A Little Late
By Kevin
Send Immediately!
I almost totally forgot about the package this week! For a start, check out how exactly you should be reading stuff at all in order to be studying effectively. The articles that are linked there serves as good reads for your weekend although they're all from The Economist. Itay Talgam presented a great talk about leadership of conductors at TED.com.
In addition, I wrote something about choosing stuff to read again. Yea, that's all for this week. I'm pretty busy you see. Have a great weekend.
Honest Abe
By Kevin
The Political Genius
Team of Rivals is one of the rare books I left at camp to be read consistently and then finished within plan. I brought it into camp two weeks ago and planned to have it finish exactly today; I knew that if I was reading it consistently I would finish about 2 chapters per day, which means it'll take me 13 days for the 26 chapters that Doris Kearns Goodwin penned. I initially thought I might bring home to read over the weekends but resolved to leave it in camp as a material to be read in camp.
The book turned out to be incredibly entertaining and while I could put it down for a drink, a chat or some other minor distractions, I'd be happy to resume reading wherever I left. The prose flows smoothly and easily for me and I love Goodwin's narration. She makes history seem alive and playing in front of you with the thoughtfully embedded quotes in the narration that is carefully credited at the end notes. The pictures, diagrams and maps included made the experience even more wonderful.
The most important part about Team of Rivals that I enjoyed was the little bits scattered all over the book where Abraham Lincoln related his little anecdotes and jokes to others. From our frame of reference, these all are anecdotes themselves demonstrating the character and personality of Lincoln. One that I liked in particular involves Lincoln telling someone about his dream:
In his dream, Lincoln was at a party where he overheard a guest commenting on him, "He is a very common-looking man." Lincoln joined the conversation immediately, suggesting "The Lord must prefer common-looking men, that is the reason He made so many of them". Lincoln was positively amused by the response he gave in his dream.
And having read the book and gotten to know more about Abraham Lincoln, I came to realised that the response in his dream was very real; it was something so characteristically Father Abe. I was naturally drawn to the many other jokes and stories he shared - some I understood, others were perhaps closer to the hearts and minds of those who were audience of his time.
Months ago I bought a little selection of speeches by Abraham Lincoln and I haven't gone beyond reading his Gettysburg Address and wondering what so great about it. Now that I'm more familiar with the course of his political life and the circumstances in which he made those speeches, I shall revisit the book and appreciate the wonders and influence of his oratory prowess as well as his ability to weave issues into stories for the layman. And perhaps, I'd learn something out of all that.
John Wooden
By Kevin
I found out about John Wooden mainly from the self-help sort of books I've been exploring previously and I know only that he was an UCLA coach for basketball and that he offered great leadership lessons and stories for people to write about. I was keen on finding more about him only to discover that he spoke on TED before!. I found his talk on 'True Success' both intriguing and extremely poetic. I've never felt so interested in poetry before and after listening to his poetic style of speech I was immediately drawn to the use of poetry to convey messages and convince people of useful lessons.
His style is definitely different from Dan Gilbert but way more useful in the humble convincing sense. One feels that John Wooden respects you as an individual as he speaks and also finds him speaking with authority in his humble tone. To me, it's just amazing to be able to make people feel that way. I'll definitely consider reading some of his books on leadership and personal development.
Dan Gilbert Speaks
By Kevin
Dan Gilbert is one great speaker and after watching his presentation on Our Mistaken Expectations, I really think he's a great speaker and presenter whom I should learn from. He speaks in a light-hearted manner but never once mask his passion for his research and perhaps because he often shows us things that are either counter-intuitive or so obvious but never realised, his topics seems naturally entertaining to me.
His other talk on TED.com on happiness offers real profound insights into happiness and how we can manufacture happiness ourselves, very much verifying what most self-help authors have believed. Do watch his talks, I have enjoyed them thoroughly and I'm sure you will.