Some of my Favorites...
This section explores some of my favourite books and the lessons I took away from them. The books here have helped shape my career and my outlook on life. If nothing else, I hope this page can give you inspiration to pick up a new book and see what insights it has to offer.
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
Robert Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company from 2005 to 2021. This book explores his inspirational journey and growth to make it to the top spot to a company which has been a big part of all of our childhoods. This book is more than just a story about his life, it is a book about leadership and management. This book explores 10 principles which are necessary for true leadership. Whilst leadership can not truly be defined by a list of values, it does offer good insight into the qualities which helped Robert succeed in his career and would more than likely help anyone who lives by these principles to succeed in theirs too. These are: optimism, courage, focus, decisiveness, curiosity, fairness, thoughtfulness, authenticity, the relentless pursuit of perfection, and integrity.
Overall, this book provides a great perspective into the journey of making it to the top of a world leading organisation. Some of my favourite parts of this book is where Robert provides a valuable insight into why he was able to be a success. Some of my favourites are:
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That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph
Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, offers readers a unique insight into what it's like to go from zero to one. The book starts off with brainstorming sessions in the car with Reed Hastings, where Marc proposes business ideas, from shampoo by mail to the idea which eventually becomes Netflix. This was all back in the 1990s, when VHS was still a thing and DVDs were 'new technology'. As someone growing up outside of the United States, I had never known Netflix had been around so long, and had originally mailed DVDs to subscribers... With that being said, if you're hoping to learn how the company made streaming services the next big thing, you won't get that from this book, since Marc's journey with the company ended in 2002, five years before streaming became part of the Netflix business model. Despite this, Marc does elude to how they always knew streaming would be the next big thing, as soon as the technology would allow.
What this book does offer though, is perspective of someone who had a passion for people, working hard, and most importantly his family. This is emphasised by the book culminating in 8 key lessons which originated from Marc's father. That's right, after his whole journey through founding Netflix, it's his father's 8 lessons which remain the key lesson Marc wishes to pass to readers. Marc's (or should I say his Dad's) 8 lessons for success are:
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Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
Written by two professors from Stanford University, Designing Your Life is a book about discovering what is truly important to you and ensuring you build your life around that. It sounds like a simple concept right? That's what I thought, until I found myself wondering what the next step in my career would truly make me happy. To put this in perspective, Burnett & Evans provide the example of a man who thought to be happy in his career he needed to work in football. However, when he finally landed the job, other aspects of his life suffered. What he really needed as a job which allowed him to support his family, gave him the challenges he desired, and provided him with reasonable work hours. His passion for football could be solved in other ways - for example by starting a friendly football competition in his local office.
That's where this book comes in. It provides you workbook style exercises to help you search intrinsically to find what you truly value. From this initial assessment, it helps you generate ideas of what a perfect future may look like, and pushes you to 'prototype' these to find what really works for you. At the end, you will hopefully have worked out how to optimise the balance of work, play, love, and health. Overall, if you go into this book with an open mind and passion to make your life better, then I can assure you that you will learn something new about yourself. |