Book review# 30 Clean

Book Review # 30 : Clean

Just to make it clear, this is not the book for diet or weight control. It’s the book that intends to change your eating habit and relationship with your food. The goal is to transform your eating perspective completely. 

After reading this book and try some of its method, I suddenly realized that my relationship with food is more important than I think. The following sentence from the book actually explains the whole concept. 

“You are what you eat and you eat what you are”

The first part of “ you are what you eat” is quite straightforward and familiar. I grew up listening to this phrase all the time. However, I still eat bad food even though I know it’s unhealthy. The reason is I can’t fight the “craving”. Whenever, I go into diet program it seems like tons of effort has to be put in. My body actually “wants” the bad food but can’t eat it because I’m on a diet. Sounds familiar? 

Here comes the second part that will explain the first part, 

“you eat what you are” 

This phase is not so common to me. Actually, I think I never heard it before I read this book. Explained in detail in the book is how the chemical in our body reacts to cravings. Basically, if you train yourself by putting in fat and unhealthy food you will crave for more fat and unhealthy food. Your body actually “wants” the unhealthy food. 

On the opposite side, if you train yourself to eat healthy food. Your body will be craving for healthy food. You will actually “wants” to eat healthy and believe when it’s come to food, “want to” is much different from “have to”.

It might be difficult to believe but you can actually crave for broccoli instead of french fries. 

The book will give you how you will be able to change eating habit completely and what will happen to your body and mind. 

I have personally tried some of the methods in this book. Within less than a month, these are the things that happen to me : 

• I have much more energy, I no longer feel lack of energy and sleepy during the afternoon
• My concentration is at all time high
• I no longer have sleepless nights
• I no longer suffer from GERD (Gastroesophageal reflux disease) 
• I lose 5 kg 
• My skin condition is improving magically without using any cosmetics

My relationship with food has evolved to the level that sugary donuts don’t seem attractive  to me anymore. All the carving for fatty food suddenly disappears. When there is a sugary stuff in front of me, I no longer “want” to eat it. 

The routine is quite simple, apart from vegetable juice I ate before meals, I just avoid three whites which are white sugar, white flour and white rice (and all of its byproducts). It might seem a bit difficult to follow the routine at first but once you’d get everything settled, good things come naturally. You will not want to get back to your old eating habit again. 

If you believe that a healthy mind stays in a healthy body, this is definitely the book for you. 

9/10

Cheers

Tab

Book Review # 29 Train Your Brain for Success

Book review # 29 Train Your Brain for Success

This year is definitely my lucky year as I found the second 10/10 book !

Frankly speaking, I’m not a big fan of personal development book. It might be because I thought that if the technique is good, I should have known it by now. I know some of you also think like me.

As it turns out, I never heard of hundreds of useful techniques which can literally turn my life around. Like the ones I have found in this book.

The book starts out on the techniques and tools that use to increase your memory power which  are extremely useful. Let me put it this way, I can now go through the list of 30 things for about couple minutes and remember all of the list including its position for a couple days after that with 100% accuracy.  Amazing isn’t?

Its quite simple actually, I wonder why my teachers never teach me in school. Or perhaps they did, but I wasn’t paying attention at the time.

Further, it gives techniques of how to read faster which is exactly what I needed at the moment. I know that some of you are tired of reading because it seems like such a long way to go every time you start a new book. Imagine what will it be if you can read three times after with a better level of comprehension? This particular reading technique will definitely help with that. I also learn that, before using the techniques, my reading speed is the same as six graders but it improves tremendously after deploying techniques.

Sound amazing already right? but it’s not even the best part yet.

Then it comes the time management. The most mysterious part of my life where I feel I never got it right. I have read many time management books in the past, I can tell you that this book is definitely thus far the best.

What I love most is that it incorporated tools that I use everyday like google calendar, twisted it a bit, then it into an incredible compass of my hectic life. I have tested this new theory for a couple days and it did really transfer the way I work and the way I live. I feel that for the first time in years, I have things under control.   My physical and mental energy  is at its peak.

My personal life has been improved as well, I have more time with people I love and more time to do something I like.

I’m not going to go into any details because it's much more fun for you to discover it by yourself.

Go get one now!

Enjoy

Tab

book review # 28 The Psychology Book

Book review # 28 The Psychology Book

If you recently walked into AsisBooks or Kinokuniya lately you probably will see a display of three large hardcover bright-colored books that are quite eye-catching. It’s the summary of concepts, thoughts, experiment and opinion concerning Phycology, Economy  and Philosophy. 

Three of them combine with Statistics will make up pretty much all the subject I hate during my educational years. Something I always try to avoid. 

However, as I grow up, I realize that general knowledge of these issues is very useful because the people I meet are from a diverse background and the knowledge about these subjects can become handy. When I study these subjects, without the pressure of having to be graded like in school, some of them are quite fascinating. 

Just like the sciences of Phycology which I have lately found to be very interesting. Because of its adaptivity to real-life situation. Diving into the world of psychology will not only help me understand why people did what they did but also reminds me of how my own mind reacts to various stimuli. 

This book is essentially a reference book for those who are not specialized in this field.The content boiled down each concept and experiments into couple pages. There are 7 main topics which are philosophical roots, behaviorism, psychotherapy, cognitive psychology, social psychology, development philosophy and psychology of difference. 

Some of the highlights I like, just to name a few , are : 

• The unconscious is the true psychical reality : Sigmund Freud 
• Anyone regardless of their nature, can be trained to be anything : John B. Watson
• 24 hours after learning something, we forget two-third of it: Hermann Ebbinghaus
• A peculiar destruction of the internal connections of the phyche : Emil Kraepelin
• The magical number 7 plus or minus 2 George Armitage Miller
• People do what they are told to do: Stanley Milgram
• What happens when you put good people in an evil place? : Philip Zimbardo

The book will bring me to the world I didn’t pay much attention to before i.e. how the minds work. For example, I always wonder what really happened during the famous “Stanford Experiment” (which also inspires a film called “The Experiment”), this book gives me the insights on how it was done and the professional opinion on why people acted what the way they did. 

Normally, when I read a book, I normally finish it before I start another one but since the topics in “Psychology Book” are quite unconventional to me, I use the “bed-time story reading method” i.e. read only couple of topics a day. Personally I think I comprehend more by using this routine. 

It’s a good reference book to have it in your library because I believe it’s important to learn something new everyday. 

8.5/10

Cheers 

book review # 27 InGenius , A Crash Course on Creativity

Book review # 27 InGenius

“Incredible” was the only word I can think of after closing this book down hours ago. I’m glad that I can now put an early nomination for book of the year 2013 becuase this book is extraordinary. 

I will even give the score now, it’s definitely a 10/10

why? 

Well, let’s say that it’s a kind of book that make you come up with game-changing idea while you turning through pages. Not many books can do this. This is how my book looks like while I'm reading it. The best way to explore the book, in my opinion, is the write, fold, highlight and take notes which is exactly what I'm doing. 

I was able to figure out the new evaluation method that not only will keep my team energized at all time but also will make them have a better experience while working as well. Just to summarize on what I come up with, it’s bi-monthly process with a combination of evaluation and gamification. I hope it will a new plant form to revive creativity and energy in my firm. Frankly, I am so confident that it will. 

Anyway, let’s me tell you a little bit about the author, Tina Seelig, who teaches at Stanford D School. Her famous “crash course on creativity” course is available online which you can apply at stanford.edu. It’s help people in various background to be able to articulate their expertise and finding new ways to solve old problems.

It is such a good book that I think everyone should definitely have one copy for themselves. It energizes you to think far and beyond. As I said not many book can do that. 

The book starts off with concept on frame of reference where most of the time we unintentionally see the world from our usual perspective. And how can we move beyond that and finding new frame to see from different angle. Also, to avoid the trap assuming that the way we do things is the one right way. 

Move further along to how connecting things that seems unconnected is important. The book demonstrate on how it  expands your capability of imagination. Then, it elaborate on some tools to find new idea which this book particularly emphasize on brainstorming therefore you will have detail suggestions for efficient brainstorming session. Personally I found this chapter very useful. Again, the idea (with some slight modification of your company’s culture) can be implemented immediately. 

Next chapter stimulate the importance of observation and how acute observation is a key skill for gaining valuable knowledge about the world around you. The practice of capturing the observations and registered it in your mind is also talked about. Simply stated, focus observation is a powerful way to get the valuable information about the world around us. Armed with that, doors of possibilities are open. 

Then the book gives us the most interesting issues of all time which is the working space and how its influence people in it. Space is one of the key factors in all habitats, along with rules, rewards, constraints which are needed to be carefully laid out. It’s important to notice that space dramatically affects team dynamic and creativity. Most of us never imagined how important it is and how it changes our behavior. The space told a powerful story and each of us are living in it. 

Further, the book touches the most annoying issue in workplace of all time. The “evaluation” and “motivation” process. You will on how “rules”, “carrot and sticks” ,“reward” and “encouragement” played under the masked concept of gamification. This chapter is personally mind blowing for me. I do love the last paragraph of this chapter which is 

“If you want your organization to push beyond obvious answer, then you need to understand that all of life is a game, and you should craft the rules that reward ingenious solutions to both short-term and long-term goals.”

There are issues about teamwork and the power of speed, experimental habit and other issues related to that. 

The book concludes with a very powerful take away, you will have to read the whole book to be able to comprehend it. 

As I said, go get one copy of this book now! the sooner the better. You won’t regret it, I promise. 

Cheers 

Tab

ว่าด้วยเรื่องของความเนียน

ว่าด้วยเรื่องของความเนียน

เป็นเรื่องที่น่าแปลกที่ผมได้เข้าใจความหมายของความเนียนหรือ smoothness  ผ่านมุมมองของการเล่นกีฬาทั้งที่เร็วหรือกีฬาที่อันตราย ล้วนมีปรัชญาของความเนียนอยู่ทั้งสิ้น

วันก่อนผมได้เรียนกับ toyota racing school ที่สนาม Thailand circuit นครชัยศรี แน่นอนว่าเราต้องได้ลงไปขับรถที่เป็นรถแข่ง vios one make race ใน track โดยมี instructor นั้งประกบไปข้างๆ 

นักเรียนยังไม่ชินกับทั้งรถทั้งสนามจึงเกร็ง หักพวงมาลัยทั้งเร็วทั้งเยอะ ทั้งจับทังบีบพวงมาลียแน่จะจนพวงมาลัยแทบแตก ปล่อยคลัชทีหัวคะมำจะกระแทกคอนโซลเอา

instructor ของผมบอกว่านักแข่งที่ดีจะต้องขับให้เนียนๆ  เพราะความเนียนนุ่มนวลนี่แหละคือการตัดสินกีฬาที่อาศัยความเร็วที่สุดอย่างนึงบนโลกนี้!

เกมกีฬาที่ต้องการความเร็วสูงสุดยังต้องอาศัยความนุ่มนวลเป็นตัวตัดสิน instructor ท่านเดิมบอก tips เราว่าเวลาดูรถแข่งจะสังเกตเห็นได้ว่ากล้องที่ถ่ายจากใน cockpit ของนักแข่งเหมือนรถไปไม่ได้เร็วมากแต่จริงแล้ววิ่งเร็วกว่า 300 kmh อยู่ แต่เพราะความเนียนในการขับทำให้เรารูสึกว่ามันช้า

พอนักเรียนปรับตัวได้ลงไปขับอีกรอบ แบบเนียนๆ ทำเวลาได้ดีขึ้นเยอะครับ

กีฬาที่อันตรายที่มากอย่างการแข่งยิงปืนเร็วก็เช่นกันครับ การยิงปืนให้เข้าเป้านั้นสำคัญมากคือต้องลั่นไกให้เนียน คือไม่กระชากหรือกระตุกไก เพราะถ้ากระชากไกหรือกระตุกไก ปืนจะหัวทิ่มลงทันทีทำให้พลาดเป้าหมายไป เพราะฉะนั้นแม้จะยิงเร็วแค่ไหนก็ต้องลั่นไกให้เนียน 

ในเกมของธุรกิจก็เช่นเดียวกันครับ การบริหารจัดการความสัมพันธ์หรือการบริหารจัดการคนต้องเนียน คือการไม่ให้อารมณ์ไม่ว่าจะเป็น โลภ โกรธ หลง เข้ามาทำให้การกระทำของเราไม่”เนียน” ถึงแม้เราจะโกรธใครอยู่ แต่เรายังต้องพยายามรักษาความเนียนของคำพูดและการกระทำของเราให้ได้ ถึงแม้เราจะหลงอะไรอยู่ แต่อย่าให้มันเข้ามาครอบงำจิตใจเราได้ ต้องบริหารความหลงแบบ”เนียนๆ”ให้ได้

ลองดูตัวอย่างผู้นำทางธุรกิจของโลกนี้นะครับ ทุกคนมี character ที่ “เนียน” ทั้งสิ้น แม้ว่าภายใต้ความเนียนเขาอาจจะกำลังเดือดพล่านอยู่ แต่เราไม่มีทางรู้ได้เลยครับเพราะคนกลุ่มนี้ฝึกฝนการรักษาความเนียนมาถึงขั้นสูงสุดและจะน้อยครั้งมากที่จะมีการแสดงอาการอะไรออกมาให้เราเห็น

เริ่มฝึกตั้งแต่วันนี้ เชื่อว่าทุกคนทำได้เช่นกันครับ 

cheers 

Tab

Review # 26 Long Tail

The world is changing, surprisingly some companies do not quite aware of this change and that can be extremely dangerous. 

It’s quite certain that 90% of the companies that still conduct business the same way 5 years from now will be out of business. 

Change is inevitable, do you have the “change strategy” in place yet? 

The long tail suggests the phenomena where most individual now have their own version of how they perceived themselves to be and do not want “one size fits all” products and services anymore. We can no longer categorized the client to be in age, sex, income or other demographics as before. The diversity of cultures and interests are far beyond that. 

Therefore, market is now looking for more of an individualization and will jump to it when its available. The need to be “unique” is much stronger now than anytime in our history and the tools in the market allow that to happen as well. 

Chris Anderson defined the long tail phenomena as follows 

1. The tools of production become widely available 
2. The costs of distribution are cut appreciably. 
3. Some way of connecting supply and demand is established. 

Perhaps the easiest example is to look at your friends’ iphone, you will find out that no two iphones are alike. It basically customed to fit each person’s lifestyle and interests. This is the simplest example and if you look around you will see much more. 

Let’s see

Do you know how many variations you can get in Starbucks?

guess...guess....guess

19,000

Wow, this means that I can go in to Starbucks everyday for the rest of my life without having to order the same coffee ever again.

Another issue is demonstrated via the 20/80 concept. 

For those who knows me personally, you probably know that I was a big fan of 20/80 however I do have to agree with the author that the below curve of 80 has a great potential (which normally underrated). To capture this potential, the important element is to understand how the information travels. 

The world of invisible market has turned visible. The long tail market is a multi billion dollar business. 

I would like to take part of the book that kind of sum it all up. If you not going the read the entire book at least read the next paragraph.

“For around $30,000, you can now buy a machine called a Solidscape T66 3-D printer for your home. A 3-D printer is a domestic factory, capable of manufacturing almost anything in lot sizes of one. 3-D printer us a laser to turn a bath of liquid polymer or power into hard plastic in any shape you desire. Feed it a 3-D object file, such as the output of a CAD program or even the screen captured polygon file of a character from a video game, and the laser will go to work tracing it out. Layer by layer, a perfect plastic reproduction of the object emerges out of the bath. It’s like magic. Someday, they may be as common as inkjets and not much more expensive. Just think about what that might enable. As 3-D printing technology extends beyond brittle plastics to range of materials, from metals to synthetic fibers, we may be able to self-manufactured spare parts, toys, perhaps even entire machines that we’ve downloaded from some virtual retailer. Today you can print your own photographs at home, tomorrow you may print the frame, too Like everything else, tomorrow’s long tail of things will be aggregated, efficiently stored as bits, and then delivered to your home via optical fiber. Only then will it be materialized, coming full circle to atoms again at the point of consumption. It sounds like science fiction, but then again so did having an entire music library in your pocket just a decade ago. In the worlds of entertainment and information, we’ve already lost the capacity constraints of shelf space and channels, along with their one-size-fits-all constraints. Soon we may lost in our culture thanks to digital efficiencies will extend to every part of our lives. The question tomorrow will not be whether more choice is better, but what do we really want? On the infinite aisle, everything is possible. ”

One flaw about this book is that I don’t like the way they arrange the paragraphs. It’s kind of difficult to read. 

All in all, it’s a nice read. 

8.5/10

Cheers

Tab

book review # 25 what got you here, won't get you there

Book review # 25 what got you here, won’t get you there

When my friend who bought me this book told me that “ this book change my life”, I knew at that instance that this is not an ordinary book and I was right.

It’s not my usual practice to read any books more than once but I read this book three times already and probably will going to read it again in the future. 

First of all, this book is written for a certain group of people i.e. those who has certain level of accomplishment in their professional life (however the context of this book can also be apply to improve personal life as well) but knows that something is holding them back of from become even more successful. 

The book presents us with simple yet profound concept. The 20 bad habits of successful people that keep them from excel further. When I go through this book, I realize that every high achievers, executives and entrepreneurs  I have met in my  entire adult life (my self included) has at least couple of these habits. 

Let’s look at one example from bad habit #7 i.e speaking when angry 

“a buddhist legend tells of a young farmer who was covered with sweat as he paddled his boat up the river. He was going upstream to deliver his produce to the village. He was in hurry. It was a hot day and he wanted to make his delivery and get home before dark. As he looked ahead, he spied another vessel, heading rapidly downstream towards his boat. This vessel seemed to be making every effort to hit him. He rowed furiously to get of the way, but it didn’t seem to help. 

He yelled over the vessel, “ Change direction, you idiot! You are going to hit me. The river is wide. Be careful!” His screaming was to no avail. The other vessel hit his boat with a sickening thud. He was enraged as he stood up and cried out to the other vessel, “ You moron! How could you manage to hit my boat in the middle of this wide river! What’s wrong with you?”

And he looked at the other vessel, he realized that there was no one in the other boat. He was screaming at an empty vessel that has broken free of its moorings and was going downstream with the current. 

The lesson is simple. There is never anyone in the other boat. When we are angry, we are screaming at an empty vessel. 

A sage would say that the person making us so angry cannot help who he is. Getting mad at him for being who he is make as much sense as getting mad at our desk for being a desk.” 

quite sharp isn’t? 

let’s try another one

“Being smart turn people on, announcing how smart you are (directly or indirectly) turn them off.”

simple yet powerful massage 

This book is similar to a mirror, when you read and think about yourself you will see that you have at least couple of these habits. I personally think that I have quite a lot and I determine to fix it as much as possible. 

As we advance through the ladder of our personal and professional life, we usually find out that outcome of our effort is no longer based on what we “do” but rather on what we “manage”

I strongly recommend this book for everyone who needs to “manage” someone. 

9.8/10

Cheers

Tab