Rachel Rofe’
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Miscellaneous

Hey guys!

Just wanted to share a couple books I’ve been LOVING lately.  If any of them resonate with you, I totally recommend them!

1. Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl – This book is INCREDIBLE. It’s not a business book per say, but you can use the lessons from it in business.

It’s one of the most inspirational, life-changing books I’ve ever come across.

I plan on writing an entire blog post about this soon (I have PAGES full of notes)… but for now, a quick overview:

Viktor was a Holocaust survivor. He went through some of the most horrifying things known to mankind.

Some of the stories he shared shook me to the core.

But the way that he went through and survived through things…. how he used his mind to get past things… amazing.

For example, he talked about one day how he was having a particularly bad day. He let his mind go to a lot of “smaller” things he ordinarily wouldn’t have worried about – like what he was going to do with his daily bread ration, if he should exchange it for a cigarette, how to avoid a certain guard, etc… and he was just getting very cranky about everything.

Instead of continuing to stress about the small things he couldn’t control, he took a mental picture of his reality that day, and kind of put it into a “movie screen” in his mind. He looked at the big picture. He saw himself lecturing to a crowd of people one day… in a well-lit room, with people sitting on padded chairs. He saw himself sharing his stories and helping people.

All of a sudden, his mind shifted.

He was able to get through the day and he was in a much better mindset.

And maybe it sounds like a small thing, but this was incredibly powerful to me. It showed how a quick perspective change could shift everything.

To put it into business terms… maybe you’re getting frustrated by some annoying technical work or something. If you make a perspective change – look at how this is going to help you build an empire, or see it as the temporary frustration eventually helping you support the people you love… it totally erases the annoyance.

I FREAKING LOVE THIS BOOK.

2. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson – I love this book too. Dennis bought it for me a few months ago, and it’s just great. It basically talks about how a lot of us want instant gratification… but by making small progress every day, the compounding effect is huge.

I really learned this the other day with my 5 gallon water jugs. :)

Last time I tried to lift one of these things:

…I dropped it in the driveway and broke the container open. 5 gallons of water spilled everywhere.

But I’ve been doing a minute of planks every day now, and the other night, I was able to fill up 2 of them (50 pounds apiece)…. bring them into my house… AND turn them around and onto the stand, without spilling anything! In fact, I barely felt a thing.

The minute of planks hasn’t taken much from my day… but the gains in my strength have been HUGE.

So in business terms… this could look like writing a Facebook post every day, or a blog post a few times a week… maybe it doesn’t seem like a huge deal at the time, but the compounding effect is huge.

I’d definitely recommend this book too. The author lays things out really intelligently and definitely motivates you to make magic happen.

:)

And there you have it!

What Do YOU Think?

Have you read either of these books? Or have any book recommendations of your own? I’d love to hear them!

 

 

I am about 42% through with Steve Jobs’ biography.

It does seem like the biographer went out of his way to look objective with his book, maybe to the point of making Steve seem more of a jerk than he is…

But dude seems like a total asshole.

Other things I’ve read/heard confirm that.

I know he made the Mac, and I know people love it, and I know he is behind a lot of things that make my life better. I love my iPad and my iPhone.

I have a Mac too. I bought it because every marketer seemed to be talking about how great the Mac was… and so when my (AMAZING) PC got stolen from my car, I took it as a sign to buy the MacBook Pro.

Now I’m used to it, and love programs like Screenflow… but I really don’t understand what the cult following is about. Truthfully I prefer the PC.

In reading Steve’s biography, here are some things that really stood out to me:

1. Steve had a great friend who stuck with him for YEARS… even when he abandoned his daughter. His friend lived with him, helped him with Apple, etc… and then when it was time to give out Apple shares, Steve insisted his friend didn’t deserve the shares because he wasn’t upper level enough.

His friend was shocked. He’d been with Steve and helped him out for a LONG time. He just assumed Steve would take care of him down the line.

Many people thought Steve’s friend was right… that Steve should take care of him. One person who did have stock went up to Steve and told him he’d happily match the amount of stock Steve gave his friend. Steve’s reply? “OK… I’ll give him zero.”

For someone who allegedly wasn’t about the money, that sucks.

2. When he was laying people off at one of his other companies (NeXT I believe, but it might have been Pixar), he wanted to lay hard-working people off with no severance pay and no two week notice. These are people that worked VERY hard for him (lots of hours, and also a lot of aggravation considering how hostile Steve was).

When someone told Steve he should at least give the people he was laying off two weeks’ notice, he said “Okay… we’ll do that. The two weeks is retroactive from two weeks ago.”

I know he had been overfunding the company, but dude.

Again… for someone who is allegedly not about the money, that’s really messed up.

3. He treated people like CRAP!!! Stories of people getting him birthday presents he left in his hotel room, talking down to people, trying to oust people from their positions, cheating Wozniak out of bonus money that wouldn’t have even been made had Wozniak not done the work…

He just seems like he has very little integrity and is NOT someone I would respect.

I know he made a big impact and transformed the world, but so did Hitler.

I’m not saying he’s like Hitler. I’m just saying that solely transforming the world isn’t a reason to idolize someone.

He does have some great products that I love. He’s an amazing marketer. He (allegedly) cares a lot about user experience (though part of me wonders how much that is just his ego loving the control).

Ugh, and that part about how he felt he was enlightened… makes me feel sick.

I’m not saying he was some evil dark force, but I definitely don’t find him enlightened. I find him selfish, an egomaniac, completely devoid of empathy, and mindblowingly self-centered.

Does this say something about me? Am I getting frustrated about some “shadow” part of me?

Possibly. I don’t think so though. I don’t feel an emotional charge around this. I just feel sad that this is the type of person people are idolizing.

If someone wants to aggrandize a person for changing the world, there are many better choices. Why not go with Mother Teresa? Gandhi?

ANYONE who seemed to think beyond themselves.

My lord.