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)

I picked up this book thinking it might help me. But I found it mostly a collection of miscellaneous tips of financial disciplines. All of them make sense but nothing really earthshaking. The “Without Risk” title attracted me but I don’t think the author really delivers that, at least in the normal sense of “risk free.” A few interesting things: the author were taught affirmation at his young age by his Dad. It doesn’t hurt to start this as early as possible. The author is a lawyer and he was modest enough to seek the advises from his wealthy clients on how they became rich. The author’s father is a real estate developer and he was taught the investment benefits of the real estate investing. The book is full of individual strategies that may serve as a good reference source. A summary of the book is as follows:

Escape from the artificial wealth trap with the ESCAPE plan:
E. S. C. A. P. E.:
Envision wealth for your life:
There are 15 strategies here for you to envision your wealth. The more important ones include 1. determine what you want and create a dreams list, 2. use positive affirmation, 3. eliminate negative thoughts, 4. create a “values” list. 5. create a visions board to visualize daily, 6. write out your goals and pledge statements, 7. eliminate destructive values, 8. spend the majority of the time on those goals and objectives that are most important to you, 9. being each day and end each evening with a visualization of your goals.

Strategize: Planning your work and then working your plan
There are 18 strategies suggested by the author: 1. determine your current fiscal condition and where you stand financially, 2. create a good record management system, 3. give yourself a complete fiscal fitness examination, 4. prepare a family financial statement, 5. identify and evaluate your expenditures, 6. prioritize your expenses and rank them by necessity, 6. determine which expense can be reduced (or eliminated) immediately, 7. identify negative money mindset obstacles (like deprivation of food diet), 8. set goals for eliminating any negative spending habits, 9. establish wealth accomplishment objectives for yourself, 10. create a cost estimate for accomplishing your dreams and objectives (order from the left side instead of the right side of the menu), 11. measure the distance for the trip to your real wealth destination, 12. set reasonable timetable for arriving at your destination. 13. spend at least one hour per day brainstorming your voyage to Real Wealth, 14. plan your work, and then work your plan.

Create:
Winning the credit game and dealing with debt.
Lots of tips on handling debts

Creating immediate income:
Understand the differences between making money and building wealth and then focus on doing BOTH. Create more income streams and by making good choices on where and how you send your money.

Increasing cash flow with money-saving strategies:
Some good advises: Don’t establish a budget; follow an “expense plan” instead. Don’t buy wants on credit. Avoid adopting the “arrogance of poverty mindset.” (status-minded). Stop financing vacations that you can’t afford. Tie in vacations with business trips.

Saving money by managing insurance:
Purchase life insurance only to replace the lost income or services of a provider. Buy only term life insurance and devote the rest of your financial plan to prosperous living. Never buy universal or variable life insurance as an investment vehicle.

Making your life less taxing.

Making money while you sleep on the internet and eBay:
Affiliate yourself with other companies to make money as the middleman if you have not yet developed a products or services of your own.

Create income with real estate:
4 kinds of profit in real estate: 1. appreciation, 2. principal reduction, 3. cash flow, 4. tax deductions.

Accumulate
Decide on a particular investment area and develop a fundamental understanding of that area. (Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.) Work to increase your “wealth sustainability level.” (ability to sustain the level of wealth that a person enjoys over an extended period of time.) Adopt an attitude of wealth inevitability.

Investor mindset means having a comfort level with, and emotional detachment from, the process the investing. 1. Have a solid understanding of the stock market. 2. Set your objectives effectively. 3. Invest safely. 4. Make a commitment to working your plan for investing and to not let emotions get in the way. Save 20% of your annual salary as “attitude” money. Do not fall for Roth IRA conversion.

Preserve
Create an estate plan. Form a legal entity for operating your business. Change the nature of your income from earned to unearned. Protect your wealth by protecting your health. Hire your children “tax-free.” Zero out your corporation at the end of the year to avoid double taxation (pay salary instead of dividends). Use S-corporation to avoid self-employment taxes. Establish a revocable living trust to provide for your beneficiaries, avoid probate, and reduce or eliminate the estate tax.

Execute
“The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.” Make small changes that can yield big payoffs.

Lots of research into human sexuality including orgasm, penile enlargement/implants, hormone effects, clitoris stimulation, and etc. Most of them are overly detailed and researched. Author’s comments in the footnotes are often full of tongue-and-cheek to draw quick laughs. It’s good to be not too serious about this topic. I’m not sure I’ve gotten much except the following: human sexuality is a lot more complicated than our primate relatives, the science behind impotence and the functions of erectile penis, orgasm and the G-spot, orgasms for paraplegic seems gives us clues how it’s connected to the brain, sexuality experiments in Islamic countries could be a risky undertaking and even in a free country like USA it could be problematic, and etc.