REVIEW: Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline (3-stars)

 This was a fun book full of adventure and pop culture references that seems more accessible than a lot of similar dystopian books with virtual reality settings. It's a very enjoyable book, mostly because it reads like a screen play with a really good mix of dialogue, description and action. The pace is great and I was able to finish this book in just a few sittings.  

Our protagonist, Wade, is smart -- he studies and sacrifices, memorizes vast amounts of information and makes strategic decisions.  The "hero's journey" is very clear -- and this is one of the things missing from the film adaptation:  Wade's parents died ignominiously, he was unwanted but motivated, chubby and isolated, went off to his own self-imposed imprisonment to pursue his quest, infiltrated the enemy to help his friends and came out victorious in the end.  

I thought that the whole concept of the "lost generation" of young Japanese who stayed in the virtual reality world who were enabled and cared for by their parents was intriguing. I also liked the concept of apartment buildings that were basically virtual reality pods with toilets and showers (which conveniently dispatched depilatories in the soap), but offered enough space for prison-style body weight exercises (and offered apps with lockouts) to maintain fitness.  You get into enough debt in the virtual world and you get taken into custody as an indentured servant with a video game creditor -- sort of a reference to "The Matrix" where the slaves are required to serve the system and can never leave because the cost of their debt & upkeep is never paid off (like coal miners and the company store).

The book doesn't cover any new ground but it's fun and a great read before checking out the film.  They are substantially different as to be two different stories but complementary and both worthy in their own rights.

REVIEW: Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 by Jonathan Rauch (5-stars)

 We've all heard the jokes about midlife crisis and folks who are experiencing difficulties in midlife are often pooh-poohed -- I remember one middle aged friend laughing at midlife crises as self-indulgent, saying "I can't afford a midlife crisis!"  

Would we do the same thing with respect to adolescents?  There may be many satires and jokes about adolescence but we are all very aware of the real changes and challenges faced by humans in this phase of their development.  It exists and it's not a joke.

Well, the same can be said of midlife, as it turns out.  Jonathan Rauch's book, "The Happiness Curve" starts off by diving into a huge pile of research:  dozens of research teams have seen this u-shaped curve in self-reported life satisfaction scores.   We start off VERY happy in life and our satisfaction gradually decreases at mid-life, and then begins to increase again after this midlife trough.  It's not just cultural -- it's found across multiple cultures and samples across decades.  And, it's not just humans --  researchers working with primates around the world, in various settings, have found the same curve in our nearest non-human primate relatives and may be biological.

Rauch defines this midlife slump as "normal and natural."  it's not just a "crisis" but "a change in our values and sources of satisfaction, a change in who we are."

"It is about the dawn of 'encore adulthood,' a whole new stage of adult development which is already starting to reshape the way we think about retirement,education, and human potential."

Studies have examined all sorts of extrinsic and intrinsic factors -- income, education, wealth, fast or slow growing economies, depression, and so on.  The author provides a very indepth review of these studies and how different kinds of happiness are defined (affective vs longer term life satisfaction).  

Humans are programmed to start off big and then switch gears -- so when we get to middle age and we haven't saved the world, we get a negative feedback loop that says "Something's wrong with  me."

The keys to surviving or "muddling through" this trough are to first and foremost, accept as "normal" what you are going through and resist the urge for comparison to others or to your own goals/expectations.  Then, despite your inclination to become a hermit and hide out -- connect and reach out to others who are going through it or who have gone through it:  connectedness is one of the keys to surviving.  Finally, make changes in small steps, not giant leaps -- and build on your strengths, skills and experience.  

Just before that section of the book -- the author gets into the wisdom studies and some very pragmatic and clear information on what it is and why it is important to those 

Rauch also supplies plenty of studies that demonstrate the universal principles of underlying wisdom and where people usually end up on the other side of the trough: 

"compassion and prosocial attitudes that reflect concern for the common good; pragmatic knowledge of life; the use of one’s pragmatic knowledge to resolve personal and social problems; an ability to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty, and to see multiple points of view; emotional stability and mastery of one’s own feelings; a capacity for reflection and for dispassionate self-understanding."

There are three basic components of wisdom -- and they have to be balanced with each other, and serve to enrich and strengthen the other components.  The author uses "Star Trek" as an example: "In Star Trek, undoubtedly the wisest of all television shows, a recurrent theme is that the most blazingly intelligent character, the Vulcan Spock, lacks the instinctive empathy of Dr. McCoy and the pragmatic decisiveness of Captain Kirk. None of the three alone is wise.  Wisdom arises from the (sometimes tense) interaction of the triumvirate."

The studies on wisdom align nicely with the basic tenets of Buddhism -- which may explain why so many folks are drawn to it in middle age, it provides a structure and community for their changing values and beliefs.  There's no association between wisdom and intelligence, "What wise people know about is life."

Wisdom, he says, is balanced, reflective, active -- "the happiness curve is a social adaptation, a slow-motion reboot of our emotional software to repurpose us for a different role in society."

"You may be dissatisfied, but you don’t need to be quite so dissatisfied about being dissatisfied!"

It's a long slow adjustment that is normal, not pathological, and you're NOT crazy or losing your mind!   

The book is really well written, enjoyable and informative.  I really appreciate that it doesn't focus entirely on perimenopause or "hormones" -- but I do wish that there was a bit more coverage on that area aside from a mention of "the grandmother effect" and the interesting bit of trivia that humans are one of 3 species on this planet where the female of the species long outlives her fertility (the other two species are whales).

REVIEW: The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 by Jonathan Rauch 

RATING: 5-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Me Before You (Me Before You, #1) by Jojo Moyes (3-stars)

Unlike my other attempts at pop fiction/chick lit -- this was a rather readable book and I might go find the follow-ups in this little fantasy world.   They say that we don't really know ourselves except through the lens of other people.  In this story, Will is deprived of living large and stuck in a wheelchair and casts light as if from a prism for Louisa who is living small and safe.  The feel safe with each other and she explores the world and learns more about herself in their brief time together.   Healing, trust, love and loss and laughs.  Good story!  

REVIEW: Me Before You (Me Before You, #1) by Jojo Moyes 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle (5 stars)

 I was lucky enough to get a copy of this as an ARC from NetGalley - and devoured it! 

I'm fascinated by the subjects of leadership and teams these days, mostly because I have experienced great team leadership in the past but too infrequently.   After enjoying "Turn This Ship Around" -- this seemed like a great follow-on.

In the first chapter, the author describes an experiment in teamwork and collaboration -- conducted between two different groups:  kindergarteners and college students.  The goal was to build the highest tower with straws and marshmallows.  The kindergarteners WON because they were entirely focused on the outcome, made changes and took feedback without being distracted by status management.  That's something we all learn as we unlearn trust and vulnerability.

The book presents compelling case studies to support three sets of skills for building strong teams.  First, you have to "Build Safety" -- create environments where it is ok to provide feedback regardless of status or role.  Second, "Share Vulnerability" - describes how "habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooparation."  Third, "Establish Purpose" -- by creating a shared culture that clearly defines the group's purpose, goals and how they do things.

Much like the mythical "work" of a romantic relationship or marriage,  the author  maintains that "Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal."

In building safety, there are some real physical patterns of interaction that help create a bond in a group, these include:

• Close physical proximity
• Profuse amounts of eye contact
• Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
• Lots of short, energetic exhanges (no long speeches)
• High levels of mixing
• Few interruptions
• Lots of questions
• Intensive, active listening
• Humor, laughter
• Small, attentive courtesies

When is the last time that you were part of a group where you had that kind of experience?  Would you ever want to leave that environment?  He then describes "belonging cues" which are "behaviors that create safe connection in groups."  This is basic NLP stuff combined with basic etiquette:  taking turns, body language, vocal pitch, eye contact.  These help signal energy, individualization and future orientation.  These are all translated as "You are safe here" by the brain.

Just a few of these, once in a while, is not enough -- "We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over. This is why a sense of belonging is easy to destroy and hard to build."

Coyne also dives into the neuroscience that has been on my radar for much of 2018  -- and emphasizes that the amygdala is not just about perceiving threats but also plays "a vital role in building social connections."  Those "belonging cues" are all transformed in your brain to help "set the stage for meaningful engagement."

The WWI "Christmas Truce" is one of the cases in this section -- and it's come up in popular media in my life several times this year alone.   Basically - you throw a bunch of guys into very adverse conditions, and you find that creating environments that are rich in social belonging cues is critical to their survival and cooperation.    However, as the battle dragged on -- this spilled over to "the enemy" -- and soldiers established "micro-truces" around meal times, bed time, using the latrine or picking up the dead, cumulating in a series of Christmas day truces across a pretty widespread geographic area.  Respect the power of the amygdala!

By way of contract, another type of culture that is the opposite of belonging is described -- it was designed to break up cohesion and resulted in very poor work performance from otherwise very smart people in charge of massively destructive and dangerous weapons.  You'd think people would pay attention to something as important as culture, right?

Coyne also addresses a popular conception that highly successful cultures are happy places:  "They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together."

This goes back to "this is a safe place (to give effort" -- creating connection, giving feedback, and communicating the big picture are important.  But with the negative (say, giving feedback on poor performance) there is reward (belonging).

During the Cold War era, an MIT professor named Thomas Allen conducted research into what attributes were shared by successful projects.  In addition to the projects being driven by “clusters of high communicators,” Allen found that the most successful teams sat close to each other and could establish eye contact with each other regularly.  

Plotted on a graph, the increase in interaction against proximity is known as the “Allen Curve.”  Physical “[c]loseness helps create efficiencies of connection” even with digital communication, studies show “we’re far more likely to text, email, and interact virtually with people who are physically close.”

Many studies since have demonstrated the importance of physical proximity – the informal interactions among colleagues are critical to building relationships that foster trust.  In the past several years, it seems like this has resulted in a lot of companies tearing up their office environments to turn them into "open plan" work spaces without figuring out what works best for their teams.  Not all teams are alike, and one size does not fit all when it comes to building strong teams.

To create safety, Coyne offers a few tips, including:

• Overcommunicate your Listening (and avoid interruptions)
• Spotlight your Fallibility Early On - Especially if you are a leader
• Embrace the Messenger 
• Preview future connection -- connecting the dots between where we are now and where we plan to be
• Overdo Thank-Yous - that includes "thanks for letting me coach you" - as a way of affirming the relationship and "igniting cooperative behavior."
• Be Painstaking in the Hiring Process
• Eliminate Bad Apples
• Create Safe, Collision-Rich Spaces
• Make Sure Everyone Has a Voice
• Pick up the trash - make sure leaders are helping with tasks that are "menial" - rolling up their sleeves goes a long way to creating that safety
• Capitalize on Threshold Moments
• Avoid Giving Sandwich Feedback - handle negative and positive feedback as two different processes
• Embrace Fun - "it's the most fundamental sign of safety and connection."

In sharing vulnerability -- teams can demonstrate their willingness to accept the help and support of others in a way that makes the entire team stronger.  The case study of two pilots and a passenger who happened to be a flight instructor crash landing a plane together -- resulting in the survival of 185 of 285 on board.  Simulations run after the event failed to do nearly well as those three people -- resulting in crashes 28 times.  Coyne analyzes the content of their communication and finds that they shared information in a way that was humble and allowed them to perform in the face of catastrophic systems failure (it's a fantastic story!).

Coyne then goes on to analyze the importance of social exchanges in the team environment -- the kind that open up shared vulnerability in a way that creates a "shared exchange of openness" that forms "the most basic building block of cooperation and trust."

The DARPA Red Balloon Challenge is another fantastic case study about how people can cooperate when vulnerability is shared and support invited in a way that is reciprocal and offers mutual benefit.  That is, he points out - the whole point of groups:  "combine our strengths and skills in a complementary way."

The Navy SEALs examples are fantastic -- and you have to buy the book so you can read and understand them.  I especially like the description of how the SEALs were established -- and the type of training they undergo to reinforce team behavior.  They learn how to move together, trust each other and figure things out as they go because they trust each other and they understand how things have to be done.  He also goes into the rules around a complicated improv exercise with a successful comedy troupe where "Every rule directs you either to tamp down selfish instincts that might make you the center of attention, or to serve your fellow actors (support, save, trust, listen)."

Coyne also talks about the importance of overcoming authority bias to create successful groups -- "having one person tell others how to do things is not a reliable way to make good decisions."  This is fascinating because it goes back to the premise of "Turn This Ship Around" where the goal was to  make everyone in the team a leader -- creating a team of leaders who understand the problems that need to be solved and work together without regard for role or hierarchy is important for these successful groups.

The chapter on  "The Nyquist Method" is fascinating -- it's named after a particularly nurturing engineer who created a safe space for his coworkers to share ideas and sparked ideas with them that resulted in greater achievements than if they had worked on their own.  He then reviews other folks who perform similar catalyst roles in other environments - people who mostly just are good active listeners, encouraging others to dig deep and shape the solutions to their challenges.  Again, NLP plays a role here - or "concordances" -  body language that helps increase perceived empathy and in turn creates a safe environment for stronger teams and success.

Coyne is good about reiterating and building on the tips for creating these safe environments and strong relationships throughout his book.  Primarily - listening, being willing to be open and vulnerable, using objective techniques for sharing information (like "Before-Action Review" or "After Action Review").  

Taking us back to the previous point about successful cultures aren't always sunshine and rainbows -- "one of the most difficult things about creating habits of vulnerability is that it requires a group to endure two discomforts:  emotional pain and a sense of inefficiency."  

Finally, the section on "Establish Purpose" is really fun to read -- as he goes to lengths to repeat, a lot of the slogans and catch phrases seem hokey or corny or obvious but the fact is that teams who create compelling, clear goals and articulate them like that are described as "high purpose environments" because they know what they are doing as a team.  These catchphrases establish a link between a goal or behavior and "consistently create engagement around it."

He also talks about  how positive feedback can create a "virtuous spiral" of success (and no need to mention how the opposite happens as well!).

These kind of heuristics "provide guidance by creating if/then scenarios in a vivid, meorable way" and function "as a conceptual beacon."  These kinds of clearly articulated catch phrases make it easier to make decisions in support of specific team goals, such as "You can't prevent  mistakes but you can solve problems graciously" or "If someone is rude make a charitable assumption."

The final tips include: Name and rank your priorities; Be 10x as clear about these priorities as you think you ought, determine where your team aims for proficiency (and for creativity), embrace the use of catchphrases, measure what really matters, use artifacts, focus on bar-setting behaviors -- and go buy this book if you want to learn more about what all those things mean!

REVIEW: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle 

RATING: 5 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Outpost: A Diplomat at Work by Christopher R. Hill (3-stars)

 I get the feeling that Chris Hill loves to write and keep notes -- and much like my MA thesis, without really strong feedback from an editor (or two), folks like us run the risk of putting in too much material without a strong focus or even ensuring that everything included is actually interesting to a broader audience.

Ambassador Hill has had a VERY interesting career -- he even is able to encapsulate it (on page 317 of 430) effectively when he talks about sitting through a nomination hearing in the Senate:

"[...] I was running a grainy slide show in my head of things I had done in the course of my government career.  Peace Corps, the Solidarity movement in Poland, reporting on democracy demonstrations in South Korea in the spring of 1987, meeting in remote prison work camps with the families of political prisoners in Albania in 1991, gaining access to mass graves in Bosnia in 1995, meeting with displaced persons in central Kosovo and helping to provide them with food and shelter in the summer of 1998, a midnight visit to the Stenkovac refugee camp to protect Roma under attack from angry gangs of Kosovo refugees, working (quietly and effectively) with Chinese officials to allow North Korean refugees to get out of the diplomatic compound in Shenyang on to new homes in South Korea, convincing Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen to release immediately Kem Sokha and other arrested members of the human rights movement."

One could make a really interesting set of stories based on those highlights and still have enough space to discuss how the career impacted him personally (emotionally) and what it was like moving around a wife and family as a Foreign Service Officer.

Some of the stories are very funny and interesting:  talking about being in Skopje when protestors decided to attack, using the flag pole as a battering ram.  Everyone inside took shelter in a safe room in the basement -- cracking jokes, even when riot police arrived and knocked on the door of the vault (could be a Land Shark!) and even one Czech reporter named Bijana who was DYING to light up her cigarette.  That was a good anecdote!

Another good anecdote was showing up at midnight at the refugee camp to extricate a Roma family was also very inspiring.   Another good anecdote involves preventing his driver from being kidnapped conscripted by rebel forces:

“I owe you a beer for that.” He kept his eyes on the road, driving at breakneck speed, and said softly in a very sober tone, “Bottle of whiskey.”

Unfortunately, this is not followed up with discussion of measures taken after that incident to avoid endangering his local employees/staff in such situations.

Tips on working as an FSO include:

"Airplane flights always allowed for the best staff meetings even though there was no table and people had to perch on seats facing the wrong way or sit on the floor of the aircraft to hear."  

His boss overreacted when someone was late to a meeting, and his internal dialogue went like this:

On the one hand I thought that at forty-three I was a little too old to be screamed at in a way that I hadn’t heard since childhood.

On the other hand, I composed myself long enough to think about the unimaginable pressure he was under.

This is a great example of self-awareness and avoiding escalating a situation - and after his boss yelled at him, the late arrival walked in the door excusing himself due to bad traffic.

Tips on talking to the press during negotiations:

"Avoid citing what the other side is saying in negotiation. They could simply deny it or say something even more difficult to live with after you have called them out on it. And don’t talk specifics and certainly don’t engage in speculation or hypothetical questions.  Beyond that, there is much that can be discussed."

Tips on changing verbiage in agreements that have been approved for two weeks -- pass it off as a translation error, and make sure you have a wingman:

“Really, ‘exist peacefully together’ is much better English. Ambassador Randt, don’t you think so?” “Absolutely.” (Memo to self: buy that man a beer.)"

He goes into a hilarious <i>Lord of the Rings</i> fugue when Hillary Clinton calls him to a meeting to ask him to take on the assignment of Iraq, finding himself in a friendly meeting "as if I were a sort of Foreign Service Bilbo Baggins at the conclusion of my adventures."  He jokes "Oh my God, Iraq, the real fire of Mordor, wait! I thought dealing with North Korea was the fire of Mordor!?"

His wry observations of Foreign Service worker motivations for working in Iraq are ascribed to specific motivations or career goals:  Arabists who want to tick off a box; a place of penance where previous errors made in one's professional career could be absolved; folks close to retirement building their nest egg with the extra hazard pay.  This is funny stuff!

He talks about the generosity of others from time to time - after accepting the assignment, on the way out of that meeting, then goes into another great anecdote (and reading list) where he passed someone in the hall who recognized him as the  new appointee: "...just met someone on the other end of the sixth floor whom I had never laid eyes on before, but who opened up his heart and his bookshelf to make sure I was going to get off to a good start."  

I love the subtle and not so subtle criticisms of folks -- he presents Cheney as a pitiable figure but not effective, while Biden is earthy and engaged.  

The concluding chapter gives great information that summarizes his perspectives on diplomacy and development:

"Finding practical answers to tough problems seems to take a backseat to ideology. Nowhere is this issue more pronounced than in weighing the rapid imposition of democracy against more evolving change."

"...human rights are not identical with democracy, which is a system of governance, certainly the best to protect those values."

"...in a country’s choice of governance, we would do well to lower our voices and offer our help when asked."

"...diplomacy is not a continuation of war by other means."

Hill also cautions against oversharing on social media -- not everything needs to be shared, and we don't have to be transparent about everything we know.

Ironically... that filter did not apply to some of the content of his book.  Now here's the stuff I didn't like:  filler and padding.  There is so much filler in the form of excess and uninteresting detail.  Like - do we really need to know the details of open bathroom doors and toilet seats left up in Holbrook's private office bathroom during Hall's first meeting?  Or mundane details about arriving at the curb on East Forty-Seventh side entrance of the Waldorf-Astoria, hallways crowded with housekeeping carts as they exited the 35th floor and someone launched an assault on a saran-wrap covered tray of appetizers? Or who asked for 2 drinks after a long dehydrating flight from his host?  I find these things excessively dishy - like referring to Condi Rice at "her petulant best." That seems to imply she got her way by acting childish.

Other times - he drops in an interesting detail that he didn't fully realize, such as "I was not surprised by the call, having been tipped off that it was coming."  Wait? Someone calls and tells you  you're getting a big fat promotion and you know this going to the meeting -- that call and an emotional reaction would have been interesting!

Sometimes it seems like he's writing more for a screenplay and providing guidance for stage direction.  He repeatedly mentions "store bought" fatigues or camo in the discussions with revolutionaries.  I beg an explanation -- what's the alternative? Being part of an army where $12MM USD is loose change found in sofa cushions and you have bespoke camo patterns and uniforms produced? I didn't understand the point of this detail. 

Hall does provide historical background information -- sometimes it feels like larger context is missing.  There are longs stretches of excruciating detail of back and forth minutiae -- like in the negotiations with Serbia and with North Korea.   Those were probably based on personal notes from his trips there but I found them to be too much detail without broader context.

Another nit:   9/11 - it's mentioned 3 times in the entire book.  I guess it had little impact to  his negotiations in other areas? To his life? How did people respond in the embassy where he was stationed at the time?  It is such a major event to give so little attention. 

Finally - why is it that the word "cigarette" is mentioned more frequently than the names of his family all tolled?  I want to know more about the balance of family and professional life. What was it like where he lived in different places -- did his wife and kids travel with him to every assignment?  

There are a few mentions of visits with his kids:  his son went to boarding school; in one move, his daughter said she was proud of him but he was ruining her life; another funny anecdote has his daughter Clara recommending dropping bombs. 

Many of us are very interested in learning what it's LIKE to live as a FSO for decades -- not just filling in stories to fit the facts or providing observations that don't contribute to a better understanding of the situations or people.  I'd trade all the filler for more personal observations about Ambassador Hill's personal preferences and experiences (like the story about a colleague bartering for cheap socks in Chinese). 

Overall, I'm glad I read the book -- it was a lot more work than it should have been and makes me wonder about the rave reviews.  Perhaps more folks are serious political wonks familiar with the details and delighted by the blow-by-blow of some of the negotiations.  YMMV!

REVIEW: Outpost: A Diplomat at Work by Christopher R. Hill 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal by Anthony William (3-stars)

 A friend at my pool recommended Anthony William to me - she claims she has had tremendous success after reading his books.  I suspect that she had a massive diet shift to raw vegan and while that will see some short term gains, I'm already vegan and daily eat a lot of the raw foods he recommends (including cilantro, avocados, etc).

I was intrigued by the number of illnesses he links to Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) and have plans to get bloodwork done to see if there are traces of EBV antibodies in my blood.  Interestingly - he repeatedly  mentions lupus, but of all the diseases he directly addresses in chapters in the book, he leaves out lupus.  It's interesting also that most of the chronic illnesses he describes primarily affect women (Lupus, Fibromyalgia, PMS/Perimenopause).

The stories about his experiences talking with "Spirit" and with "Angels" just smacks of crowd-pleasing fiction.  There are a LOT of people out there, mostly women from what I can see, who "believe" or want to believe in guardian angels, spirits and the like.

And - given that so many people are obese in this country - combined with  irrational beliefs in so many things, I get the feeling that Anthony William really DOES care about people -- especially women of a certain age/socioeconomic strata -- especially when he says things such as:

"If you are ill or going through a trial like a divorce or a loss, you did not manifest it. You did not attract it. It is not punishment or payback. You do not deserve to be sick or unhappy. It is not your fault. You deserve to heal. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to feel whole."

Although he's filling up the book with all  kinds of woo-woo new age stories about spirits and angels, I think that is his way of relating to the very large number of people (women) in this country who really do believe in that sort of thing.  

He's also got sections in both books that I have read that are serious about debunking health fads -- like low carbs (high fat), fruit sugar is ok for you, apple cider vinegar is not a miracle food, etc.  The other book he got into things such as using paper tape to determine the Ph balance of your body and described in detail why this isn't meaningful to most people.

His advice basically boils down to the following:  eat lots more good leafy green veggies, don't be afraid of eating fruit, cut out all the processed crap, cut back on things that are hard on your body (dairy, eggs, fatty foods, gluten) and things that are mostly GMO (like corn).  

He recommends a 28 day raw vegan diet as a cleanse with the basic guidelines of what foods to choose but not focusing on number of calories or amount of food -- this is right in line with most raw vegan diets (they say you can eat all you want - 45 bananas? go for it!).

I'll give this 3 stars because he's advocating some very good diet changes and trying to speak to a very specific audience.  If these people will listen to this diet advice and change their lives for the better than this is a success.  I think it is wise of him to NOT include overly specific recommendations - this is not really magic.  It's cutting out the standard american diet and eating the good stuff.  

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

The special miracle veggies & fruits mentioned in this book are: Wild Blueberries, Celery, Sprouts, Asparagus, Spinach, Cilantro, Parsley, Coconut oil, Garlic, Gingseng, Raspberries, Lettuce, Papayas, Apricots, Pomegranates, Grapefruit, Kale, Sweet Potatoes, Cucumber, Fennel.

The special herbs to use include: Cat's Claw, Silver hydrosol, Zinc, Vitamin B12, Licorice root, Lemon Balm, 5-MTHF, Selenium, Red marine algae, L-lysine, Spirulina (from Hawaii), Ester-C, Nettle leaf, Monolaurin, Elderberry, Red clover, Star anise,  Curcumin

Other important supplements include: Nascent iodine, Ashwagandha, Barley grass juice extract powder, Olive leaf, Ginseng, Wild raspberry leaf, Schisandra berry, Hawthorne, Vitex (Chaste Tree berry), Red Clover Blossom, Sage, Folic acid, B-complex, Vitamin D3, EPA & DHA

Foods to avoid:  corn, soy, canola, processed beet sugar, eggs, dairy, pork (fatty), farmed fish (antibiotics and parasites), gluten, msg, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, citric acide.  Supplements to avoid: L-Carnitine, glandular supplements, whey protein, fish oil supplements, iron supplements.  

28 Day Cleanse: for 4 weeks

• Upon awakening:  "cleansing beverage. Celery juice, cucumber juice, lemon water, coconut water with Hawaiian spirulina, herbal tea, or barley grass juice extract powder reconstituted with water."
• Breakfast: "fruit smoothie for breakfast. A good baseline recipe is three bananas, two dates, and one cup of berries."
• Mid-morning: Fruit smoothie (make another or make a big one at breakfast and bring the other half along with you for later).
• Lunch: "salad with spinach, lettuce, and cucumbers as the base, then toss in the fruits of your choice." "Optional additions include chopped cabbage, celery, or cauliflower; arugula or baby kale; sprouts; and scallions."
• Mid-afternoon:  snack on any fruits of choice.
• Dinner:  he recommends a raw blended soup - some high powered blenders will warm up the soup a bit (his soup is 2 bunches of spinach, 3 tomatoes, juice of one orange, a stalk of celery, cilantro, garlic).  You could probably do any combination of the recommended veggies/fruits as long as you stay away from the non-raw bad items.
• Evening snack:  apples and dates.

REVIEW: Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal by Anthony William 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet (4-stars)

To be honest - I have never had a strong interest in military-oriented reading material, fiction or non-fiction.  Aside from my interest in pre 20th century piracy on the high seas (more of social class/mobility angle here) - I haven't really read any books about life on boats or submarines.

David Marquet has written an incredibly clear and easy to understand book - that happens to be about submarines and their crews.  The details about life on the submarine are sometimes a bit more than my interest can tolerate but overall the message about process and changing the structure from leader-follower to leader-leader is crystal clear.   His writing style is incredibly well structured and meticulous -- all the examples work really well for his story.

As noted in the introduction, the core belief is that we can all be leaders - and the best way to get to that is to have a leader who can help identify the shared goals and vision for the team, and then let them do their work, providing feedback on what is working best as a way to attain excellence (vs avoiding mistakes).  This is a system of empowerment that is focused on outcomes, and which worked so well for the author in his command that he DOUBLED the number of chiefs (who then transferred off to other ships the next day to new roles). 

He discusses situations where team members automatically executed incorrect instructions from their leader or where mistakes were made because someone was operating on "auto pilot."  Changing the processes to focus on the outcomes and goals rather than process/method made a huge difference.

The key concepts in this book include:

1.  Achieve excellence - don't just avoid errors.  

2.  Use "I intend to... " to turn passive followers into active leaders.  Avoid disempowered phrases such as "Request permission to . . . I would like to . . . What should I do about . . . Do you think we should . . . Could we . . ." (and I was always told "hopefully").   In empowering the officers to be responsible for their work - "the goal for the officers would be to give me a sufficiently complete report so that all I had to say was a simple approval."

3.  Enhance opportunities for informal communication -- encourage team members to "THINK OUT LOUD is a mechanism for CONTROL" and ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY.  Author says "when I heard what my watch officers were thinking, it made it much easier for me to keep my mouth shut and let them execute their plans."  This is related to "deliberate action."  For example - where there is a process that has a significant impact (whether it's torpedoes or sending out an e-mail blast) - it helps to talk through what you intend so that a peer can catch any potential mistakes before the actual action.  "Take deliberate action. We learn (everywhere, all the time). Don’t brief, certify."

4.  Search for organizational practices or procedures that would need to be changed in order to effect the change required - that means updating any documentation, handbooks, wiki etc.

5.  "Fake it til you make it" - or, as the author says "Acting your way to new thinking" as a mechanism for control.  Even if you feel bad - smile - that will eventually make you feel better (it's proven).  If you have doubts and don't fully commit to a new thing - it will come through so fake it til it feels natural and only then will you be able to determine the efficacy.

6.  Short early conversations make efficient work (another mechanism for control) - this is basically like a daily standup in Agile - it helps to talk through any questions and get an idea of where potential misunderstandings or misdirections may lie.  A standup isn't intended to solve all the problems - you may create more meetings out of this but it's a good touchpoint!

7.  "RESIST THE URGE TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS is a mechanism for CONTROL."   The leader has to create space for open decision by the entire team; in crisis situations - you can have the team brainstorm and then as a leader vet the best option for action.

8.  "ELIMINATING TOP-DOWN MONITORING SYSTEMS is a mechanism for CONTROL."  Marquet emphasizes the use of mechanisms that actually give ownership and describes a log of work requests that was owned and maintained but not accessible by the entire team so they could actually see the backlog of work and get things done.  He also says to avoid systems where senior personnel are determining what junior personnel should be doing as their day to day tasks - giving them goals and then reviewing their tactics (ie the "I intend to" reports).

9.  "EMBRACE THE INSPECTORS is a mechanism for CONTROL, organizational control."  Use the opportunities provided by inspection to learn where improvements can be made. 

10. "WE LEARN (EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME) is a mechanism for COMPETENCE."  This was a great  section on learning from mistakes without coming down really hard on the team members - everything is a learning opportunity. 

11.  "DON’T BRIEF, CERTIFY is a mechanism for COMPETENCE." - this was fantastic because instead of the chief reading off the process while everyone else's eyes glazed over, the person who would be doing the task would identify the steps that he would be taking and the others would certify that process was correct (technical competence).

12. "CONTINUALLY AND CONSISTENTLY REPEAT THE MESSAGE is a mechanism for COMPETENCE."

13.  "SPECIFYING GOALS, NOT METHODS is a mechanism for COMPETENCE." and CLARITY.  Two excellent examples were around fire drills - which weren't going well because of process (ie "I'm not in charge of this area/shift") to make everyone responsible and the crew members CLOSEST to the fire would be responsible for taking action.  On the ship, stealth (ie, not making loud noises) is critical so any time some loud noise is made - it can affect the sonar.  The goal of a stealth ship was emphasized and everyone was required to report noises instead of the sonar team trying to find the source of a transient noise.  This resulted in identifying a lot of other issues that they were able to fix and move even closer toward excellence. 

14. "BUILDING TRUST AND TAKING CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE is a mechanism for CLARITY."  Providing them opportunities and materials to improve themselves both in their professional and personal goals builds a much stronger, competent and empowered team.

15.  "USE YOUR LEGACY FOR INSPIRATION is a mechanism for CLARITY."  Note achievements and legacy - these are helpful for guiding the team.

16.  "USE GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DECISION CRITERIA is a mechanism for CLARITY."  Development of guiding principles (see the book - fantastic list created by his chiefs) is critical to empowering a team.

17.  "USE IMMEDIATE RECOGNITION TO REINFORCE DESIRED BEHAVIORS is a mechanism for CLARITY." The author would provide immediate positive feedback vs submitting a form and waiting for a process to give the reward/recognition to the individual.  He also points out that "Simply providing data to the teams on their relative performance results in a natural desire to improve."

18.  "BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND is an important mechanism for ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY."  The author worked with his officers in weekly one-on-one mentoring sessions to discuss goals and what they wanted their evaluations to look like 1, 2 and 3 years hence -- working with them to develop goals that cascaded down from the organization's goals.  This turned into an opportunity for 2-way feedback and the end result was that his officers were able to achieve those goals by the end of their terms.

19.  "ENCOURAGE A QUESTIONING ATTITUDE OVER BLIND OBEDIENCE is a mechanism for CLARITY."

All in all - a really solid book with a ton of great examples from the author's experiences.  I'd LOVE to read a book written by one of the enlisted men on that ship to see his perspective and to see how that has carried over to other assignments on different vessels that may have had a top-down structure of leadership.

REVIEW: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet 

RATING: 4-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London, #3) by Ben Aaronovitch (3-stars)

This was also a fun book - and honestly, I keep reading these and thinking that they are really written with a screenplay in mind, and I sure would look forward to watching this as a TV series!

The protagonist, Peter Grant, is funny, self effacing and bright but not always quick on the uptake with certain things. He's also got a huge hangup about his friend Lesley's magic-related injury to her face (despite one of the other characters in this story referring to her as "sex on legs").

He's doing his best to maintain a level of professionalism ("I took the wine but avoided the smile, what with me being on duty and everything." but disaster seems to follow him everywhere.

I now know that grapes are de rigeur when visiting someone in hospital in England.

There's an interesting bit of overlap with a concept from American Gods:

any system, such as an underground railway or indeed the telephone network, could develop a genius loci in the same fashion as the rivers and other sacred sites.

if a Scotsman introduced himself to me as the god of telephones I’d be inclined to take him at his word.

This is really similar to the idea that belief creates reality -- and I also thoroughly enjoy the references to other stories of time travel and fantasy (such as the Morlock) sprinkled throughout.

A COUPLE NITS

• Now that I'm into the 3rd book in this world - I'm finding there's a bit more backstory than I need. I'd like the "read straight through" version -- can we have all the books in the series together with the backstory repeats cut out of each tale?
• I keep reading this "urban fantasy" tag with these books and I can't figure out what on earth it is supposed to mean: are most "fantasy" or supernatural books in some sort of rural or wild setting? Like the hobbits charming rural English village setting or the True Blood rural Louisiana swamp setting with alligators and werewolves running around? Or is it "urban fantasy" because the chief protagonist is black? What's the deal with such a meaningless genre name?

ONE MORE NIT

How awful is Lesley's face? Seriously? Is it so awful that Peter really can't see past it and see the real Lesley who he lusted for and spooned with for so long? Is he really that shallow?

Facial reconstruction has come a long way - just look up face transplants (this one is safe for work) - and even Bonnie Culp looks way better than she did before her crazy ex husband shot off her face AND she's got a partner who loves her (unlike poor Lesley!).

Is Lesley's injury worse than any of those people you can see on the internet?

REVIEW: Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London, #3) by Ben Aaronovitch  

RATING: 3-stars

 © Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators (J-B Lencioni Series) by Patrick Lencioni (5-stars)

This is one of the best books I have read all year about leading teams -- much more useful than the last multi-week project management course I took! 

I've worked in environments where strong team building was a priority and have always appreciated the extra effort made to organize team off-sites where everyone works together on many of the issues described in this book.  Even though I am not leading team and my department is huge and geographically dispersed, I feel like there's a lot of material here that I can take away to help with my projects.

Similar to some of the recent books I have read ("Power of Habit", "Reprogram Your Weight" and even "Outliers") - there is discussion of the "Fundamental Attribute Error."    

human beings tend to falsely attribute the negative behaviors of others to their character (an internal attribution), while they attribute their own negative behaviors to their environment (an external attribution).

That's a tremendous bit of human behavior that we should all keep in mind.  It's something I constantly repeat when one of my friends gets mad at some behavior in traffic, for example, "That person probably wasn't thinking of you at all - they were just thinking of themselves."  It's NOT personal. 

My biggest takeaways from this book are around meetings and metrics for success.  Even if I do not (currently) find myself in a position to organize and lead a team offsite based on the information in this book (wish we could do that!), there are some really great concepts I can apply.

First - meetings.  Boring meetings where everyone agrees or some people don't talk or where nobody comes to "consensus" indicate a lack of clarity of purpose, perhaps even the wrong people in the meeting and worse, the "ultimate penalty of boring meetings is bad decisions, not to mention wasted time." 

It is important to get buy in at the beginning of the meeting or discussion - raise the anxiety a bit.  This isn't just a status meeting -- let's have a meeting to commit to an decision that is important because it affects some goal that we all care about.  Status can happen in e-mail or on the wiki.

Second, the author stresses the difference between "consensus" and "commitment" -- one of the key qualities of leadership in moving forward to a goal is getting people to commit, "buying in to decisions when the “right” answer seems nowhere to be found."

Further, "Good leaders drive commitment among the team by first extracting every possible idea, opinion, and perspective from the team" and then step up and make a decision.  NB:  commitment cannot happen if there is not perfect clarity - and that's where "cascading communication" comes into play.  Recap "what did we decide here today?" in the meeting, and then send it out in e-mail, and make sure the team members communicate it to their staff right away.

One of the tips in this book is to start a meeting with a "lightning round," allowing "no more than thirty seconds to update the team about their three top priorities that week."  Another excellent tip is to track progress against specific goals and objectives -- so that the team can stay on track and ensure that decisions around changes in scope or priority are measured against those objectives. 

Finally - the author makes it clear that building a good team requires commitment to process and is like a marriage, it happens over time.  Being able to build trust on a team, using inquiry to hear all the ideas, making decisions based on specific goals -- these all can help a team make better decisions and be more effective & efficient. 

The last section of the book  provides an outline of the itinerary and directions for different exercises - pretty high level but still appears to be a very useful tool for managing a team building offsite.  I'll definitely keep this in my back pocket for future reference and recommend it to anyone who works on a team of any type!

Author website with tools & resources: https://www.tablegroup.com/teamwork

REVIEW: Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators (J-B Lencioni Series) by Patrick Lencioni  

RATING: 5-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner (4 stars)

 This is a short story - not at all a "book" - and I found a version online. Quick read and creepy! It's interesting how people will look the other way when they know something is wrong or someone is up to no good, as a show of "respect." It's also interesting to me how Emily clings to tradition - the structure she has always known - instead of breaking free, into the unknown. She holds onto her father's corpse as a way of resisting changes to her life. She becomes a recluse. She even kills the man she loves to keep him around. In the end - she transforms into her father - controlling, secretive, manipulative. The larger, darker silhouette in the tableau. Analyses of this story are a great rabbit hole.

REVIEW: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner 
RATING: 4 stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.