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When I saw this book a couple of years ago, I bought it because I know how important it is to ask the right questions to get the answers that you are looking for. I was in a rush so I grabbed the book without reading the back to see what it was about. Because I was in such a rush, I didn’t notice the subtitle, all I saw was THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. I think that the book should be titled “How to Make the Right Choices.” Even though the book wasn’t what I expected, I still enjoyed it.

What Are The Ten Questions?

1. Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?
2. Will this choice bring me long-term fulfillment or will it bring me short-term gratification?
3. Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?
4. Am I looking for what’s right or am I looking for what’s wrong?
5. Will this choice add to my life force or will it rob me of my energy?
6. Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?
7. Does this choice empower me or does it disempower me?
8. Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?
9. Is this an act of faith or is it an act of fear?

10. Am I choosing from my divinity or am I choosing from my humanity?

According to Debbie Ford, “These questions supply you with the wisdom you need to make what was previously unconscious, conscious, so that you can choose with all the power that comes from being fully aware.”

Let’s focus on question six, “Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?” Ford suggests that every person and situation in our lives is “behaving in exactly the way we need them to at every moment in time.” This concept would be difficult for most people to understand and accept. However, she further adds, which I agree with, that we look at the situation with perspective and ask ourselves what can we learn, and how can we use this to evolve. I would ask what opportunities exist in the situation.

Five Great Ideas

1. The quality of our choices will dictate whether we will struggle in frustration or live an extraordinary life… Choice allows us to pick, to select, to decide between paths. To go right or left. To move forward or backward, be happy or sad, loving or hateful, satisfied or discontent. Choice gives us the power to be successful or unfulfilled, to be good or great, to feel pleasure or pain
2. We are where we are because of repeated unconscious or unhealthy choices that we’ve made day after day that add up to the reality we find ourselves in. if we want to understand why and how we created our present reality, all we need to do is look at the choices we made in the past… Our futures are determined by the choices we are making in this moment… If we want our lives to be different, all we have to do is make different choice
3. We’ve all been blessed with free will, which provides us with the power to choose how we react to our experiences in life
4. Faith invites us to believe in something we cannot see, feel, or know. Fear destroys dreams and exterminates possibilities… Our fears cause us to hold on to habits and behaviours that no longer serve us
5. The ability to rationalize behaviour that goes against what we truly want might be our biggest curse because it makes us masters at justifying our actions

What are your thoughts? How do you anticipate where your “puck” is going to land? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

The book review first appeared in Ambeck Edge June 2006

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I read and reviewed The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran in 2006 because two of the interviewees in my book Tales of People Who Get It indicated that this was the one book that had a profound impact on their lives. I read the book trying to understand their point of views.

First published in 1923, The Prophet is a compilation of 26 poetic essays that deal with love, marriage, giving, work, joy and sorrow, buying and selling, laws, freedom, reason and passion, self-knowledge, talking, pleasure, death and so much more. It’s beautifully written in very simple, poetic language.

The book starts off with Almustafa, the “chosen and beloved” one who has been living in a foreign country, Orphalese, where the people have embraced him for the past 12 years. His ship has returned and he must return to the land of his birth. He is saddened, but he knows that he must leave. Gibran’s genius comes out in the simplicity of his writing.

Almustafa asks, “How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.”

Almitra the “seeress,” the first one to embrace him when he first arrived in Orphalese, understands that he must depart. She senses his deep longing to return to his roots, but before he leaves she wants him to impart some of his wisdom. Almitra asks, “Speak to us of Love.” He responds:

“When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden… And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course…”

Various people in the community ask him to talk about various things, which result in the 26 poetic essays, which are Almustafa’s responses. The book imparts words of wisdom, some of which are outlined below.

Words of Wisdom

On joy and sorrow: Your joy is your sorrow unleashed

On work: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth… And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life

On giving: You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. For what are your possessions but things you guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

On buying and selling: It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger

On self-knowledge: Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge

YouTube video of The Prophet

If you cannot view the YouTube video of The Prophet click here.

Though The Prophet was first published over eight decades ago, anyone can find something that’s of relevance to them today. I enjoyed this book and I was able to see how this book could have a major influence on someone’s life. I would like to add that some of the most successful leaders have relied on poetry to inspire them, and they have learned incredible lessons in the process. I recommend The Prophet.

What are your thoughts on reading poetry? What inspires you? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

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• HW Bio: Kahlil Gibran the Prophet (harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)

Ambeck Edge, October 2006

Like all the other Skinny On books, I received The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers by Jim Randel to review. The objective of The Skinny On series of books is to provide concentrated learning by extensively researching a topic, distilling the salient facts, and presenting them in a “progression of drawings, dialogue and text intended to convey information in a concise fashion. The book which can be read in less than two hours is presented in slides, two to a page, and 267 of them.

Networking is an important topic because success, happiness and personal fulfillment depend on the quality of your relationships. I consider The Skinny On Networking a good introduction to networking. I do no think that it’s possible to learn everything about networking, even the most important aspects from one book. Jim Randel highlighted some important aspects of networking that many would not think about. I have included some of these important points.

According to Randel, The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers is “about creating and maintaining your network.” And his definition for networking is “developing and utilizing relationships with other people…it is any activity that helps you to develop relationships with others…and is about increasing depth and breadth as a person…Successful networking entails identifying and asking your WHO to help you meet your WHAT.” The author includes 10 activities to clarify and support what he means by networking.

1. Staying in touch with people you have already met
2. Meeting new people
3. Doing research to find the person(s) who can assist you
4. Using online resources to identify someone you know who knows someone you want to meet
5. Increasing social capital
6. Entertaining and helping others – creating a desire for reciprocity
7. Building positive word of mouth
8. Marketing your expertise
9. Joining groups that foster natural connections
10. Asking for introductions and referrals

To achieve astounding success in life requires the use of your human capital (knowledge, skills, expertise and experience) as well as your social capital (the resources you have access to through your personal and professional networks). You create social capital by establishing, building and nurturing relationships. It’s important to invest in the relationship by giving something of value to the person before you start to make withdrawals by making requests. The longer you have known someone and the more time you have spent investing in the relationship, the more social capital you have created with them. Building social capital is a lifelong activity, and it’s also important to build social capital before you need it. You can lose social capital by asking for too much too soon.

Steps to Successful Networking

1. Tap into family, friends and acquaintances because they have connections that you are not aware of
2. Always be specific about what you want so that the person knows exactly what is required of them, and always give them an out just in case they may be uncomfortable filling your request
3. When making a request, make it clear that you are willing to reciprocate when they require your assistance
4. Use all tools available to you, both offline and online (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook)
5. Successful and savvy networking is very hard so make it an ongoing process
6. If you are shy or an introvert, use a connector to help you connect to people you’d like to meet
7. Create diverse networks of people, some who are very different from you – step outside your comfort zone
8. When you meet someone, put the spotlight on them, most people like to talk about themselves so give them the opportunity, and listen to what they are saying
9. Within 24 hours of meeting someone who you find interesting, make notes about them: how you met her, what she does, what you learned about her during the conversation
10. Keep in contact with your networks

Most of us, including myself know about popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but Randel includes four others that I have never heard of. I recommend that you read The Skinny On Networking: Maximizing the Power of Numbers, but keep in mind that it’s a very good introduction so you will not learn everything about networking. Despite the size of the book, you will pick up a few tips like I did. As usual, Jim Randel includes the books he referenced, as well as some quotes from them. The inclusion of books referenced throughout the Skinny On series of books makes it easy to decide which other books to read on the subject matter.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Note: The copy of The Skinny on Networking that I received is a pre-publication copy.

Additional Resources to Assist With Online Networking

Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work for You

Use LinkedIn Effectively

Write Your LinkedIn Profile for the Future

If you are a blogger, Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn

50 Power Twitter Tips

My Best Twitter Advice

How to Prospect Using Combined Power of LinkedIn and Twitter

The Skinny On The Art of Persuasion by Jim Randel is part of the Skinny On series of books, which are designed  and written for the time-strapped professional looking for more than surface level knowledge on a particular subject. The reader can consume and digest any of these books in less than two hours.

I received a copy of The Skinny On The Art of Persuasion to review. Persuasion is defined as “the act of convincing, influencing and inducing.” Based on Jim Randel and his team’s extensive research, they conclude that the ability to persuade is an acquired skill, that means it’s teachable, but, “good persuaders understand that persuasiveness is an art…that to be effective, they must have a sense of dimension and, of nuance. If you push people too hard, they will instinctively pull back.”

The author points out that there is a fine line between persuasion and manipulation. He cited from Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want by Dave Lakhani, “Manipulation is inwardly focused on the outcome for the person doing the manipulation. Persuasion is externally focused on developing a win-win outcome where everyone’s needs are met.”

There are 10 Rules of Persuasion

1. Connect with the person you are trying to persuade. Mirror them so they feel comfortable around you.
2. Prepare extensively before you utter a word. Think about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it
   1. The more you prepare the more comfortable you will feel and act
   2. The more prepared you are, the better able you will be to control your listener’s thought processes
   3. The more prepared you are, the better able you are to determine what you can and cannot do during the “persuasion” and you will know when to stop talking
3. Learn to listen and watch. People love it when they feel like they are being listened to and heard. You will also be able to pick up verbal and non-verbal cues
4. Create a feeling of scarcity – people want what they cannot have
5. Do not confuse the familiar with the universal. Because a way of thinking or belief may be familiar to you, it is not necessarily universal to everyone, so be mindful of that. People strive to be consistent in their behaviours
6. People do not like to feel indebted so they will find a way to reciprocate
7. People often take shortcuts when making decisions. They often make decisions in relation to something else, something familiar. People are often operate on automatic pilot
8. People follow crowds, celebrities,  and authorities
9. People often make decisions based on emotions
10. Persuasiveness is about integrity

Rule 10 is particularly important to Jim Randel. He relates an experience he had 30 years ago when he was into flipping real estate. There was a fire and he knew there were often fire sales, so he went to where the fire was. He realized that the owner had died as the EMTs were wheeling the elderly man away. Jim rushed to city hall and learned that the dead man had a daughter living in the Midwest. Later that evening he called the daughter to get information on who would be handing the sale of the house. It was that instant that the woman discovered that her dad died in a house fire.

I winced when I read this, and I understood. I have never done anything like this, but I’m sure that I have offended others because I responded too quickly without thinking things through. I realize that we so often want to win so badly that we do not stop to consider how our actions might impact another. According to Randel, “In my rush to succeed, I lost sight of basic human compassion and decency.” To me this was the most important point in the book. If we think of people compassionately, we will think before we act, and we will strive for a win/win outcome and not cross the line and attempt to manipulate others.

I recommend The Skinny On The Art of Persuasion. Below is a list of the books mentioned in the Skinny On The Art of Persuasion.

Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game, Kevin Hogan and James Speakman

Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion, Kurt W. Mortensen

The Magic of Rapport, Richardson and Margulis

Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want, Dave Lakhani

How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie

The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Brian Tracy

How to Do Tricks with Cards, Bill Turner

The Art of Cross-Examination, Francis Wellman

People Skills, Robert Bolton

The Definitive Book of Body Language, Allan and Barbara Pease

Body Language, Julius Fast

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman

Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein

How to Master the Art of Selling, Tom Hopkins

How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely

Irrational Exuberance, Robert Shiller

The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell

The One Minute Salesperson, Spencer Johnson

True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence, Tom Morris

What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

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The publishers of The Skinny on Series sent The Skinny on Willpower: How to Develop Self-discipline, The Skinny on the Art of Persuasion and The Skinny on Networking for me to review. In previous blog posts, I reviewed The Skinny on Success and The Skinny on Time Management. The objective of The Skinny On series of books is to provide concentrated learning by extensively researching a topic, distilling the salient facts, and presenting them in a “progression of drawings, dialogue and text intended to convey information in a concise fashion.

You can easily read this book in less than two hours and at end of The Skinny of Willpower, the author Jim Randel provides a 15-Point Plan for improving your willpower which is quite helpful. As I have said in previous reviews of The Skinny On series, and I will mention it again, the reason why I do not like the books is why most people will love them. Though Jim Randel does a good job of summarizing the topic, and the series is a response to the fast-paced world we live in, I feel like he is spoon feeding the reader. I am detailed oriented so I like to read and distil information for myself. However, I recognize that not everyone can do that or is willing to expend the time and effort.

Now having said that, the author provides a bibliography for people like me to read further about the topic, and throughout the book, he has the names of the books that he referenced for information on willpower.

Willpower is defined as “the strength to act, or forbear from acting in the pursuit of a goal – is a critical determinant to success… [It is] the effort needed to get going in a forward motion.” Jim Randel is qualified to write The Skinny on Willpower because he and his team spent countless hours reading and listening to everything they could find on willpower, searching online for insights, as well as speaking to professors and researchers and interviewing highly accomplished people.

As outlined in the book, to achieve your goal you have to be very specific about what you’d like to accomplish and be committed to yourself in attaining your goal – you have to have a real hunger, and the “why” underlying the goal achievement drives the how. Additionally it’s important to break the goal into bite-sized pieces so that you do not become overwhelmed, and when you have negative thoughts in your mind about your goal, it’s good to have a response to get you through that moment to eject all thoughts of negativism, and find the strength deep within you to work on achieving your goal.

Randel identifies three steps you need to take to keep you focused on your goal.

1. Take your temperature – how badly do you want it
2. Set realistic expectation – the best things in life seldom come easily
3. Don’t compare yourself to others – it’s what you think about you that really matters, be in it for the long haul

Here are the author’s 15 points for improving willpower and self-discipline:

1. Be sure you are totally committed
2. Prepare yourself for a difficult journey
3. Prepare for your challenges by reducing the instances in which you will exert willpower
4. Identify your goal and the process to get there in as concrete, specific and finite terms as possible
5. Divide your challenge into small manageable pieces
6. Maintain vigilance over your thoughts
7. Control your dominant thoughts
8. Frame your challenges in a pleasurable, not painful manner
9. Pick your spots
10. Force yourself to visualize the end of a succession of “either/or” choices
11. You really have more willpower than you realize
12. The more you use your willpower, the more confidence and strength you have for new challenges
13. Turn positive activity into habits
14. Self-discipline is not self-deprivation
15. Strong willpower can take you to new heights in life.

The 15-points listed above for improving your willpower and self-discipline is a good summary for you to refer to after you have read The Skinny on Willpower which I recommend because my goal is to help you succeed. I also recommend that you revisit my blog post on the Einstein Distraction Index – it will strengthen your resolve against giving in, and I also recommend that you create a mind movie which is a sequence of photos, and mantras that represent what you are trying to accomplish, accompanied with music that uplifts you and make you happy. Having willpower is often what separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

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I am interested in ancient wisdom and constantly looking for books written centuries ago to explore my idea that we can use yesterday’s concepts to solve today’s problems. I wanted a source where an author distilled the works of others. And that’s why I bought and read Books That Changed The World: The 50 Most Influential Books in History by Andrew Taylor. I appreciate that most of the books he focused on were published over five decades ago – only three books were written less that five decades ago: Silent Springs (1962), Quotations from Chairman Mao (1964), and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). And the earliest work is The Iliad (8^th Century BC).

Andrew Taylor introduces readers to many books that they probably would not know about. In Books That Changed The World, he presents a summary of the work he is discussing, but he also talks about other major works by the author, who influenced them, what was happening in society when the book was written, in other words he provides context for the book. After reading the summaries you can easily determine which book you’d actually want to read, and for me that was very important. And in many of the works presented, if you are paying attention, you discover new processes and systems that you can use in your life.

In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler says there are three reasons to read a book: for entertainment, information and to further knowledge. I had two objectives for reading Books That Changed the World, for information and to further my knowledge, and I was not disappointed. If you haven’t done so already, please read yesterday’s post, Three Steps to Claim Legitimacy for Your Work which uses this book to demonstrate a point.

I was surprised to find The Telephone Directory (1878) included among the 50 books, but after you read the summary you clearly understand why. “The telephone also created an occasion for the technology of communication to join with a much old[er] technology – print. Subscribers to the new telephone services needed to know how to contact other subscribers – otherwise the new invention would be little more than a toy. Hence the publication of the first telephone directory, called simply The Telephone Directory [by New Haven District Telephone Company].”

I enjoyed reading, and really appreciated Books That Changed The World because I learned who introduced or legitimized the fields of history, geography, medicine and so on and it was nice to be in-the-know with classics such as Canterbury Tales, Madame Bovary, Moby Dick… Based on what I learned after reading Books That Changed The World, some of the books I plan to scan or read (some of them are too long to read) are:

• The Histories, Herodotus (5^th Century BC)
• Odes, Horace (23 – 13 BC)
• Geographia, Ptolemy (C.AD 100 – 170)
• Canon of Medicine, Avicenna (1025)
• Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (1605 – 15)
• Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo Galilei (1632)
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville (1851)
• Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (1857)
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes (1936)

I recommend Books That Changed The World: The 50 Most Influential Books in History by Andrew Taylor.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Published in 1913, Bunker Bean is one of the many novels Harry Leon Wilson wrote during his writing career which spanned over decades. Bunker Bean – adapted into film three times: 1918, 1925 and 1936 – has an amazing start which many of us can relate to, “Bunker Bean was wishing he could be different. This discontent with himself was suffered in a moment of idleness as he sat at a desk on a high floor of a very high office-building in “downtown” New York. The first correction he would have made was that he should be “well over six feet” tall. He had observed that this was the accepted stature for a hero,” because most of us are never happy with the hand we’ve been dealt in life.

I must admit that this was my second attempt reading this book. Let me explain, I am an active reader so I interact with the words on the page, which is good most of the time, but other times I get so caught up with what’s unfolding in the story that it stresses me out. I found Bunker Bean to be a character who really stressed me out and I wondered if people were that naive. Bunker Bean was recommended to me a few years ago so I decided to give it another shot – and I am glad I did. There are many lessons interspersed throughout the novel.

Harry Leon Wilson is very skilled at his craft, and the book is very well written. There were a few times while reading that I found the text difficult, and those were the times when the characters spoke in very bad and weird English (couldn’t figure out what kind of dialect they would have in the United States, even if it was the early 20th century), which stretched my imagination more than I liked in trying to figure out exactly what they were saying.

Bunker Bean’s mother was very elitist and believed that she had married beneath her. She was ridiculously strict with Bunker and did not nurture or encourage him in any way. She constantly criticized and corrected him and I suppose in that environment after a while you would think that you cannot do anything right. Though his mother died a few days after the birth of her second son when Bunker was seven, he grew up to be a very timid and fearful adult. Despite being very timid and fearful, he criticized others quite severely, but did so behind their backs: either in writing that would never see the light of day, or in his head, quite safe ways.

After graduating from business college with a specialty in stenography and typewriting, his first job was with “a noble-looking old man, white-bearded, and vast of brow… He was a believer in the cult of theosophy and specialized on reincarnation. [Bean] learned that the old gentleman was writing a book and would need an amanuensis. They agreed upon terms and the work began. The book was a romance entitled, “Glimpses Through the Veil of Time,” and it was to tell of a soul’s adventures through a prolonged series of reincarnations.”

This encounter sparked an interest in Bean to learn about his past lives, but he didn’t act on it until a few years later when he saw an advertisement in the newspaper placed by Countess Casanova, Clairvoyant … Clairaudient…Psychometric. Bunker Bean went to see Countess Casanova and learned that he was Napoleon Bonaparte in a previous life. He enjoyed reading, so he scanned his memory banks, and brought up, “A Corsican upstart, an assassin, no gentleman!… Emperor of France.” After his psychic consultation, he studied Napoleon and the more he studied the more distressed he became so he decided to consult Countess Casanova again – he wanted to know who he was before Napoleon.

On his second visit, the Countess realized that she was in over her head, so she called on her sidekick Professor Balthasar, and offered to split her $20. Shortly after the Professor arrives he goes into a trance-like state, and the dialog is quite amusing.

“What is this? A statesman, still crafty, still the lines of cunning cruelty about the mouth. The city is Venice in the fourteenth century. He is dressed in a richly bejewelled robe and toys with an inlaid dagger. He is plotting the assassination of a Doge—”

“Please get still farther back, can’t you?” pleaded Bean.

The seer struggled once more with his control.

“I next see you at the head of a Roman legion, going forth to battle. You are a tyrant, ruling by fear alone, and with your own sword I see you cut off the heads of—”

“Farther back,” beseeched the sitter. “I—I’ve had enough of all that battle and killing. I—I don’t like it. Go on back to the very first.”

Patiently the adept redirected his forces.

“I see a poet. He sings his deathless lay by a roadside in ancient Greece. He is an old man, feeble, blind—”

“Something else,” broke in the persistent sitter, resolving not to pay twenty dollars for having been a blind poet.

The professor glanced sharply at him. Perhaps his control did not relish these interruptions. He seemed to suppress words of impatience and began anew.

“Ah! Now I see your very first appearance on this planet. You were born from another as yet unknown to our astronomers. You are now”—he lowered his eyes to the sitter’s face—”an Egyptian king.”

Detecting no sign of displeasure at this, he continued with refreshed enthusiasm.

“It is thousands of years ago. You are the last king of the pre-dynastic era—”

Bunker Bean liked the idea of having been Ram-tah, an Egyptian in one of his previous lives. He was transformed, and started to think and act like a king. After his second visit to Countess Casanova, Bunker Bean inherited $10,000 with $7,000 more to come. He wasted $5,000 trying to secure the mummified remains of King Ran-tah. To gather strength, Bunker consulted what he thought was King Ram-tah, and acted courageously. As part of the money he received, he got 50 shares in the Federal Express Company. Some of his co-workers, his boss and the board of directors of Federal Express pressured him into selling his shares. He acquiesced, then snuck out of the office, used the funds he received from the sale of the shares and bought a much larger amount of shares, and ended up with close to $400,000. The joke was now on those who tried to use him for their gain.

One day, he accidentally discovered that he’d been duped by Countess Casanova and Professor Balthasar, and what he thought was the mummified remains of King Ram-tah was actually papier-mâché. His newfound way of life quietly slipped away and he reverted to his old timid and fearful self. Fortunately for Bunker, someone he met soon after, kept on saying to him, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!” Bunker thought about these words and their meaning, and one day he finally got it.

Bunker Bean by Harry Leon Wilson highlights the dangers of seeking satisfaction in things outside of yourself, it also demonstrates what can happen when you are desperate, and when you try to be something you are not. These are the key lessons for me, and I am sure that you will have your own lessons. I recommend Bunker Bean and you can get an electronic copy by clicking here.

How can you use this information? What are the nuggets of brilliance and wisdom? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Further Reading

Napoleon Bonaparte: 7 Lessons from a Despot

The summer is here and it’s the time when most people get caught up on their reading. Why do you read? Do you read for entertainment, for information, or for knowledge? How often do you read a book? What kinds of books do you read? Do you read books that stretch and grow your mind?

What would you do if you were offered $5 billion to stay on a deserted island for five years with only some articles and 15 books? You wouldn’t have access to any modern day technology such as the radio, television, telephone, PDA, iPod, iPhone – nothing. Which books would you take? Which books would you be willing to read over and over? And if you had access only to the internet, how would your choices change?

Years ago while studying the program “Lead the Field,” Earl Nightingale stressed the importance of learning and growing. He suggested that we read a book a week and learn a word a day. Do you think that’s good advice, and relevant today?

I mastered reading a book a week, and now I try to read two books a week since I write book reviews for the Invisible Mentor Blog. I subscribe to two vocabulary builder websites that email me a word every morning. I also purchased a vocabulary builder system. How easy is it for you to expand your vocabulary by a word a day?

The book Superlearning 2000 suggests that the best way to learn words is to hear them on a tape, while playing 60 beats per minute baroque music in the background. Even though I wasn’t exposed to a lot of classical music while growing up, like most things, the more you are exposed to them, the more comfortable you become with them. I now play baroque music while I do my work, and I have noticed that it has a calming effect, while heightening my alertness. What about you, what type of music heightens your awareness?

YouTube video of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons

If you cannot view the YouTube video of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, click here.

The interesting thing is that you notice the difference in your writing when words pop into your head and you suddenly realize that your efforts to expand your vocabulary are not in vain.

If you do not read many books and are wondering how you can read a book a week as suggested by Earl Nightingale, perhaps, the best place to start is by reading How to Read a Book. And, say for instance, at work you are working on a project which requires you to amass large amounts of data on a specific topic, how do you read through all that information? You would read syntopically to be more effective. All this and more is covered in How to Read a Book.

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren was originally written in 1940 and updated in 1972. It’s packed with lots of useful information, and it isn’t the type of book you read once. It functions best as a reference book and you would find it beneficial to discuss the contents with a group of people to fully grasp and make use of the wealth of knowledge that it contains.

The stated primary goal of How to Read a Book is to “know how to make books teach us well” if we are open to continuous learning and discovering. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren define the art of reading as “The process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more…” Adler and Van Doren suggest that before reading a book you should decide if you are reading for entertainment, information or for the sake of understanding. Making this kind of distinction determines how you would read the book.

The authors describe four levels of reading – Elementary Reading, Inspectional Reading, Analytical Reading and Syntopical Reading. Elementary Reading is the level of reading that you learn in elementary school. There are two types of inspectional reading, (1) systematic skimming or pre-reading and (2) superficial reading. With inspectional reading, the emphasis is on time – getting the most out of a book within a short time frame (this is ideal for students who have to complete assignments in a specified period of time). Analytical Reading deals with classifying the book, coming to terms with it, determining the book’s message, criticizing the book and the author. Analytical reading is a very active type of reading. And finally, syntopical reading or comparative reading, the most complex form of reading, is the reading of multiple books on the same subject and placing them in relation to each other.

If you actively read a book, you should be able to answer the following questions – (1) what is the book about? (2) What is being said in detail, and how? (3) Is the book true, in whole or in part? (4) What of it? If you are able to answer these questions, you truly understand what the author is trying to say.

Adler and Van Doren suggest that if you are reading to become a better reader, or in other words reading for understanding and enlightenment, you cannot read just any article or book. You must read material that stretches and grows your mind.

I recommend this book, but be prepared to read it at least twice to get the most out of it. This extra effort will save you lots of time later when you are using the information to read other books.

Book List

How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren

Superlearning 2000, Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder with Nancy Ostrander

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I am always interested in rags-to-riches stories to discover how people attain personal and professional success. And more importantly, I want to know if  they are worthy of admiration, how did they treat their family and friends? How did they treat their staff? What moral compass guides them? Did they give back to their community? Would I want to study them, the way Napoleon Hill studied his invisible counselors. What kind of invisible mentors would they make? Are they unique leaders who we can learn from by studying them?

I have never met Ed Mirvish, but I have attended theatre performances at his theatres – The Lion King, Sound of Music – and I have eaten at his restaurants. Every Christmas season he gave out turkeys, and many would stand in line to receive their turkey. He also had door crasher specials and many customers stood in line, rain or shine for the Honest Ed store to open. This man gave back to his community. He did many outrageous acts and secured a lot of free publicity.

Honest Ed Mirvish’s story is a real rags-to-riches one. He was born in poverty in Baltimore, US in 1914, and came to Toronto, Canada at age nine, when his father David Mirvish thought that he would fare better selling The Encyclopedias of Freemasonry in this untapped territory. Ed’s father didn’t have the Midas Touch, and even though he owned a business for most of his life, he was not an entrepreneur, and didn’t understand that operating a business required a lot more that dreaming. He didn’t understand that he couldn’t consistently write off receivables because clients couldn’t pay – he had too many customers who needed his ware, but couldn’t pay for it. As dirty as it may sound, you go into business to make money. Yes service is important, but you have to price your products at the right price and you have to get paid. Ed Mirvish learned these potent lessons that went right over his father’s head.

In How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate or 121 Lessons I Never Learned in School, an autobiography of Honest Ed Mirvish’s life, you learn these lessons and much more. Honest Ed, like countless others who achieved spectacular success, did not have a lot of formal education – he dropped out of high school out of necessity to work in the family’s grocery store – but he excelled in the school of life. How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate is in two sections. In section one, Ed tells his life story in the usual manner, and in section two he tells his story by using 121 lessons that he learned. Published in the early 1990s, some of the businesses mentioned in How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate are no longer around. I went on a little excursion and took photographs of the businesses that helped to make Ed very wealthy. I have created a little slide show for the fun of it.

Yes, Ed Mirvish was very lucky, and he admitted that in his autobiography, but he deserves a lot of respect, and we can truly learn from him. In the book you see this fearless, entrepreneurial, business savvy person who is willing to go against the grain. What he does often defies logic, and what we are taught -  to only go into a business that we know about.  Ed went into the restaurant and theatre businesses which he knew nothing about, and excelled at them.

“Thousands of teenage country girls were streaming into Toronto to build parachutes, fighter planes, and bombs in the war plants. For the first time ever, they had money to spend on smart dresses. And they spent.” Ed used this information to his advantage. Because the girls had money to spend freely, Ed allowed them to buy on credit while other retailers accepted cash only. Ed’s way of thinking was if the girls were allowed to buy things on credit, they would buy more which they did, and they didn’t default on payment because money was flowing to them. Ed also sold the payment contracts to Mutual Discount Company. When the girls came in on Fridays to make payments, he told them but they didn’t care who received their payments, but this allowed him to sell more when they saw all the new dresses.

Eventually, other retailers switched to allowing these girls to buy on credit, and Ed switched to cash because by that time the war was ending, and many of these girls would no longer have jobs, and would likely default on their payments – he had great foresight. The potent lesson here is to look at what’s going on in your environment, and “the devil is in the details.”

5 Great Ideas

1. When opportunities come knocking, make sure you recognize them and open the door.
2. To stand out, go against the grain and do the opposite of what others are doing.
3. If you want to learn a craft, study the masters, then personalize, and put your unique touch to what you’ve learned.
4. Study your environment to predict what trends will unfold.
5. Fail fast to success.

15 Lessons from Honest Ed Mirvish

1. No matter how attractive the substitute, you must always give patrons what they PAY for.
2. We own nothing! We are all just custodians and caretakers.
3. To be of service IS to be happy. What else brings greater satisfaction?
4. People would soon suffer than change old habits.
5. Before you jump into anything BIG always check the DETAILS first.
6. It may be good, but it can always be better.
7. Listen to your instincts and follow your convictions.
8. Traditional methods aren’t always the best. Improvisation often pays off.
9. Sheer ignorance sometimes beats experience. But you can’t succeed if you don’t try.
10. Beware of experts who insist it can’t be done!
11. Dreams alone don’t run a business.
12. To have the right influences in your life is fortunate. They all pay off in the end.
13. Adverse publicity can often be a bonus – if acted on instantly.
14. Experiment! If it works, stick with it. If it doesn’t move on!
15. Anything you do to INVOLVE your customers keeps them involved with YOU!

I enjoyed reading How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate and learned a tremendous deal from someone who has the Midas Touch. As you read the autobiography you see Ed’s evolution as a businessman, and he builds on each success until he has an empire. He never stood still and How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate is the perfect example of where initial small steps can take you. Though Ed Mirvish had many successes, he also had several failures, but what he did was fail fast. It’s not where you start in life that really matters, it’s where you end up. I recommend How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate.

Here is a slideshow of Honest Eds store, Mirvish Village, which is essentially an artist colony, The Princess of Wales and Royal Alexandra Theatres. If you cannot view the slideshow please click here.

What are 10 takeaways from the book? What ideas can you adapt immediately? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Google via Apture

All book link are affiliate links.

I read and reviewed The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli over five hundred years ago. And, it always amazes me how some books that are timeless classics are still relevant today. The Prince is one such book. I firmly believe we can use some of yesterday’s ideas to solve today’s problems if we step back in time a take and look at some of those classics. For those who like videos, I’ve found some YouTube Videos created by AntiGroupThink, which I have included.

After you have read The Prince for yourself, or at the very least watch the five short YouTube videos, ask and answer the following  three questions:

1. Does the end ever justify the means? And if yes, in what situations?
2. How do you get power and how do you keep it?
3. Is power the end all and be all?

Niccolo Machiavelli worked in politics from 1498 to 1512, but his political career ended in shame, with him being arrested and imprisoned for 22 days. Machiavelli refers to Lorenzo Medici as the Prince. In his forced absence from politics, Machiavelli wrote The Prince hoping that given his republican credentials, he would be re-employed with the Medicis, thus returning to a position of power.

The Prince was written nearly 500 years ago, but some of the ideas are still relevant today. In The Prince, Machiavelli deals with the rise and fall of states, and the measures that a leader can take to ensure the states’ continued existence. The author’s focus is on how societies actually work. The book is very technical, and focuses on how to grasp and hold power, and offers advice on what worked and what did not work in advancing a political career.

For example, Machiavelli states “A man who is made prince by the favour of the people must work to retain their friendship; and this is easy for him because the people ask only not to be oppressed. But a man who has become prince against the will of the people and by the favour of the nobles should, before anything else, try to win the people over; this too is easy if he takes them under his protection… it is necessary for a prince to have the friendship of the people; otherwise he has no remedy in times of adversity.”

Machiavelli was nicknamed “Old Nick,” another name for Satan, and the Jesuits called him “the Devil’s partner in crime.” While reading The Prince, I was often very shocked because some sections are very dark. However, once you get past that, it is filled with many parallels and contrasts to today. If you dig beneath the surface of what he is saying, the information can be transported to our time and used. For example, “As for intellectual training, the prince must read history, studying the actions of eminent men to see how they conducted themselves during war and to discover the reasons for their victories or their defeats, so that he can avoid the latter and imitate the former. Above all, he must read history so that he can do what eminent men have done before him….” We could make this more relevant to us by interpreting it to mean that we must read history and study the actions of successful men and women to discover the reasons for their successes and failures to imitate their successes.

Machiavelli’s political thesis can be summed up as “I also believe that the man who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.”

YouTube video of The Prince, Part One of Five. If you cannot view the video click here.

Five +2 Great Ideas

1. When trouble is sensed well in advance, it can easily be remedied; if you wait for it to show itself, any medicine will be too late because the disease will have become incurable
2. Men willingly change their ruler expecting to fare better
3. When states are acquired in a province differing in language, in customs, and in institutions, then difficulties arise; and to hold them one must be very fortunate and very assiduous. One of the best, most effective expedients would be for the conqueror to go live there in person. This course of action would make a new possession more secure and more permanent.
4. Whoever is responsible for another’s becoming powerful ruins himself, because this power is brought into being either by ingenuity or by force, and both of these are suspect to the one who has become powerful
5. Governments set up overnight, like everything in nature whose growth is forced, lack strong roots and ramifications. So they are destroyed in the first bad spell
6. A man who becomes a prince with the help of the nobles finds it more difficult to maintain his position than one who does so with the help of the people. As prince, he finds himself surrounded by many who believe they are his equals, and because of that he cannot command or manage them the way he wants
7. Prosperity is ephemeral; if a man behaves with patience and circumspection, and the time and circumstances are right, he will prosper, however, if circumstances change and he doesn’t adapt his policy to reflect the change, he will be ruined.

I recommend that you read The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli just to see how far and sometimes not so far that we’ve come. After you have read The Prince, what parallels can you make to events occurring in our world today? What are your great ideas? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Part Two of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Three of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Four of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Five of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Photo Credit: Google via Apture
All book links are affiliate links.