There are many Lincoln autobiographies out there. This book goes into the detailed working of the his cabinet members during his presidency overseeing the biggest crisis of this young country – the Civil War over slavery. As a good lawyer, Lincoln realized there are always many perspectives to an argument. He brought together many of political foes (William Seward, Salmon Chase, Montgomery Blair, Edward Bates, his Republican nomination opposition) into one place so that the best solutions can be produced by the rigorous debates and proposals. Ultimately, Lincoln has the final say and took responsibilities for his decision. That’s the genius of Abraham Lincoln.

During the Civil War, he had to make many tough decisions on the selection of generals and strategy. He often had to push his generals, especially the self-serving McClellan, to move their troops with a sense of urgency. At the same time, he needed to maneuver around the meddling by the Congress. It took lots of patience and political smartness to maintain a sense of normalcy.

The Proclamation of Emancipation was a stroke of genius that kill two birds with one stone. Ultimately, it’s Lincoln’s act and the underlying intentions that won the hearts of the people as shown in his Gettysburg’s address.

I particularly like his quote, “… I have no other [ambition] so great that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rending myself worthy of their esteem.” With that goal in mind, he overcame many failures, personal tragedies, and constant state of depression. I think his genius lies in his love of people, his good understanding of human natures and his ability to communicate effectively.

This is a good leadership book for those who want to lead and advance a great cause or a great company. Building up a team of rivals is essential that difficult issues are properly debated and the right people are selected to execute the mission. It’s not easy as it takes a person of a big heart to foster that kind of environment. Lincoln showed the world why he will be remembered as one the best leaders this country and the world ever had.

This is a relatively short book about cultivating a positive work culture. The central theme is simple: no complaining, negativity or the “cancer” in the work environment as insinuated by the author, who uses a fictional story to drill down the point effectively though seems corny at times.

The tools given by the authors are:
1. No complaining days
2. Use “but” phrase at the end of a complaint to turn around the negativity. Give thanks, show gratitude every time you think of complaining.
3. Focus on “get to” instead of “have to.” Focused on being blessed instead of stressed. Focus on gratitude.
4. Turn complaints into solutions. Every complaint represents a opportunity to turn a negative into a positive.

Five things to do instead of complaining.
1. Practice gratitude.
2. Praise others. Focus on what they’re doing right.
3. Focus on success: start a success journal. Before you go to bed, write down the one great thing about your day.
4. Let go. Let go of the things that are beyond your control.
5. Pray and meditate.

The fictional character, Hope, divorced and was faced with two problem teenagers, crisis at work, and personal health problem. She was down and negative. Of course, the heroes of the day were: 1. the gardener who argued the best way to drive away weed (negativity) is to foster a healthy environment for the grass, leaving no room for weed. 2. the nurse who taught her how to stay positive, 3. the children who responded to Hope’s no-complaining rule. Corny, isn’t it? But it’s effective in driving home the essence of the story in people’s mind. Hard to forget stories.

This is a beginner’s book on asset allocation. “Uncle Frank” the investment wizard sprinkled lots of investment wisdom throughout the book. There is not a lot of breakthrough ideas in this book. I listened to the audiobook and I can honestly say I didn’t learn anything new from the author’s advises. Maybe I’m too advanced for this book but if you are a neophyte in the investment, this book and Uncle Frank’s advises may be for you.

The Key is all about the Law of Attraction. By “clearing” oneself and opening yourself to the possibilities you desire, you will get what you want, eventually. More of the book include insights from the book author and other authors. The audiobook has a much more comprehensive direct recording of these inputs and Q&A’s.

I particularly like the method of driving away the guilt feeling of wanting more: just say “I am completely satisfied; I just want more.” Why not? The world is abundant. Why set a limit of yourself? Of course, many of the mortgage traders who contributed to the 2008 mortgage debacle probably said the same thing. But it’s better to start out with a good intention and give gratitude to what you already have.

I’m not so sure that everything that happened to us was because we’re attracted to it. Is it called accident? But I do agree that many things happened because we’re attracted to them or they’re attracted to us. Planting the seeds of desires are the key.

This book is better than I expected. I watched the Secret video and found it to be very fluffy – not substantive. At least this book taught you several technique to clear the blocks to the Law of Attraction. The audiobook is well worth listening to.

More summary below:

10 clearing methods from the book:
I. Be grateful.
II. Opting to change beliefs. Ask yourself:
1. What are you unhappy about?
2. Why are you unhappy about that?
3. What are you concerned would happen if you were not unhappy about that?
4. Do you believe in that?
5. Why do you believe in that?
6. What are you concerned would happen if you did not believe that?

III. Unraveling your thoughts – hidden thoughts that are attracting what you don’t want.
1. Identify your intrusive, upsetting, or disruptive thoughts.
2. Approach your thoughts like an impartial jury would evaluate evidence.
3. Conduct some behavioral experiments to further test out the truth of the thoughts.
4. Decide how true your original thought is based on the evidence you gathered and the results of your behavioral experiments.
5. Realize that your troubling or limiting thoughts are not necessary.

IV. Read books for hypnotic storytelling by others.

V. Say “I Love you” to the Devine before tackling a big task. This is author’s secret weapon to show his entrusting his fate with the Devine.

VI. Use TFT (Thought Field Therapy) or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which are like acupressure technique to relief stress.

VII. Nevillize it – create your reality through imagination. Feel what it would be to (have a mansion and etc.) Or script yourself to success.

VIII. Forgive yourself and others and thank them (radical forgiveness) for teaching you a lesson.

IX. Healing your body that holds blocks as thoughts and emotions. Have a conversation with your body. This one is a little out there. But it works, more power to it.

X. Feel the vital message:
1. Welcome the feeling.
2. Sit with the feeling.
3. Describe the feeling.
4. Ask the feeling what it’s trying to tell you. There is a lesson to be learned.

Insights on manifesting money: Money, by itself, if nothing but paper and metal. It’s us who apply meaning to it. Start thinking money like monopoly money. It does’t determine whether you are happy or not. Focused on the a passion, fun and sharing, doing good things. Don’t send out a feeling of need, attachment and addiction. Focus on on what you love.

Emotional freedom 101:
1. Welcome the feeling.
2. Dive into the feeling.
3. Increase it mentally (double it).
4. Let go of wanting it to go away.
5. Feel love.
6. Appreciate the unwanted feelings away.
7. Just drop the feeling.
8. Do conscious comparison.
9. Be the sky (not cloud).
10. Float it away.
11. Let go of disapproving yourself or your feeling.
12. Give yourself approval.
13. Float a red ballon.
14. Allow it to evaporate.
15. Use a water valve to control the flow.
16. Let go of just 1 percent (incrementally).
17. Embrace it with passion.

This book is all about what have gone wrong for the United States and what needs to be done.

The author cited Ronald Reagan’s presidency as the beginning of the downfall due to his anti-tax stand. Reagan cut domestic spending using an example like “welfare queen” to portray the big government’s waste in spending. The Prop 13 ushered in the anti-taxation era. But the real culprit is not over taxation but globalization, the author argued, which allows corporations to race the taxation to the bottom as countries and states pays or offer tax rebates to be in the game.

The author also pointed out that U.S.’s two parties are two “right-of-center” parties – more or less the same; Republicans are supported by Big Oils and the Democrats are supported by the Wall Street. Ultimately, the lobbyists of the four big industries, military industry, wall-street, big oil, and health cares, pull the strings of the politicians – the “corporatacracy” wins big.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the society is distracted by “conspicuous consumption” or a race to keep up with the Jones, influenced by TV, and hyper-commercialism (mass persuasion). The author established by data the correlation of corruption to TV viewing and negative correlation to social trust to TV viewing.

To remedy the “big crash,” The author argued for Buddha’s “middle path” concept. Be mindful of self, work, knowledge, others (compassion/cooperation), nature, the future, politics, and the world. The author offer a path and 8 goals to achieve from now to 2020 to address the ills of the country. The goals cover unemployment, quality of access to education, reduce poverty, avoid environmental catastrophe, balance the federal budget, improve governance, national security, raise America’s happiness and life satisfaction.

The author outlined the math in paying for civilization (government). Of course, getting higher tax revenue is the critically difficult step. Taxing the rich sufficiently (from top rate of 35% to 39.6%) seems to be the key ingredient. Other tax raising avenues are raising taxes on oil, gas, coal, and curbing tax evasion, and taxing financial transaction and introducing VAT (value-added sales tax).

The author also offers the 7 habits of highly effective government: 1. set clear goals and benchmarks, 2. mobilize expertise, 3. make multiyear plan, 4. be mindful of the far future, 5. end the corporatocracy, 6. restore public management, 7 de-centralize. Sachs counted on the young (aged 18 to 29 now) generation to lead and push for changes. Of course, we all have to pitch in if we intend to continue our “civilization” and the way of our life.

Overall, I think the book was well written. Sachs used his tremendous international economic experience to analyze our current situation and offer some methods to remedy it. I think his attribution of the anti-tax movement to globalization is probably right. Unfortunately, blaming the foreigners doesn’t sell votes and comes away more like victim blaming. Blaming the government is easier. Sachs’s blaming our excessive TV watching and hyper-commercialism for our shirking the duty of watching the government is right on. Raising taxes on the people who pay the lobbyists to influence the politician won’t be easy. Just hope there are more gutsy politicians willing to stand up against the tide of legalized corruption. I found the book well researched and author’s views very insightful. I wish the same outcome of “reawakening American virtue and prosperity.”

This book is basically a re-do of Phil Town’s Rule #1, to encourage folks to pick up some bargains during 2008 down turn. It came with some extra bonus materials that I picked up as follows:

1. Use of the payback time (hence the book name) to gauge the soundness of the investment. A payback time of 10 years, based on the earning generated, would be good for a public company. It’s normally smaller for a private company due to lack of liquidity. This is a good concept.

2. Use of pre-tax money such as IRA, 529 and etc., called “Burkie,” were discussed. Nothing earth shaking here. He recommends paying taxes and direct one’s own “stockpiling” instead of paying the fund manager to do it for you.

3. Refresh of the stock value assessment technique was welcomed. I particularly like the way he appraised the value of Burlington Northern Railroad and explain why Warren Buffet liked this particular stock. This was good.

The audiobook was vocalized by the author himself, who came across as casual and sincere – well done.

Listened to the audiobook version of the book.

Agassi’s hatred toward tennis seems to resonate throughout the book. I could tell that he really hated tennis at his early life practicing many rounds of tennis against the “dragon,” automatic tennis machine. But after his success, he was able to redirect the purse toward his charity, his new purpose of life. This made tennis a bit more “fun” to him. Of course, Agassi is a winner. He hates to lose more than he loves to win. The game turn on that part of him. It’s funny that when one is faced with one choice because of his eight-grade education, he had no other avenue to succeed in. It made his choice simple. Based on his writing of this book. I think he’s quite talented in English composition, probably inherited his mother gene.

Use of his team is his strength. Surrounded by people who love him and he can trust. Gil, his trainer, is like a father to him. I don’t think Agassi could go far with Gil’s watching his back, literally. Gil’s Da Vinci notebook, full of his special training recipes and his Gil water makes a huge competitive advantage for Agassi. Brad, his coach taught him to play his odds rather than being perfect in playing his game.

From his description of his relationship with Brook Sheilds appeared to be a disaster from the start. He didn’t appear to related to actors in general. But Agassi’s pursuit of Stephanie Graph was no less than magical. It all started out as a fascination and after his breakup with Brook Shield, he turned his focus on her and eventually won her heart. It took some persistence just like his game.

There were many matches that Agassi described in great details including all of the thoughts and emotions during the game. It’s fascinating to see how much of the emotion and conviction play in winning or losing the tennis game.

Agassi’s story is nothing short of rags to riches. An naive Las Vegas boy who played a mean tennis game, eventually turned into one of the enduring tennis star and ironically a respectful philanthropist.

The book reads like a hero’s journey. A very interesting read. Highly recommended.