This is my first time using Netflix’s instant play. It seems to work well except that the player must run on Internet Explorer. I like the feature that the player resumes from where you watched last.

This is a 3-hr long documentary about Thomas Jefferson. I have read John Adam’s story, so some of the facts have been duplicated and confirmed.

PBS portrayed Jefferson as a blessing as well as a curse to this nation. He’s a blessing because he laid the foundation of freedom of speech, religion and thin government for this country. He’s a curse because, contradictory to his own belief about freeing the slaves, he himself did not free his own slaves and turned one of his slave girl (Hemming) into his mistress. As a result, he is known for his genius writing on the declaration of independence and the founding of the Virgina University, bu as well as a hypocrite for not practicing what he preaches.

Jefferson died on the 50th year (1826) to the declaration of independence. And his late relationship and letter exchanges with John Adams served to express their deep thoughts – true treasures to this country. Jefferson is also an optimist. He believes that “the future is going to be better than the past.” His words were shaped and re-shaped to transcend a new reality for this country. Jefferson also holds that strong beliefs about the two conditions of America: Everyone has a right to equal treatment by the law and equal opportunity to modest prosperity. This is what American dreams are made of.

Jefferson has lived up to his best during his life time. Is he more important to United States than George Washington? Perhaps.

T. Boone Pickens has been famous for his hostile take over in the 80’s and 90’s. This book has a catchy title that caught my attention. I thought this was going to teach people how to be a billionaire. But in fact, this is a mini biography of himself and how he became rich. I was impressed by how he projected the long term trend, especially around the oil and natural gas price, and was willing to stick with it and profit and lose from it. Some of his strategy is coming back to haunt him now that the oil price has dropped significantly. According to yesterday’s newspaper, his BP Capital has lost $2B for his client.

Pickens appears to be a disciplined health nut and constantly works out. It explains why at his age of 80, he’s still as sharp as before. Near the end the book, he even joked about trading all his wealth for another shot at re-starting at 18 years old. I supposed it’s easier for him to re-start now he knows what it takes to be rich.

I did sense his whole perspective in life at this age tend to be philosophical and perhaps wordy/preachy. His charity work with animals and Oklahoma State University seems to be more self absorbing than doing good. It would be good if the book goes into much details about his early life struggling to rise from the Geologist to founding Mesa Petroleum. This would be more interesting to me. Some of the Boonisms in the book sounds pretty good to me.

As a result his advocacy for moving natural gas into fueling transportation, I did a little study about CNG (compressed natural gas). I discovered the following: Honda offer a version of Civic that runs on CNG. The problems I saw were that the tank can accommodate up to only 8 gasoline-equivalent gallons, the refilling at home could take 16 hours, the safety issue, and the extra $7K cost of the car and refilling station. Some other experts stated that it would take only 10+ years to use up all of our CNG in US, then we’re back where we are now. It doesn’t appear to be sustainable.

Pickens touched on the future water shortage and how he bought up the water rights near the Canadian river. I tend to agree with him about the water shortage issue. But buying up the water right without securing the end buyers first takes lots of guts to me.

Wind energy was touted to be the ideal renewable energy that can power the grid. Along the middle of America from Canada to Texas, the wind energy can be readily harvested. Sounds good.

Some of the noteworthy teachings: 1) action breeds more action. Take action now. 2) Success takes hard work and strong vision. 3) Stick with what you know best and leverage others for the rest. 4) Deliver value for the share holders. 5) Take care of your body. It’s your biggest asset. 6) Giving to others is as fun as receiving. Give and you shall receive. 7) Integrity is important.

The Energy plan takes leadership; nothing will happen without a strong leadership – Pickens emphasized. Who will be the leader to lead US out of dependency on oil and toward the renewable energy front? Hopeful, Obama will be the one.

This is a very funny monologue by Julia Sweeney. I’m a big fan of hers since her debut on the Saturday Night Live, especially her “Pat” gig, the unisex person. “Letting Go of God” is her journey of becoming an atheist from being raised a catholic girl.

She outlined the cruelty of the act of God in the Old Testament and she ridiculed some of stories in the Bible (Noah, Job, Lot, and etc.). These stories seemed fairly normal to me when I first heard them when I was young. They never occurred to be strange to me until she and some other atheists pointed that out.

The New Testament isn’t much better. Jesus’ family value was questioned and his hot temper didn’t come across as benevolent, though Jesus has some redeeming value about loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek. The weirdest book is none other than “Revelation,” which appeared to be Disciple John’s writings when he was on “acid.”

Sweeney’s transformation started when a couple Mormons visited her apartment about the messages from God. She soon learned about the Mormon Church came about and poked fun at that religion. Honestly, I would probably do the same had I knew about Mormon’s belief.

Sweeney was trying to rationalize the genesis as similar to the evolution. But even she was skeptical of the time/duration was way off. She likes to think she’s a naturalist rather than a atheist, a blasphemy for a catholic family. But she was equally horrified by the prospect that bad guys like Hitler would die and disappear and would not face the final judgment if there were no God.

Sweeney ended the monologue with the story about the death of her father and her coming to grip that death is the end of the life, period – no afterlife, no heaven, and no hell. She joked about what people were saying that her father was still among them after the funeral. It’s hard to swallow that how insignificant the human lives are.

Sweeney made a compelling and entertaining argument about why God doesn’t exist. It’s a heroic journey and an honest expression of her belief. I have had a similar journey myself. I must say it was neither easy nor funny.

Very brutal and honest! He’s the “irritational” (vs. inspirational) speaker. Boy, how honesty hurts!
People aren’t working!

On how to work:
– Work faster, smarter, and harder. Stay busy. Find things to do.
– Stop periodically during the day and ask yourself: Does this matter? Is it contributing to the overall well-being of the company? Am I really getting something done or just killing time?
– Never tolerate poor performance in yourself or others.
– Create a clean, organized environment that encourages work.
– Expect the best from everyone.
– Teach your employees how to be good workers.
– Manage priorities, not time.
– Figure out what absolutely has to get done, and then do it first.
– There is plenty of time to do the right thing.

For keeping it simple:
– If it starts feeling complicated, stop and reevaluate. There is a simpler way – find it.
– Stop listening to those who want to complicate things.
– Take action quickly on the simple ideas.
– Get better, and the things around you will get better.
– The things it takes to be successful in life are the same things it takes to be successful in business.

On getting results:
– Focus on the results. Results are everything and they never lie.
– Explain the big picture to all employees so they know why they are doing their jobs.
– Whatever you have or are experiencing is what makes up your results.
– Put more service into every hour, not more hours into the service.
– The number-one reason why results aren’t what they should be: apathy.
– Well-paid employees are typically loyal employees.
– You are not paid for efforts; you are paid for results.

For loving your job:
– Love and enjoy what you do enough to be amazing at it.
– It takes more than passion, enthusiasm, love, and enjoyment to be great at your job; you must be good at what you do.
– You aren’t paid to do your job; you are paid to do your job.
– Some days you must put up with 90% of your job to get to the 10% you really enjoy.
– Spice up your job a little to rekindle the passion you once had for it.

I like the Larry’s simple keys to success:
– Take personal responsibility
– Things change, so be flexible
– Work smart and work hard
– sever others well
– Be nice to others
– Be optimistic
– Have goals, want something big for yourself
– Stay focused
– Keep learning
– Become excellent at what you do
– Trust your gut
– When in doubt, take action
– Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
– Enjoy all you’ve got
– Keep it simple!

Business gets better right after the people in the business get better!

Ask yourself what you have done today.

You don’t have to love your job in order to be excellent at it (but it helps.) “Just because you are following your bliss, it doesn’t mean anybody’s going to pay you for it. They pay you because you are good at what you do and because you serve them well.” “Excellent does not come just from enjoyment or passion or love or fun. Excellence comes from study, experience, from screwing up and doing it wrong until you finally get it right – the good old-fashioned hard work. Spice up your job a little to rekindle the passion you once had for it.

Become invaluable:
– Know everything you can about your company and its product line, and about how business is conducted.
– Stay out of personal conflicts with coworkers and customers and rise above pettiness.
– Put the customer first when making decisions
– Understand your competition
– Pursue excellence in every area of your factivities
– Work fast. When you work fast, you have a tendency to do the right things. “When you expect the work to be done quickly and when you reward work that is done quickly the work will get done quickly.”

On respect:
– Build respect in your organization from the ground up
– Respect your coworkers, especially in front of customers
– Respect your customers, especially in front of other customers
– Respect your competitors, especially in front of customers
– Respect the physical space your business occupies.
– Remember that little stuff makes a big difference in how customers perceive your business

Dealing with idiots:
– We’re all dealing with stupid people
– Never reduce yourself to their level. Rise above them.
– Mind your own business.
– Confront and communicate.
– Be fair, because everyone has a bad day. Determine whether it’s a bad day or consistently bad, inappropriate behavior.
– Don’t be a tattletale.
– You coworkers are not one big happy family; you don’t have to like them. You are required to tolerate them, and anything more is a bonus.

On Ethics:
– Ethics is not a sometime thing.
– Anyone who will lie about the little things will lie about the big thing.
– Any time you give less than your best effort, you are stealing.
– Listen to your gut; it knows right from wrong even when the rest of you can’t figure it out.
– If you have to ask if it’s wrong, it is.

On Competing:
– Do not believe in the competition
– You cannot build yourself up by tearing others down
– Customers won’t spent their money on different, but pay a premium for unique.
– “Branding” is just discovering you uniqueness and learning how to exploit it.
– You uniqueness is always based on your authenticity.
– Give people a chance. Not many chances, but at least a few

How to handle employees as a leader:
The top 20%: get out of their way. They will leave eventually.
The mid 60%: Get them to become the next top 20% or bottom 20%.
Bottom 20%: get rid of them.
The interesting part is that the mid 60% can be managed to become top 20% or bottom 20%. I’m not sure I have seen this kind of phenomenon but it makes sense.

Winget does not believe in motivating employees. “It doesn’t work. People do what they want to do when they want to do it and when the consequences of not doing it are painful enough to force them to do it.”

On team work:
– Teamwork doesn’t work because someone on the team won’t work.
– Instead of teams we should create groups of superstars, exploiting their individuality.
– Superstars don’t like to share the spotlight. Don’t ask them to.
– Superstars love working with other superstars to achieve a common goal.
– The same rules don’t apply to everyone. Great results earn you slack.
– Beware of the self-professed team player.

On serving others well:
– We are rewarded in life for only one thing: sever others well.
– If you receive a complaint, admit your responsibility, apologize, and fix the problem.
– Policies and procedures should at least pass the commonsense test.
– The better we serve others, the better we are in turn served.

On selling:
– Selling should be based on principles, not techniques.
– The five reasons people won’t buy: no need, no hurry, no money, no want, or no trust.
– To sell more: Look successful, be friendly, ask, be observant, listen, circulate, keep learning.
– To sell even more: Be honest, return calls, take notes, be on time, become great on the phone, underpromise and overdeliver, follow up, have a great handshake, bounce back.
– People buy for one main reason; find out what it is. Ask.

The surprising things for me are:
Motivation doesn’t work
Teamwork doesn’t work
To-do list and most time management techniques kill productivity and don’t work (what you get done is more important than what you do)
You don’t have to love your work or passionate about your work to do well.
We’re all turning into spectators than doing the work ourselves.
Most people works only 50%. Poor productivity. You’re stealing if you don’t give 100% of yourself.
Your results are your own faults. If your life sucks, it’s because you suck. If you don’t like the things they way they are, go to a mirror.

This is a great book. It’s like facing your creator on the judgment day. I have learned quite a few things to be a better employee and better leader.

There are 70 rules of Art of Friendship. Key take aways:
– A lot of work to keep friends connected. Make it a habit to connect with friends – put on calendar reminder.
– Not much different from dating the opposite sex: pick up lines, start with small talk and get into more serious talk.
– Don’t stay with small talks. Pick something smart as an entry point to discover more about a potential friend.
– File important facts (kid’s names) on PDA.
– Start new friendship and prune old ones.

These are just common sense but making it a routine/habit to stay in touch with friends takes work.

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