The Start-Up of You - Good but not fresh advice

When I reserved this audio book, The Start-Up of You from my local library, I hadn't realized that one of the authors, Reid Hoffman, was also the co-founder of Linkedin. Had I known that, I would have readjusted my expectations for the book.

I use Linkedin (Here's my profile) and I advocate its use, but much of the dispensed advice is focused on expanding the user base of this social networking site. So reader beware. There's overt and covert shilling between the pages. If you can get beyond that, there are a few nuggets of useful career wisdom.

One great point the authors make is that all of us should see ourselves in permanent beta. Just like software companies (at least the good ones) are always improving their products which are dubbed beta versions when in these testing/trial phases, we should also always be learning and improving ourselves.

Some people erroneously believe that with four years of a college education you're set for a fruitful and meaningful life-time career. Not only does that assume a static economy with a static workforce--and you should never assume either--it also assumes that YOU will never change. That mindset has all the trappings of a mid-life crisis. People DO change and learning new things helps keep you open to other options that might not have occurred to your eighteen-year-old self when you thumbed or clicked through the college catalog to pick a college major.

Pivoting into a new career is called A to B to Z planning, and it's another one of the books take-away points. Plan A is what its name implies. This is the career that you believe you want to be in. Plan B is a similar career and one that you could pivot into if you simply reframed your thinking--say moving from accounting to finance or web page design to search engine optimization. Plan Z is your fallback plan. What can you do should all else fail? Move back in with parents? Draw down a 401k? Those answers vary depending on where you are in your career, but having a Plan Z gives you a hedge that allows you to take calculated risks.

Finally, a lot of emphasis, and rightfully so, is placed on building and growing a professional network. That is, after all, the purpose of Linkedin. Successful people know they must nurture their professional connections because they understand the value of helping others in order to help themselves.  You never know when you'll want or need to find another position, tap into someone's expertise, or seek advice. If you are willing to offer your assistance to others, they will be more willing to offer it to you. The Golden Rule applies to business too.

None of what's in this book is hardly the fresh advice that is conjured up with the word "Start-Up." I would hope that anyone who's at least mid-career would have already learned all of it. But for recent college graduates and/or twenty-somethings, it's definitely worth reading. It might save you ten years trying to figure this out on your own.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

Outliers - It takes 10,000 hours to be one.

So often popular business books focus on trends, averages, and generalities. But Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, turned his attention away from the mass in the middle, and instead looked outward to the end of the bell curve. In statistics, the term outlier is used to mean something that lies outside of the expected range of values. Malcolm Gladwell examined what it is that makes that select few wildly successful.

Throughout the book, he asks two questions over and over: "Where are these people from?" and "When did they live?". His research creates compelling arguments that these two factors have as much to do with "unusual achievement" as the people themselves.

In addition to the so-called luck of being born at the right time in the right place, he also concludes that successful people devote a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice before they get really good at something.

In other words, the Beatles didn't just stumble onto the world stage as great performers. They came of age during a time that was ready for their wild rock-n-roll, and they had the chance to hone their craft in Hamburg, Germany playing as much as eight hours a day, seven days a week. When America watched their first performance on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964, the Beatles had already logged their prerequisite 10,000 hours of practice that would launch them into greatness.

If Bill Gates had been born a few years earlier, or if he had lived in a different city, the evolution of the personal computer would have taken a completely different path. In 1968, a 13-year-old Bill Gates joined a computer club where he accessed a time-sharing computer with a direct link to a mainframe in downtown Seattle. Gladwell argues that probably no other high school kid in America had access to so much time-share computing. He's probably right on that count since at that time, most university professors were still using punch cards.

Over the next few years, Bill Gates' interest in computers became an obsession. "In one seven-month period in 1971, Gates and his cohorts ran up 1,575 hours of computer time on the ISI mainframe, which averages out to eight hours a day, seven days a week," Gladwell writes. He was already well on his way to 10,000 hours.

Although I agree that the "Where" and "When" Gladwell uncovers are contributing factors in success, and may even be the primary ones, I don't believe he gives enough credit to the individuals. Sure the Beatles were born at the right time and place, but it was this merry band of men who relentlessly played in seedy clubs in Hamburg to perfect their craft. It was Bill Gates' inner geek that drove him to spend so many hours programming. If different people had been in the so-called right time and place, an opportunity for wild success would have no doubt been lost.

With Gladwell's engaging writing, this book is a quick read, and it's not likely one you'll read again. However, his 10,000 hour rule has become a common business reference.
Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.

The Longevity Project - Why I'll live to be 90+

For more than 40 years, Rose Wartsky managed The Rose Petal bridal shop in Tucson. Even at an age north of 90, she didn't have plans to retire. However, the sagging economy finally forced her to close the store.

To my knowledge, Rose wasn't one of the subjects of the Terman study reported in his Longevity Report, but her passion for work, and her ability to overcome adversity (she and her husband emigrated to the U.S. with nothing after WWII) easily put her into a group who would likely live a long time.

The Longevity Report started in 1921 when Dr.Louis Terman of Stanford University began a study of 1500 children to determine what led to long life. Eight decades later, this book The Longevity Project summarizes some Dr. Terman's findings.

As it turns out, longevity isn't dependent on eating certain foods and avoiding others, exercising, reducing stress, or following any of the other conventional wisdom of today. Not that those things don't have some health benefits, but those healthy traits are a result of conscientious behavior, and that's the trigger for long life.

According to the research (and subsequent related research) "the best childhood predictor of longevity was conscientiousness--the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist-professor--somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree." That means I am well on my way to seeing my 90+ birthday.



I found it especially satisfying that the findings predict that it was not "cheerfulness or having a sociable personality that predicted long life across the ensuing many decades. Certain factors were also relevant, but the prudent, dependable children lived the longest. The strength of this finding was unexpected, but it proved to be a very important and enduring one."

Another surprising finding was that working long hours, (like Rose did in her dress shop) even in a stressful job, help add years. If you take some one's well-meaning advice not to work so hard, you could be shortening your lifespan! That made me feel a LOT less guilty about working the hours that I do!

Between Trapezes - Flying into a New Life

I've been reading off and on for many months the book Between Trapezes by Gail Blanke, and I finally finished it this past week. With the uncertainty of the job market--ANY job market really, but particularly the job market of the past few years, it seemed fitting that I remind myself of what I do best, and how I really want to spend my time.

If you've ever watched a trapeze artist, you'll know there's a moment when they must let go of one trapeze in order to grab a hold of the next one. It's this illustration that provides the foundation of the book. Each chapter retells the stories of people who had found themselves between trapezes and how they managed to let go and move forward.

The author of the book, Gail Blanke, is currently the founder and president of Life Designs, but she earned her street cred as an executive at Avon. She herself has spent some time between trapezes, so she isn't just writing about other peoples' experiences but also her own.

One key take-away from the book is not to cling to the "Woe is me, life sucks!" mentality. Although circumstance might completely justify that attitude, it's impossible to change the past. You can only learn from it, grow from it, and move forward.

And strangely enough, it's those unsettling moments in life that have us questioning almost everything that can have the most profound POSITIVE impact.

Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.