This is an innovative book about how to write a journal capturing the life moments. The entire book is practically hand drawn as a journal should be. My key takeaways:

1. In addition to writing down your inner thoughts, hand sketch of interesting things you come across. Start sketching some mundane things like a coffee cup but doing it from memory.

2. Include edited photos and write over the photos to keep it interesting instead of dropping them into the photo box. On photography: 1) Pick a good subject. 2) Get to know your camera in an intimate way, 3) Learn what good composition is. Practice the art of “glancing” (without looking into the lens) 4) Learn to wait for a really good moment.

3. Placing natural things you collected on to the journal pages. Keep your crystal clear tape, razor knife, tweezers, magnifying glass handy. Collect free stuff like stamps, postmarks, ticket stubs, fruit stickers, letterheads, cartoons, logos, window stickers, and etc.

This is a motivational book for someone who’s inspired to capture the life’s moments. It’s a very small and short book that can be read within an hour. Especially the drawings make reading the book like a comic book. I think I’ll try a few tricks I learned from this book but I would like to keep the journal digital for ease of safekeeping.

The author goes through his success formula to become a CEO at his young age of 26. Ephren is definitely a good model for all young kids. In fact, this book should be a must-read for teenagers who are searching for what they want to do when they grow up.

The essence of his success comes from his inner drive and his ability to learn all he needs to learn from books, coupled with the selective mentors. It’s hard to find a good mentor like John Vandewalle, who taught him about evaluating a business and turn it around for profit. Boy, I wish I had that kind of mentor during my MBA years.

Some good questions to ask your potential mentors:
– How did you get into your business?
– What kind of education or training helped you most?
– Who helped you along the way?
– How much money does it take to get started?
– What’s the best source for capital for this kind of business?
– What does it take to be successful?
– What are the hardest things about the business?
– What do you like best about it?
– What do you like least about it?
– What brings you the most customers?
– What organizations do you recommend for people in the business?
– What local organizations have been the most useful and beneficial to you?
– What would you do differently if you were starting out today?
– What have been some of your biggest mistakes?
– What was your biggest triumph?
– Where do you see the business going in the future?
– Would you recommend it for someone like me?
– What’s the best way for someone to get started in the business today?

A lot of the growth/success recipes mentioned in the book is no different than “Think and Grow Rich” and other author’s ideas. But the messages are put in the way appealing to the youths. This is a good thing.

I particularly like the way he pushes the young people to be become entrepreneurs. They definitely have a lot more to gain and less to lose when they’re young. But it’s never too late.

I believe Ephren still has a lot to prove himself. He’s still young and inexperienced. I suspect his success image may be over-marketed. Checking the stock value of his company, Capital City (Symbol: CTCC), I saw its market cap is at only $12M, not much to speak of. I guess you can not call it “success” until you’re truly successful, though his success criteria may be different.

Look forward to seeing more success from him. The youths need more models like him.

This book investigated into the Lincoln’s mental wellness or lack thereof from this early life (fears stage) to his determination to re-enter political life (struggle stage) after a brief pause and then his presidency (transcendence stage). A couple of times, Lincoln sought to end his life due to his deep depression; he was suspected to author a suicide poem. He struggled with failures in his early political life. When the Missouri Compromise was repealed. Lincoln’s belief in abolishing slavery rose to the occasion and awoke him from his constant deep depression to make it his mandate to bring an end to slavery because he loved this country so much to see it put in less than a moral high ground.

There are several tragedies in his life that may have sunk him into a deep blue – deaths of his two sons, a few defeats in his political life, his declining friendship with his best friend, Speed, due to different opinion about slavery, the general wear and tear of a 4-year civil war that resulted in more than 650,000 deaths.

The author emphasizes the “melancholy” undertone and the opposite persona – his sense of humor – from Lincoln’s early life to the end of his life. He was able to laugh at himself and not taking himself too seriously because he had stared death at a close range. It’s through the sense of purpose he brought himself out of his death spiral – a classical case of hero’s journey. Though he died of sudden death to assassination, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him not come out of the spiral once his life goal (freeing the slaves) has been achieved.

This book is a bit long (10 hours of audio). It went into a lot of the technical/clinical definition of depression, and others. I’m not sure I understand them all. Nowadays, depression is a widely known and accepted form of illness. But in those days, it could be a political suicide to admit to it. Lincoln had the courage and determination to overcome his handicap and rose from it, enabling the United States to become a powerful union/country without the dividing topic of slavery. This country owed a lot to Mr. Lincoln.