then  this  is supporting the view of the market as a bull market.

Investing For the Long Term

If you are intrigued by Warren Buffett investing for the long term learn about his discovery of companies with "unique competitive advantages".  These unique competitive advantages are reflected in higher than average net profit margins.  Read about Warren Buffett's method of selecting stocks by reading author Mary Buffett and David Clark's book listed in References at the end of this article.

Summary

The key point is the suggestion by the author that you should only invest a small amount of your portfolio in one stock.  This is because of the enormous difficulty of recovering your money when you suffer a loss.
With the reduced commissions in Canada the numbers work much better for the small Canadian investor.

One key indicator that reflects a stock prices growth is the price per earning growth or PEG.  As a starting point new investors should check out what this is.  Be cautious and if you enjoy investing learn as much as you can by reading and learning.  Happy investing.  In Canada the Royal Bank may have been the trendsetter in reducing their trading commissions.RBC Direct Investing - Canadian Bank with low direct trading commissions

References

Trading for a Living (1993)  Author Alex Elder
Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements - The Search for  The Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage (2008) Authors Mary Buffett & David Clark

 

 

The Pragmatic MBA for Scientific and Technical Executives Book Review

Concise Book Review of "The Pragmatic MBA for Scientific and Technical Executives" (written by Bertrand C. Liang) 2013 by Chris Garrah  June 30, 2014

 About the Book

Really,  I just want to create an awareness that this MBA book is available as an eBook.  The book is concise and brief and introduces anyone to the divisions of expertise by chapter with references to books that are worthy of further specialization

 Within a matter of minutes you can scan area that interest you and get an overview of some of the science and math that went into the study of the business side of businesses.   Jumping from chapter to chapter is easy in eBook layout - with each chapter being a branch of a study of business such as "portfolio management".    Interesting quotations are spread throughout the book.   Just a very interesting and useful book.

Why not check out this book and get a feel for what it would like to be an MBA - or gain a working knowledge of areas in business where you can converse more at ease with MBA's.?