Writing Wednesday - "Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives" Review

While I don't normally read fiction, I was genuinely excited to check out this book after hearing author David Eagleman speak at TEDxHouston in June of this year.

The book is a collection of 40 short stories, each about 2 - 4 pages long, where a different theory of what the afterlife might be like is described.  In one possibility, we enter an eternity where we relive our entire Earthly lives over again, except all similar events are grouped together.  You might spend 5 straight months sitting in a doctor's waiting room, before you spend the next 37 hours looking for lost keys.  In another story, we find out that humans were actually created as machines by less intelligent beings to find out the meaning of their lives, similar to how we created computers to solve our own complex problems.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Eagleman as part of the TEDxHouston Book Club.  During this meeting, the members of the group were able to ask him a variety of questions about the inspiration behind the stories.  This led to some interesting takeaways that you might not glean from reading the book alone.  First, the title "Sum" is primarily a reference to the Latin word, which means "to be", although it has a dual-meaning in the context of being the "sum of the parts" of our Earthly lives.  Dr. Eagleman originally had approximately 75 stories to include in the book, but he decided to narrow it down to the highest-impact of the stories, which was in the range of 40.  Once he realized that 40 was such an important number in various religions, he was compelled to include precisely that number of stories in the final version.

I ended up reading the entire 110 page book in a single sitting over Independence Day weekend.  The stories are intentionally sequenced in a diverse order, so I found myself excited by the premise in one story, and then saddened by the fate proposed in the next.  While the book deals with the topic of an afterlife, which is at its core a religious concept, the stories are presented in a non-dogmatic way.  This makes the theories behind the stories approachable, so I didn't find myself turned off by preachiness inherent in other religious writings, be they fiction or non-fiction.

From both an entertainment and spiritual refreshment perspective, this book truly strikes a chord in modern life.

You can purchase a copy of the book via the link below:

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

Writing Wednesday - "Rework" Review

In a rather unconventional manner, I first learned about this book by picking up a virtual copy as an item in Gowalla.  After reading some glowing reviews online & watching this lecture from David Heineimeier Hansson at Stanford, I decided $12 was worth the price of admission to hear the authors' ideas fleshed out.

Rework contains some fairly radical concepts by traditional business book standards.  Chapter titles such as "Ignore the real world", "Outside money is Plan Z", "Meetings are toxic", "Good enough is fine", and "Say no by default" are intentionally provocative, which is kind of the book's schtick.  However, that's not to say the premises are any less valid once the authors provide context.

Coming in just shy of 300 pages, you might think the book would take a while to navigate cover to cover.  I found I was able to plow through the entire thing over the course of 3 lunch breaks, though.  There are lots of hand-drawn illustrations to achieve idea impact, and creative use of white space throughout the book to ensure each concept can soak in.

Although I considered most of the book to represent solid business advice, there were five concepts that really resonated with me.

Make A Dent In The Universe:  This is what we all want, right?  Since our professional lives are finite, you need to be driven and passionate if you want to truly leave a legacy.

Ignore The Details Early On: It sounds counter-intuitive, but I think the authors are on to something.  If you become overwhelmed by the gravity of a project early on when trying to digest the details, you're more likely to lose motivation.

Interruption Is The Enemy Of Productivity: Getting into "the zone" is so important when you want to do great work.  The authors suggest cutting yourself off from the possibility of interruptions by not answering calls, IMs, or e-mails during set times of the day, and implementing No Talk periods.

Out-Teach Your Competition: When it comes to promoting your product, try teaching customers about how to use it, or about concepts related to it.  Teaching can prove to be "stickier" than advertising when it comes to customer loyalty.

Hire Great Writers: The book purports that "Writing is today's currency for good ideas."  In other words, if you're writing clearly, you're thinking clearly.  I completely agree with this, and it's one of the reasons I've started writing blog posts on a regular basis.  Writing forces you to add structure to thoughts that are bouncing around in your mind.  Once you have that structure in place, you can communicate your idea, and that's really the most important part.

Upon completing the book, I tweeted out that I thought Rework should be required reading on both the first & last day of business school.  I couldn't recommend this book as a substitute for a formal business education, but would whole-heartedly endorse it as a supplement to the curriculum.  I think it's important to get varying viewpoints of business methodology, and Rework is definitely skewed towards a smaller business.  Most of the case studies in a graduate-level business program deal with giant organizations, like Wal-Mart, FedEx, and Kodak.  If you can understand both view points, you can adopt the best strategies from each.

You can purchase a copy of the book via the link below:

"Rework" on Amazon