Leglessbird Reading guide

The four-hour work week - Timothy Ferriss

I really like this book!
It is about attitude change towards the work-life balance and pursuing passions and life goals
It is about time-management, do things efficiently and effectively, not do work for work sake.
It is about freeing yourself from a lot of unneccessary constraint such as your boss, an office, even a particular location and a lot of the time-wasting/zero value generating activities.
It is about eliminating the burdens.
It is about beating the game not just playing the game.
It is about over-coming the fears that have been stopping you from taking actions!
Most importantly, it is about getting rich in a combination of money, time, freedom and spiritual.
And the advices are actually practical, I have started applying some of the tips IMMEDIATELY!

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson (buy from Amazon) by Mitch Albom

Posted by Vivian L.

Type: Relationship Self-improvement
Author: Mitch Albom
My rating: 5

Book introduction:
'tuesdays with Morrie' is a book about Mitch Albom who got the chance to rediscover Morrie Schwartz in the last months of Morrie's life, who was once the college professor who taught him like 20 years ago. The relationship turned out to be lessons on 'how to live'. It's a real story detailing their moments shared together in the last months of the old man and how Mitch rediscovered his own life through the lessons.

My review:
I truly love this book. It touches you deeply into your heart. Being busy in our everyday life, perhaps we have already forgotten how we once were, how innocent, yet very positive and energetic about our world, things around us. As the years passed, we seem to have lost of track of our dreams, our direction in life, this book sort of awakens and inspire you in every aspect of your life. There are quite a lot of proverbs that are really enlightening. Have we ever wonder what are the important things in our life? Is it, death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society, forgiveness or a meaningful life? That worths a thought!

What Color Is Your Parachute Workbook: How to Create a Picture of Your Ideal Job or Next Career (buy from Amazon) by Richard Nelson Bolles

Type: Business Self-improvement
Author: Richard N. Bolles
My rating: 3

Posted by Dominic
Book introduction:
This book recommends some exercises and approaches to identify your ideal career. It also suggests how you can get there. You may generate some new ideas about your next move and what actions you should take now.

My review:
Though the ideas are not new, the book does give some insights on searching the desired career. Don't waste your time on paths that lead to no where, focus on your networks.

"Are you approaching your job hunt as a
LIFE-CHANGING career move?"
YOU SHOULD! But how? Spend some time to really understand yourself and devise a strategy that suits you! Also learn about the myths of job hunting.

Is there something wrong with your job hunting process? Read this example:

A typical job hunting process
1. Search on mass-internet job site
2. Read classified in newspaper
3. Contact head-hunters
4. Ask network for referral

Employer filling a position
1. Look from within his organisation
2. Ask trusted network for referral
3. Engage head-hunters
4. Advertise in newspaper or mass job site

So you see how a typical job hunting process is out of step to the employers' procedure in finding talents. Many people waste precious time in endless search on mass jobs site and classified AND they convince themselves that they are making good progress by browsing a long list of job openings that match their so called "keywords". Instead they should catch the jobs at a much earlier stage - the "Network referral" stage. Not only you are able to catch the better jobs, you actually have a higher chance of finding the RIGHT job! - Because, your network has done the screening for you and your prospective employers, not to mention the important "trust" element in a referral.

Isn't it time you adopt the correct approach? I wish you every success!

Who Moved My Cheese? (buy from Amazon) by Spencer Johnson
Posted by irene

Type: Self-improvement
Author: Spencer Johnson
My rating: 3
Book introduction:
A story of rat finding cheese to imply our changes in life.

My review:
Encouraging to how we handle changes in life

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (buy from Amazon) by Stephen R. Covey

Type: Self-improvement
Author: Stephen R. Covey
My rating: 5

Book introduction:
What's the secret of succeeful people? Being "Highly effective". Stephen Covey concludes that it can be summarised in 7 habits that these people keep practicing through their business and personal life. And the 7 habits are divided into 3 stages. Before that we must learn that everyone has a different perspective or paradigm of his/her world, we must also learn to respect and appreciate other people's paradigm. Paradigm change is a very powerful event that can allow us to approach things in a fresh and better angles.

Now the 3 stages of dependencies...

Stage 1: Dependant
When we are still a "Dependant", we need support from others. We need to prepare to change ourselves into "Independant" people, so we are able to take care of ourselves.

Habit 1: Proactive
Don't sit around, be proactive in what you pursue and what you need to accomplish.

Habit 2: Start with the end in mind
Think clearly what the end result you are trying achieve before you start doing it.

Habit 3: First thing first
Priorities "to-do" things by "Urgent/Not Urgent", "Important/Not Important". Focus on "Not Urgent and Important" things (thus fewer and fewer items will fall into the "Urgent and Important" category).

Full story »

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff--and it's all small stuff (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Series) (buy from Amazon) by Richard Carlson
Type: Self-improvement
Author: Richard Carlson
My rating: 3

Posted by Dominic
Book introduction:
100 tips on how to calm your self and take life easy

My review:
Easy reading that offer some useful tips. You can read a few tips a day.

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist (Helix Books) (buy from Amazon) by Richard Phillips Feynman
Type: Self-improvement Science Leisure
Author: Richard Feynman
My rating: 5
Book introduction:
A collection of the seminar notes of Prof. Richard Feynman letures on the meaning/definition of science, how to be scientific, what is unscientific, how to keep pushing the research front, the conflict between benefit that science brings and the potential damages that it caused; between science/religious and between science/politics.

My review:
Well written and delivered seminar. I particularly enjoyed reading the conflict between science and religious, how religious can be defined into 3-parts

Meta-physics: Who we are and how we come about.

Ethic: How we should behave

Spirtual: Meta-physics and ethic alone are not enough to pursuade people to behave, we need a spirtual link to inspire people to behave as defined in ethic part of religious.

He further explained how meta-physics has been challenged many many times and has been modified, such as how man came to this earth, how the Sun didn't go round earth. How ethic has been upheld most of the time. The link meta-physics and spritual means that each time meta-physics is shaken, the spirtual part is shaken also.

Science Vs. politics:
Voters want to hear someone to tell them a "solution" instead of someone to tell them ways to find a practical solution. Politicians end up promising unachieveable goals/solutions and end up being called liars, and people have lost trust in politicians and they seek a new "liar" to tell them lies. This is very unscientific as Prof. Feynman puts it.

Prof. Feynman has also defined what it means to be scientific, and how people today have been very unscientific in many many ways.

Very interesting reading and it helps you to solve problems and everyday tasks in the scientific way. Highly recommended.

Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types (buy from Amazon) by Marilyn Bates
Type: Self-improvement
Author: David Keirsey, Marilyn Bates
My rating: 4
Book introduction:
This book attempts to classify people along 4 preferences (with 2 possibilities in each preferences), hence 16 types of character. The 4 preference pairs are:
- Extraversion Vs Introversion
- Intuition Vs Sensation
- Thinking Vs Feeling
- Judging Vs Perceiving
How do different group of people interact? What are the sources of misunderstanding? How can people communicate better?

My review:
I was given this book during a McKinsey training on people's skills. This is an interesting book. We did a test to find out our own preferences and we played some games to illustrate how we interact and ways to improve team communication and dynamics. It made us more aware/sensitive to other people's preference too.

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (buy from Amazon) by Howard C. Cutler

Type: Self-improvement
Author: Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler
My rating: 3

Posted by Dominic
Book introduction:
A Dalai Lama's view on happiness and how to achieve it with Howard Cutler adding his own intepretation.

My review:
The book suggests the purpose of life is to seek happiness, the true kind of happiness is not the selfish kind and true happiness can be inspiring to other people. It has some suggestion on how one can achieve happiness by becoming more compassionate. Prety interesting views and with some analysis on factors that affect happiness i.e. why people are not happy at times.

Stand Out! Branding Strategies for Business Professionals (buy from Amazon) by Simon Vetter
Type: Business Self-improvement
Author: Simon Vetter
My rating: 2
Book introduction:
This book is about personal branding strategies for Business Professionals. Learning from the case studies of some of the world's most successful speakers, independent professionals.

My review:
Interesting collection of cases and invaluable lessons, I'm trying to incorporate these ideas in everyday life. It is sometimes not very obvious how you can do the same