Long Walk To Freedom
Nelson Mandela
As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular, or whose results will not be known for years to come.
Nelson Mandela was a great leader. Reading (listening to) his autobiography was an eye-opening experience. Not only was he a great leader for the South Africans but also for the world. I know that South . . .
Posted in: autobiographyleadershipsouth africa
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
When inspiration touches talent, she gives birth to truth and beauty.
A few weeks ago I had a conversation with my husband about this blog:
Me: I think I should stop my blog
Him: Why?
Me: Because my writing is terrible and it takes forever to come up with ideas
Him: You are improving so it’s good. And . . .
How to Learn a Foreign Language
Paul Pimsleur
… only about 16 percent of what it takes to learn a foreign language is attributable to intelligence – at least as defined by IQ tests.
My first encounter with learning a foreign language was when I moved to Taiwan. With my parents’ Chinese background, they of course wanted me to learn how to speak Mandarin, and the 1998 . . .
Posted in: language
The Snowball
Alice Schroeder
Reading a biography of successful people can be interesting. You can learn a lot from them, what-to-do, what-not-to-do, and how they became successful. For this book I listened to the audiobook, which was superbly narrated by Kirsten Potter. After 37 hours of listening, I would like to share some key lessons I learnt from Warren Buffett.
. . .Six Thinking Hats
Edward de Bono
Edward de Bono is a well-known authority in the creative thinking field. In 1967, he created the term ‘lateral thinking’, which is “solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic”. In his . . .
Quiet
Susan Cain
Introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling. Extroverts to the external life of people and activities.
When I was growing up in Indonesia, I was one of the most studious kids at school. I even won an award for borrowing the most books out of my school library! Even during my holidays I would borrow lots . . .
Posted in: introvertpersonalityself-help
Poke the Box
Seth Godin
Poking doesn’t mean right. It means action.
The more I read non-fiction books, the more I start to see how the ideas or learning from one book connects to another. In this short book the marketing guru Seth Godin encourages people to start something, to deliver a project, an idea, or just something new. The idea of poking . . .
Posted in: motivational
