Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

This book seemed to promise something that I had always wanted, and interesting, funny look at science and sex.  However, I didn't find it to really accomplish what I hoped it would.  I was expecting to learn something interesting about the study of sex, and there was only limited amount of this.  I was especially expecting a clear call to action or something that we should all do to help improve the research in this important area.  I was really left cold on that aspect of things.  I think I could have come up with a more specific, dramatic call to action myself, without having nearly the passion for this subject that Mary clearly has.

I think I could have covered the useful bits of this book in about a quarter of the time, maybe less.  Overall, there was just too much jumping back and forth to footnotes and various other things that Mary found funny or entertaining, but that weren't generally engaging or relevant to what I thought the book was supposed to cover.  Even worse was when she jumped into the macabre and unusual sexual practices for no apparent reason other than she thought these various stories were interesting to her.  They didn’t help build the points she was building to in any way.  Often times they were actually contradictory to what she was trying to say.  That was true about much of the research that she mentioned.  She didn’t take any clear stance on most of the issues either, she just presented ‘things you might want to know.’  That’s not my interest in reading a book from someone that has clearly spent much more time thinking about this than I have.  I do appreciate the effort to try and bring to light our general puritanical views about sex and sex research, and how much we still have to go before we really understand sex on a scientific level.  However, that could have been accomplished better and in less pages. 

Personally, I would not read it again, nor would I recommend to most people.  If there is an abridged version, it might be somewhat more compelling.

The Big Short - Review

This book was really good.  I definitely got the message Michael Lewis was trying to get across.  Wallstreet should be around to efficiently deploy capital.  It's way less profitable to do that sort of thing now, and so there's been a creation of business that has a sole purpose of making some big bets.  This is fine in some sense, but it creates no real value.  It's in essence just using lots of services to create complicated gambling.  We should work as a society to try and limit this.

We've all got to take a deeper look at this stuff and not just push the burden of understanding how and why these businesses exist to other people.  If we all took a bit more personal responsibility in understanding this stuff, then we could more easily change it.

Review - Incognito: The secrete lives of the Brain

Worth re-reading

This is yet another one of the books that made my list of brain books to read.  I really enjoyed this one.  It was well written, interesting, and had useful points.  It was recommended to me by John Graff, the VP of Americas at my company.  I'll have to write him a thank you for recommending it.  The main point behind the book was that we are strangers to ourselves, and that what we think of as ourselves is actually just the part that is aware.  Below the surface there are many other competing autonomous systems that are running on their own.  Along those lines, there are many things that happen automatically under the hood.  We don't recognize that those systems are going on at all.  This was an extension of "Thinking, Fast and Slow," which was also a very good book, however, it was a bit drawn out.  He had a few good actionable points.  However, I'm writing this a few weeks after I read it and I can't remember the specifics.  Hopefully they got buried in my subconscious for future use.  It wouldn't be horrible to re-read this book again at some point in the future, maybe ~1 year from now, and see how salient the points are then.

Review - Spark

This is yet another book in my list of brain books.  This one you could definitely read the cliff notes and get the same thing out of it.  The main point can be summarized to say that cardio exercise is good for the brain, and can help with mood.  It's particularly good at sorting out problems, such as ADD, depression, and PMS.  Other than that, it was a lot of anecdotal stories about how exercise dramatically improved some people's lives.  It had obviously dramatically improved the author's life, and he felt he needed to share that information with everyone.  I'd get the abridged version if you get it at all.

The Challenger Sale Review

At first I didn't know exactly what to think of this book.  It's not the best title because I didn't see the value of reading it right away.  However, it did do what it said and challenged the way I thought about sales.  In particular, it made me try and re-assess how I thought about my personal sales skills.  Actually, it gave me a few specific areas where I need to challenge myself to grow, which is exciting in itself.  It also gave me a new way of re-assessing people on my team.  It also gave me a new vocabulary to talk and frame discussions about sales and even sales coaching.

The book did something a bit odd while I was reading it.  I went from disagreeing with it or at least with specific points to incorporating it into my thought process.  I'm unsure of when or how the switch actually occurred along the way.  I could tell that it happened when I started thinking of myself as a challenger, although I wouldn't have said that originally.  I would have really liked to take a test before reading the book to find out where I actually fit along the continuum.

Most valuable insights
We've got to teach our customers that take them outside their comfort zone in order to be successful
We've got to take control of the situation and the engagement in order to be successful
Our message has to be sharp and a bit uncomfortable in order to make an impact
We need to align the entire organization to be successful
Finding something only your company can uniquely deliver is much more difficult than it appears

Personal Goals for 2012

Here are the goals that I'm outlining for myself for 2012.  I realize that there are quite a few on this list.  I've never really made goals like this before, so I'm unsure of how many of these I'll actually accomplish.  I'm not too worried about it because I'm treating it very much as a learning experience.  Even if I achieve non of the goals on here, I'm betting that this process is going to be useful non the less.  However, I won't know that for sure until somewhere further down the road.  We'll find out then.  Notice that even this post is pushing me along on goal #4

Prioritized list - in order

1.  Brainstorm ideas for a passive income

2.  Create my 5, 10, and 20 year goals

3.  Read a book a week for a year

4.  Start and maintain a journal

5.  Create a steady stream of dates that I can go on around here to find people that I would be happy with in my network of friends

6.  Loose 5 lbs of fat and gain 5 lbs of muscle

All Goals for 2012 - Grouped by area
Physical

Loose 5 lbs of fat and gain 5 lbs of muscle

6 pack abs

Try 10 new things - Here is a partial list of things I may try

     Yoga, fasting, acccupuncture, regular massages, meditation, detox retreat, Vegatarianism, Veganism, odd food I woudln't normally eat, attending a conference on my dime

Financial

Brainstorm new investment strategy based on the black swan

Create a passive income stream of $300/month

     Brainstorm ideas for a passive income stream

Mental

Create my 5, 10, and 20 year goals

Decide if I'm going to business school and actively start pursuing that end if I am

Read a book a week for a year

Maintain my list of goals and update it throughout the year.  Also keep track of what I would like to achieve

Find ways that create more energy in my every day life and write them down

Start and maintain a journal

Learn how to do visualization in order to achieve goals and stay motivated

Spiritual

Understand buddhism and decide if I want to practice it

Social

Build up my EQ

Take a listening course on becoming a better listener

Bring back old relationships that have fallen off because of time and distance

Create a steady stream of dates that I can go on around here to find people that I would be happy with in my network of friends

Travel

Create my travel list and maintain it

Go to a new place on my travel list

Fun

Learn to Kite Surf

Business goals for 2012

Here are the goals that I've created that I would like to hit in 2012 for work.  Again, this is pasted from Evernote, so apologies for the poor formatting.  Some goals deleted because of the non-public nature of them.

Surpass quota by 10%
     Double the number of opps over 100k that are create
     Grow OEM business by 30%

     Grow Academic Business by 30%

     Have account plans complete for Strategic, Key, and Focus accounts by H1

     Explore 40 prospect accounts

     4 HLS engagements in 2012

     Have opps reviews for all opps over 100k

Create a feedback loop that can feedback and adjust the goals of the area regularly

Define the area where I can make the most difference as a manager and focus on those area

Become a good, competent manager

     Get more work done by indirect team members

          Involve the complete team      

     Complete a 360 review or something similar

Participate in book clubs based on sales during the year and read lots of books