One of my pandemic silver linings has been re-establishing a regular reading habit. I plan on recapping my reading in these short overviews, with quick summary information and quotes for anyone looking for their next book.

Published: 2014

Read: March 2021

Publisher Summary: We are stuck, stymied, frustrated. But it needn’t be this way. There is a formula for success that’s been followed by the icons of history – from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs – a formula that let them turn obstacles into opportunities. Faced with impossible situations, they found the astounding triumphs we all seek.

Genre: Personal Development & Philosophy

Rating: 7.5/10

Who Should Read This?

• Anyone with the odds stacked against them
• Everyone else, too. We all can benefit from the straightforward wisdom of stoicism.

Skimmable? There’s no wrong way to read this one.

Notable Quotables:

• Not: This is not so bad. But: I can make this good
• If an emotion can’t change the condition or the situation you’re dealing with, it is likely an unhelpful emotion. Or, quite possibly, a destructive one. But it’s what I feel. Right, no one said anything about not feeling it…Real strength lies in the control or, as Nassim Taleb put it, the domestication of one’s emotions, not in pretending they don’t exist. So go ahead, feel it. Just don’t lie to yourself by conflating emoting about a problem and dealing with it. Because they are as different as sleeping and waking.
• “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” (Viktor Frankl)
• No one is coming to save you. And if we’d like to go where we claim we want to go—to accomplish what we claim are our goals—there is only one way. And that’s to meet our problems with the right action. Therefore, we can always (and only) greet our obstacles with energy with persistence with a coherent and deliberate process with iteration and resilience with pragmatism with strategic vision with craftiness and savvy and an eye for opportunity and pivotal moments. Are you ready to get to work?
• Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.