The authors put the various personality styles in a succinct manner that was easy to understand. I had some inclination of the various personality styles but this is the most systematic way I have seen so far. The key takeaway of the Platinum Rule is to treat people how they want to be treated but just how you want to be treated (Golden Rule).

This book is about the “Growth” mindset vs. “Fixed” mindset. My key take-aways:
Don’t praise a child’s talent but praise his/her efforts. Lots of prominent examples like John McEnroe, Tiger Wood, and etc. The concept was repeated throughout book. When listening to the Audiobook, I kept hearing “mindset” repeated so many times that I almost had to turned off the audiobook. Yes, it’s best to have a growth mindset instead of the fixed mindset.

A DVD review was done a couple of months ago. Click here. But this review is on her audiobook.

I listened to this audiobook after watching the DVD movie of the same subject. I must say Liz Gilbert is incredible in her use of metaphors in her writing – very impactful. Some Amazon reviewers complained about her whining of her divorces and circumstances. I found it very therapeutic having been through the same things before. Her voice in the audiobook is soothing and at times emotional – like someone’s telling a mesmerizing story. The words of book reveal more than the movie as you cannot “read” the emotional undertone of the actions, despite Julia Robert’s great acting.

There are some understandable discrepancies/omissions between the movies and the book. The author possessed great writing and speaking skills. I enjoyed listening to this book.

In his memoir, George W. Bush described in details on how he reached the critical decisions facing him in his early life and during his presidency. By understanding how he reached his decisions, one can determine his value and belief systems, therefore decide for himself/herself whether President Bush has done his job to the fullest of his capability. I must say I like him a lot more now than when he was the president. One can tell a lot from this book his candidness about his mistakes/alcoholism, owning up to the responsibilities, his love of his family and God, and most of all, the love of this country. It was a tough eight-year presidency by any stretch of imagination: the 9/11, Iraq/Afghanistan war, subprime mortgage financial meltdown, Katrina flood, and other difficult circumstances facing a President. One thing that worries me is his religious faith in God and Christianity – a bit too extreme for me to be a President. At least, he shows respect for others’ belief and does not impose his religious belief on others. If there is one word describing George W. Bush is his “classiness,” a compliment for a politician. I don’t think I would say that about him during his presidency.

Highlights:
1. Quitting: This is about his growing up in Texas, getting educated in Harvard and getting married having the twin girls. Mostly, it’s about his battle with alcohol.
2. Running: This quote about summed it up, “I probably became the first person to learn that he had won the presidency while lying in bed with his wife watching TV.”
3. Personnel: Selecting the right persons to serve the administration and the Supreme Court Justices.
4. Stem Cells: the baby’s right (morality) vs. the medicinal need (science). You can tell that Bush’s moral standard is deeply rooted in the Christian religion. This is all but a moot point as ways have been found to avoid using the frozen embryos.
5. Day of Fire (9/11): The chaos that happened during the day of September 11, 2001, highlighted the difficult situation of being a US president. That is what leadership is made of. These quote summed up the day for Bush, “A day that started with a run on a golf course had ended with a scramble to the bunker to escape a possible attack on the White House.” “September 11 redefined sacrifice. It redefined duty. And it redefined my job. The story of that week is the key to understanding my presidency.”
6. War Footing: ” The terrorists had made our homefront a battleground. Putting America on a war footing was one of the most important decisions of my presidency.”
7. Afghanistan: This was how he reached the decision to “fight the war on terror on the offense, and the first battlefront would be Afghanistan.”
8. Iraq: Liberating Iraq was a controversial topic. Bush was on a mission to liberate countries after Afghanistan. It’s not clear to me if Bush had done sufficient homework to call Saddam bluff. But historian may come back and decide that this decision may have contributed to planting the seeds of the democracy in the Middle East. I don’t like what it has done to the US economy and reputation but it just might needs to be done after all.
9. Leading: One of the lessons I took from Roosevelt and Reagan was to lead the public, not chase the opinion polls. I decided to push for sweeping reforms, not tinker with the status quo. As I told my advisers, “I didn’t take this job to play small ball.” Bush touched on the two major accomplishments of his administrations: No Child Left Behind and Medicare Modernization. Two failed initiatives: faith-based initiative, social security and immigration reform.
10. Katrina: This was a disaster poorly handled at the local level and the recovery poorly executed at the state and federal level. Bush took the blade and got the job done.
11. Lazarus Effect: Bush touted his accomplishment on the initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. Bush cited hist justification, “Our national security was tied directly to human suffering. Societies mired in poverty and disease foster hopelessness. And hopelessness leaves people ripe for recruitment by terrorists and extremists. By confronting suffering in places like Africa, America would strengthen its security and collective soul.”
12: Surge (of troop to Iraq): This was the unpopular decision to boost the number of troops to Iraq to counter the insurgents’ attack. More details about the Iraq war were contained in this chapter.
13: Freedom Agenda: This is the 4th prong of his strategies to protect the country, known as the Bush Doctrine. It’s a noble goal to spread freedom and democracy all over the world. The turkey in the middle of car trail in Bush’s ranch was an interesting “omen” story that might have saved the peace effort in Middle East. He touched on many countries’ state of democracy: Palestinians, Lebanon, Iran, North Korea, China, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, and Abu Dhabi.
14. Financial Crisis: This is the subprime mortgage meltdown and the demises of the automakers at the end of Bush’s administration when he had his hands full with Iraq. I don’t think there was much Bush could have done as Federal Reserve was more to blame. By Bush’s account, “The nature of the presidency is that sometimes you don’t choose which challenges come to your desk. You do decide how to respond.” On the other hand, this disaster impacts the American people the most. At the end, he said, “As I looked into the tired faces of the men and women of my economic team, I thought about all my administration had been through. Every day for eight years, we had done our best. We had given the job our all. And through every trial, we had been honored to serve the nation we love.”

Daniel Pink presented a solid case for his coined phrase of Motivation 3.0 – the new work OS for the new economy and the new knowledge workers. No questions that the world is converging in that direction. He offer good tips for managers and parents how to manage the new generation of employees and children. The audiobook is very well narrated by the author and the ebook fairly comprehensive, full of references and self-help study guide. A summary of the book is as follows:

Part 1: A new operating system: From Motivation 1.0 (survival) to Motivation 2.0 (seek reward and avoid punishment), 2.1 (more autonomy), 3.0 (for heuristic, not algorithmic jobs: intrinsic motivation, open-source movement, taking vocation vacation). Carrots and sticks often don’t work after a threshold is passed. Sawyer effect: “Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do and that Play consists of whatever a boy is NOT obliged to do.”

7 deadly flaws of carrots and sticks: extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity, crowd out good behavior, encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior, become addictive, and foster short-term thinking.

To reward creative work, consider non-tangible rewards (praise and positive feedback are much less corrosive than cash and trophies), provide useful/specific (e.g. “great use of color”) information.

Type I (intrinsic-motivated, concerns less with the external rewards and more with the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself) and Type X (extrinsic-motivated): Human being have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when the drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives. Type I behavior is not made, not born, almost ways outperform type X’s in the long run, doesn’t disdain money or recognition, a renewable resource, promote greater physical and mental well-being – ultimately depends on three elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Part 2: The Three elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy: ROWE (results-only work environment): just have to get their work done. How they do it, when they do it, and where they do it is up to them. This era doesn’t call for better management. It calls for a renaissance of self-direction. Type I behavior emerges when people have autonomy over the 4 T’s: their task, time, technique, and team.

Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters
The highest, most satisfying experiences in people’s lives were when they are in flow. The challenge wasn’t too easy nor too difficult. 3 laws of mastery:
Mastery is mindset: use learning goals instead of performance goals, e.g. getting an ‘A’.
Mastery is a pain: it hurts and not much fun – intense practice of more than 10 years – “mundanity of excellence.” “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them” – Juilus Erving (Dr. J),
Master is an asymptote: You can approach it, home in on it but you’ll never touch it. The joy is in the pursuit more than the realization.

Purpose:
Purpose provides activation energy for living. Motivation 3.0 places emphasis on purpose maximization in 3 realms of organization life – goals (to pursue purpose – and use profit as the catalyst rather than the objective), words (they vs. we), and policies (handing employees control over how the organization gives back to the community). People who’d had purpose goals felt they were attaining them reported higher leves of satisfaction.

Part 3: The Type I toolkit
Think about your sentence. Take a Sagmeister (sabbatical every 7 years), give yourself a performance review (set small/large goals and how they relate to your larger purpose, be brutally honest), Going Oblique (Link here), Move 5 steps closer to mastery: 1. remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance, 2. repeat, repeat, repeat, 3. Seek constant, critical feedback, 4. Focus ruthlessly on where you need help, 5. Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting.
Take a page from Webber (write down “what gets you up in the morning?” and on opposite side “What keeps you up at night?”).
3 steps toward giving up control: 1. involve people in goal-setting, 2. Use noncontrolling language like “think about it,” “consider.” 3. Hold office hours.
Pronounce test: “we” vs. “they.” Promote Goldilocks for Groups: 1. Being with a diverse team, 2. Make your group a “no competition” zone, 3. Try a little task-shifting, 4. Animate with purpose, don’t motivate with rewards.
The zen of compensation: 1. ensure internal and external fairness, 2. pay more than average, 3. If you use performance metrics, make them wide-ranging, relevant, and hard to game.
Type I for parents and educators: 9 ideas for helping our kids:
1. Apply the 3-part type I test for homework (autonomy, mastery, and purpose), 2. Have a Fedex Day, 3. Try DIY report cards, 4. Give your kids an allowance and some chores – but don’t combine them, 5. Offer Praise the Right Way: a. praise effort and strategy, not intelligence, b. make praise specific, c. praise in private, d. offer praise only when there’s a good reason for it. 6. Help kids see the big picture. 7. Check out these type-I schools (Big Picture Learning, Sudbury Valley School, The Tinkering School, Puget Sound Community School, Montessori Schools), 8. Take a class from the unschoolers. 9. Turn students into teachers.
Type I reading list.
Listen to the gurus: 1. Douglas McGregor, 2. Peter F. Drucker, 3. Jim Collins, 4. Cali Ressler, 5 Jody Thompson, 6. Gary Hamel.
Type I Fitness Plan: Set your own goals, Ditch the treadmill, Keep mastery in mind, reward yourself the right way. (stickk.com)