The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Date read: 5/20/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

Another favorite by one of the best biographers—David McCullough. The Wright Brothers tells the fascinating story of an unlikely duo—Wilbur and Orville Wright—who defied the odds with limited resources and connections to become the first to master human-controlled flight. It’s an incredible tale of humble beginnings, resourcefulness, calculated risks, and seeking meaning over influence. While the Wright brothers faced competitors who poured upwards of $100,000 into failed experiments in aviation, all said and done, the Wright brothers spent a little less than $1,000 in their efforts, all self-funded through their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Great lessons on the advantage held by outsiders—when you don’t have to play by the same rules or face the same level of obligations or pressure that industry insiders might, you operate with a level of freedom and flexibility that drives innovation. Brilliant biography and well worth your time.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Beginnings:
“What the two had in common above all was unity of purpose and unyielding determination. They had set themselves on a ‘mission.’” DM

“The Wright family book collection, however, was neither modest nor commonplace. Bishop Wright, a lifelong lover of books, heavily championed the limitless value of reading.” DM

“But it isn’t true to say we had no special advantages…the greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity.” Orville Wright

Wright Cycle Company:
In the spring of 1893 Wilbur and Orville opened their first small bicycle shop selling and repairing bicycles. By 1895 they were selling about 150 bicycles per year. They soon began making their own bicycles which sold for $65 and the model was called the Van Cleve.

Bicycles were the sensation of the time but were proclaimed morally hazardous. “Because of bicycles, it was said, young people were not spending the time they should with books, and more seriously that suburban and country tours on bicycles were not ‘infrequently accompanied by seductions.’” DM

Even after they became interested in flight, they kept the bicycle shop going so they had a steady source of income to pay for their own experiments. Octave Chaunte tried to talk them out of it and offered to provide financial assistance to the brothers but they were unwilling to accept. 

Sharpened ice skates (15 cents each) during the winter to create additional income at the shop. 

Early inquiries into human flight:
1899 Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington requesting documents or books on the subject. The Smithsonian sent a generous supply of pamphlets on aviation. Wilbur and Orville started studying. 

“In the Summer of 1899, in a room above the bicycle shop on West Third Street, the brothers began building their first aircraft, a flying kite made of split bamboo and paper with a wingspan of five feet. It was a biplane with double wings, one over the other…” DM

“On May 13, 1900, Wilbur wrote a letter to Octave Chanute—his first letter to the eminent engineer—asking for advice on a location where he might conduct flying experiments, somewhere without rain or inclement weather and, Wilbur said, where sufficient winds could be counted on, winds, say, of 15 miles per hour. The only such sites he knew of, Chaunte replied, were in California and Florida, but both were ‘deficient in sand hills’ for soft landings.” DM

“In an answer to an inquiry Wilbur sent the United States Weather Bureau in Washington about prevailing winds around the country, they were provided extensive records of monthly wind velocities at more than a hundred Weather Bureau stations, enough for them to take particular interest in a remote spot on the Outer Banks of North Carolina called Kitty Hawk, some seven hundred miles from Dayton….To be certain Kitty Hawk was the right choice, Wilbur wrote to the head of the Weather Bureau station there, who answered reassuringly about steady winds and sand beaches. As could be plainly seen by looking at a map, Kitty Hawk also offered all the isolation one might wish for to carry on experimental work in privacy.” DM

The first full-sized glider they would ship to Kitty Hawk and reassemble cost $15 and had a wingspan of 18 feet. 

They were relentless in their work ethic, never sat still. During times that they were in Dayton working at their bicycle shop during the day, they would work every single night on their scientific investigations into human flight. Built a wind tunnel in the back of the bicycle shop. 

Calculated risks: 
“The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks. Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.” Wilbur Wright

Never flew together for this reason. They knew how dangerous it was to fly. If one was killed, the other would have to be on the ground to carry on the work. 

Competition:
Samuel Langley, eminent astronomer and head of the Smithsonian. One of the most well-respected scientists in the nation. “His efforts in recent years, backed by substantial Smithsonian funding, had resulted in a strange-looking, steam-powered, pilotless ‘aerodrome,’ as he called it, with V-shaped wings in front and back that gave it the look of a monstrous dragonfly. Launched by catapult from the roof of a houseboat on the Potomac River in 1896, the year of Lilienthal’s death, it flew more than half a mile before plunging into the water.” DM

Langley maintained extreme secrecy about his efforts. Cost $70,000 to build an airship called “The Great Aerodome.” $50,000 was public money—Smithsonian resources and grants from the US War Department. Langley, Graham Bell, and other friends contributed $20,000 of their own money. Could only fly in perfectly calm weather. When it came time to launch a public demonstration it was launched 1,000 feet then came crashing into the Potomac River. On his next attempt, its wings crumbled, it flipped backward, and plunged into the river 20 feet from where it was launched on a houseboat. The experiment had covered more than 8 years, was a complete failure, and didn’t advance human flight in the slightest. 

“Neither brother was ever to make critical or belittling comments about Langley. Rather, they expressed respect and gratitude for the part he had played in their efforts. Just knowing that the head of the Smithsonian, the most prominent scientific institution in America, believed in the possibility of human flight was one of the influences that led them to proceed with their work.” DM

Dozens of other engineers, scientists, and thinkers had tried to tackle the problem of controlled flight: Sir George Cayley, Sir Hiram Maxim (machine gun), Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. None had succeeded. “Hiram Maxim had reportedly spent $100,000 of his own money on a giant, steam-powered, pilotless flying machine only to see it crash in attempting to take off.” DM

As outsiders, the Wright brothers faced less pressure, had less to lose than some of the aforementioned figures. 

What the Wright brothers learned in their early experiments was that so many of the long-established, supposedly reliable calculations and tables prepared by early authorities in aviation were blatantly wrong and couldn’t be trusted. 

Later expeditions to Kitty Hawk:
Fall of 1902, had a third iteration of their glider. In two months, made nearly a thousand glides and resolved the last major control problem. “All the time and effort given to the wind tunnel tests, the work designing and building their third machine, and the latest modifications made at Kill Devil Hills had proven entirely successful. They knew exactly the importance of what they had accomplished. They knew they had solved the problem of flight and more. They had acquired the knowledge and the skill to fly. They could soar, they could float, they could dive and rise, circle and glide and land, all with assurance. Now they had only to build a motor.” DM

In December of 1903, Wilbur made the first successful powered flight and flew a quarter mile through the air in 59 seconds.

“It had taken four years. They had endured violent storms, accidents, one disappointment after another, public indifference or ridicule, and clouds of demon mosquitoes. To get to and from their remote sand dune testing ground, they had made five round-trips from Dayton (counting Orville’s return home to see about stronger propeller shafts), a total of seven thousand miles by train, all to fly a little more than half a mile. No matter. They had done it.” DM

Resourcefulness + Scrappiness:
“The Langley project had cost nearly $70,000, the greater part of it public money, whereas the brothers’ total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business.” DM

“It wasn’t luck that made them fly; it was hard work and common sense; they put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea and they had the faith.” John T. Daniels 

“No bird soars in a calm.” Wilbur Wright

“All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others.” Bishop Wright

Reception:
At first, no one believed they had actually flown in their machine or they were completely disinterested—the public, the US press, and the US government. “Few took any interest in the matter or in the two brothers who were to become Dayton’s greatest heroes ever. Even those riding the interurban line (past Huffman Prairie) seem to have paid little or no attention to what could occasionally be seen in passing, or to the brothers themselves as they traveled back and forth from town on the same trolley looking little different from other commuters.” DM

Dayton papers didn’t break the story or report on successful flights, but a local beekeeper, Amos Root, who ran a trade journal, Gleanings in Bee Culture, was the first to report the story and recognize the genius of what they had done. Root sent a copy to the editor of the Scientific American saying it could be reprinted at no cost—they ignored it. 

Transition to Huffman Prairie:
Practice field near Dayton, decided since they had the concept down for their flying machine, they would reduce costs of travel and shipment by staying closer to home to continue to master the art of launching themselves safely into the air, banking, turning a motor-propelled machine, and landing safely. 

The brothers finally generated interest as people began to witness demonstrations of the machine firsthand. Only after this did the Dayton press finally catch on. 

“By the time the experiments ended, the brothers had made 105 ‘starts’ at Huffman Prairie and thought it time now to put their creation, Flyer III on the market.” DM

By the end of their time at Huffman Prairie, they were making controlled flights of 25 miles or more. 

Seek meaning over influence:
When Wilbur was in France, preparing to demonstrate the flying machine, and getting pressure from the reporters to fly before he was ready: “I did not ask you to come here. I shall go out when I’m ready. No, I shall not try to mislead you newspaper men, but if you are not here I shall not wait for you.” DM

After his first successful flight (2 miles, 2 minutes in the air): “Then, very calmly, his face beaming with a smile, he put his hands in his pockets and walked off whistling. That night, while the normally sleepy town of Le Mans celebrated, the hero retired early to his shed.” DM

“That summer Saturday in Le Mans, France, not quite eight years into the new twentieth century, one American. Pioneer had at last presented to the world the miracle he and his brother had created on their own and in less than two minutes demonstrated for all who were present and to an extent no one yet had on anywhere on earth, that a new age had begun.” DM

On Wilbur’s strength of character: “In spite of the sarcastic remarks and the mockery, in spite of the traps set up from everywhere all these years, he has not faltered. He is sure of himself, of his genius, and he kept his secret. He had the desire to participate today to prove to the world he had not lied.” Léon Delagrange

“He went his way always in his own way, never showing off, never ever playing to the crowd. ‘The impatience of a hundred thousand persons would not accelerate the rhythm of his stride.’” DM

The Anthropocene Reviewed – John Greene

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Greene
Date read: 5/7/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Huge fan of John Greene’s writing—he’s hilarious, witty, and I wish I could write half as well as he’s able to. In The Anthropocene Reviewed, he reviews different aspects of contemporary humanity, from Halley’s Comet and Diet Dr. Pepper to the Indianapolis 500 and the Internet, on a five-star scale. Each chapter is insightful and entertaining, I loved his perspective on purpose, excess, belonging, and perception.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Finding meaning:
“Pay attention to what you pay attention to. That’s pretty much all the info you need.” Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Excess:
“Gatsby is a critique of the American Dream. The only people who end up rich or successful in the novel are the ones who start out that way. Almost everyone else ends up dead or destitute. And it’s a critique of the kind of vapid capitalism that can’t find anything more interesting to do with money than try to make more of it. The book lays bare the carelessness of the entitled rich—the kind of people who buy puppies but won’t take care of dogs, or who purchase vast libraries of books but never read any of them.” John Greene

“Like ice on a hot stove, we must ride on a melting Earth, all the while knowing who is melting it. A species that has only ever found its way to more must now find its way to less.” John Greene

Belonging:
Home is not a place, but a moment: “Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.” Sarah Dessen

Evolving: “One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of.” John Greene

Perception:
“I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so.” Josh Billings

“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anais Nin

Focus on your work:
Embrace the quiet: “Being busy is a way of being loud.” John Greene

“I’ve often wished—especially when I was younger—that my work was better, that it rose to the level of genius, that I could write well enough to make something worth remembering. But I think that way of imagining art might make individuals too important. Maybe in the end art and life are more like the world’s largest ball of paint. You carefully choose your colors, and then you add your layer as best you can. In time, it gets painted over. The ball gets painted and painted again until there is no visible remnant of your paint. And eventually, maybe nobody knows about it except for you. But that doesn’t mean your layer of paint is irrelevant or a failure. You have permanently, if slightly, changed the larger sphere. You’ve made it more beautiful and more interesting.” John Greene

Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America – Wil Haygood

Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood
Date read: 5/4/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The incredible story of one of the great Civil Rights leaders who worked within the law to fight for equal rights by battling discrimination and legal segregation in America’s courtrooms. Haygood is a brilliant writer and biographer, breathing life into the reality of atrocities that Thurgood Marshall faced—both in his nomination to the Supreme Court and subsequent hearings, as well as his decades traveling across courtrooms in the American South. Marshall is an incredible example of how to work within a system that’s built against you to drive lasting change. He was dignified when others tried to humiliate him and always kept himself steady, rising above attacks on his character and fighting for the right and moral side of history. Cannot recommend this book enough, one of my favorite biographies that I’ve ever read.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund:
“In 1940, Thurgood Marshall—who had joined the NAACP as a lawyer four years earlier after working at a barely-making-it law practice in his native Baltimore—came up with an idea to form a permanent legal arm of the NAACP. It was known as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and its mission was clear: to assault discrimination and legal segregation in America’s courtrooms.” Wil Haygood

Landmark court victories:

• Smith v. Allwright: 1944 case that outlawed the all-white Democratic primary in Texas.

• Shelley v. Kraemer: 1948 case that ruled it was illegal to bar minorities from purchasing property even if the homeowner had written it into the clause of the deed.

• Sweatt v. Painter: 1950 case that ordered the University of Texas to admit a black man it had previously barred from its law school.

• Brown v. Board of Education: 1954 case that outlawed the separate-but-equal doctrine that had been the law of the land and ordered the desegregation of public schools.

“There was not another lawyer in America whose constitutional victories could match Thurgood Marshall’s in the arena of equal rights.” Wil Haygood

As an advocate, Marshall won in the Supreme Court on 29 out of 34 occasions. 

Supreme Court nomination:
President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall as the first black man to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court on June 13, 1967. Marshall had been a federal appeals court judge and was the current solicitor general. LBJ “aimed to emancipate the nation’s legal system by aiming for the very top of it.” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall had been considered Public Enemy No. 1 in the South because of his court victories upending many of the laws of segregation. With Johnson’s looming nomination of Marshall, it was as if the president were hammering the final nail into the coffin of white supremacy.” Wil Haygood

Nomination hearings:
Nomination hearings in front of of the Senate Judiciary Committee began on July 13th, 1967 in room 2228 of the New Senate Office Building. 

Senators from the South went on the attack…John McClellan, Arkansas Senator, was hellbent on destroying Marshall, since Marshall was responsible for Brown v. Board of Education which embarrassed McClellan’s state. During hearings, McClellan referred to black Americans as an ‘enemy of our security.’ McClellan had privately told his constituents that he would do all he could to stop Marshall from reaching the high court. 

Southern Senators aimed to put Thurgood Marshall “in crosshairs of the civil unrest taking place on American streets and at city halls and on all those college campuses.”

James Eastland, Mississippi Senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was also committed to doing everything in his power to keep Marshall from taking his seat on the US Supreme Court. He waited until the last minute to tell the White House when the hearings would begin, hoping to limit their preparation time. Eastland had another senator look for links between Marshall and the Communist Party. Eastland had once stood on the floor of the US Senator and thundered that “the Negro race is an inferior race.” He also once said that Mississippians would “protect and maintain white supremacy throughout eternity.” He also said that “If it came to fighting, I’d fight for Mississippi against the United States, even if it meant going out into the street and shooting Negroes.” Eastland was committed to stopping the pursuit of equality. And earlier in his career, he assailed black soldiers serving in WWII as failures in combat. 

By the time the third day of confirmation hearings began, Marshall had been subjected to more hours of questioning than any other nominee in history. Eastland did not provide a timeline of when they might end, attempting to rattle Marshall. 

On the fourth day, Strom Thurmond, the Senator from South Carolina, went on the attack. Thurmond had launched his Senate campaign in response to the Brown decision. Later he helped launched a weeks-long filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And at one point in time, he was the presidential candidate for the whites-only Dixiecrat party. “And now in 1967, Strom Thurmond had to endure the 1960s having streamrolled his life and his beloved South.” Thurmond lit into Marshall about the thirteenth amendment, as well as interracial relationships. Later, it was revealed, that when Thurmond was 62 he had carried on an affair with a black woman, Carrie Butler, who worked for his family and was only 16 years old.

Eastland later called up a witness opposed to Marshall. Michael D. Jaffe, counsel to a company known as Liberty Lobby which was formed in the shadow of McCarthyism and was accused of anti-Semitism and a fascination with the teachings of Hitler. Its two biggest supporters were Senator Strom Thurmond and Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Tom Brady. Jaffe claimed Marshall had associations with organizations of subversive nature. 

After day five, Eastland announced he would call no more hearings. He ended them before giving a chance for Marshall’s allies on the committee to speak on his behalf. “In the nation’s history, a Supreme Court nominee had never appeared in person before a committee as long as Thurgood Marshall.” Wil Haygood

August 11—Eastland announced the committee had completed its hearing process and was ready to issue its report on Marshall’s nomination. Now it was up to the full Senate. The majority report (senators favoring Marshall) issued 3.5 pages emphasizing how he had been at the forefront of assisting black citizens in asserting their right to vote and share in constitutional rights, and how he had shown that progress can be achieved within the framework of American democracy and law. The minority report was 6x longer and scathing, ripping Marshall for judicial activism, the subjugation of federal powers, and compromising the sacredness of the Constitution.

On August 30th, 1967, more than a month after the Marshall hearings had ended, the Senate conned to vote on the nomination of Marshall to the Supreme Court. There was just a single black, male senator—Edward Brooke—and a single female senator—Margaret Chase Smith—in the entire Senate. 

The final tally stood at 69-11. Marshall was going to join the U.S. Supreme Court. LBJ had convinced twenty segregationists to refrain from voting so it was closer than it looked. 

“Let me take this opportunity to affirm my deep faith in this Nation and its people, and to pledge that I shall be ever mindful of my obligation to the Constitution and to the goal of equal justice under the law.” Thurgood Marshall

Marshall had been put through an ordeal by committee. Fred P. Graham wrote that “the present procedures serve only as punishment to a future justice by political enemies.” “Marshall was the first nominee to undergo such an extensive grilling face-to-face, and his hearings created a new level of senatorial inquiry. And once those senators smelled blood, it only pushed them deeper and deeper. A year after the Marshall hearing, the Senate blocked Justice Abe Fortas from ascending to the position of chief justice.” Wil Haygood

Confirmation hearings became partisan battles that were televised and played on repeat across news outlets across the world. 

Civil Rights Movement:
In 1964, more than 20,000 citizens had been arrested in the South following protests for racial equality. In 1965, more than 36 churches had been firebombed by segregationists in Mississippi. 

“Charlie Houston, the dean (at Howard University Law School), had studied the plight of the Negro lawyer in America, studied it and gathered statistics, and those statistics were stark and indisputable. He would constantly remind his students of the crisis confronting the Negro lawyer. Houston discovered ‘there are not more than 100 Negro lawyers in the South devoting full-time to practice: 100 Negro layers to care for the rights and interests of 9,000,000 Southern Negroes or approximately one Negro lawyer to every 90,000 Negroes.’” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall lived in a realistic and gritty world. And he had gone into dangerous southern towns at night. And lived to tell about it. Negroes would tell you Thurgood Marshall was Atticus Finch before Atticus Finch.” Wil Haygood

Brown v. Board of Education:
Fall of 1957, nine black schoolchildren tried to desegregate Little Rock Central High School and were stopped by a mob of angry whites yelling profanities, spitting, and throwing rocks. “Reporters on the scene to cover the story were chased and bloodied by the mobs. This forced President Dwight Eisenhower to go into military mode and dispatch troops to protect the children. The troops had to remain at path school watching over the black children for an entire year. Little Rock was thus seared into the nation’s psyche as mean and bigoted. 

Smith v. Allwright:
Lonnie Smith tried to vote in Houston. He was denied a ballot by the Houston election Judge S.E. Allwright. Marshall met with Smith and filed a complaint on his behalf. The case made its way to the Supreme Court. “Thurgood Marshall had never appeared before the justices of the US Supreme Court of any case approaching this magnitude. And in reality, if he were to reach that hallowed courtroom to take on Texas, he’d be taking on all the states below the Mason-Dixon Line, because they had punishing white primary systems of their own.” Wil Haygood

“Marshall opened by telling the justices what he had been saying all along: that the Texas primary simply undermined Negro voting no matter how state officials argued otherwise.” Wil Haygood

“The Texas attorney general, Gerald Mann, as expected, argued that the earlier ruling supporting Texas did not violate any of the constitutional amendments being debated. The justices, at the conclusion of the arguments, had to ponder a question: Does the constitution embrace ‘private’ discrimination?” Wil Haygood

Landmark 8-1 decision ruled on behalf of Smith and was a profound voting rights victory for the NAACP. The court wrote, “The United States is a constitutional democracy. Its organic law grants to all citizens a right to participate in the choice of elected officials without restriction by any state because of race. This grant to the people of the opportunity for choice is not to be nullified by a state through casting its electoral process in a form which permits a private organization to practice racial discrimination in the election.”

Southern states continued to impose poll taxes, literacy tests, harassment, and physical brutality to deter black Americans from voting. 

30k black votes were registered in 1940. In 1947, three years after the case, there were 100k. “Before 1964, only 22 percent of Negroes were registered to tote throughout the American South. Yes, there was the Smith decision, but fear remained; voting rights activists still fell dead from gunfire.” Wil Haygood

Supreme Court:
“During his twenty-four years on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall remained unerringly true to his principles. His concurring opinions and dissents echoed his beliefs about the First Amendment and equality.” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall wrote 322 majority opinions while on the high court. They delved from freedom of speech to the death penalty, from issues of segregation and discrimination to housing. There were also 363 dissents, giving evidence of a justice who would not bend when he felt the law was against the aggrieved and dispossessed. No justice had come to the high court with the background he possessed in traveling the land and fighting from courthouse to courthouse and devising national strategies that would alter American law.” Wil Haygood

“His were the eyes that had seen, up close, men and women grasping for freedom. He had seen shack-like structures masquerading as Negro schoolhouses. He had heard the wails of Negro mothers crying for their sons who had been sentenced on suspicious rape charges. He had seen how poverty could scar both Negro and white alike. His were eyes that had seen what very few Ivy League-trained lawyers had seen and he knew it, and he wanted them to know he knew it.” Wil Haygood

The Road to Character – David Brooks

The Road to Character by David Brooks
Date read: 4/28/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Brooks examines the generational shift from humility to the “Big Me”—where everyone’s now encouraged to see themselves as the center of the universe. As part of the “Big Me,” we’ve become obsessed with resume virtues—wealth, fame, status—things that exist beyond our control and don’t necessarily correspond to living a meaningful life. When in fact, we should be focused on eulogy virtues—kindness, bravery, honesty. But to get here, we must get out of our own heads, stop asking ourselves what we want out of life, and instead ask ourselves what our lives and circumstances want out of us. Brooks cites examples of those throughout history who faced crucible moments and used the struggle against their limitations to develop more enduring virtues.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Resume virtues versus eulogy virtues:
Resume virtues: Skills you bring to the job market that contribute to external success.

Eulogy virtues: Exist at the core of your being, whether you are kind, brave, honest, or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed. 

One book that helped him think about these two sets of virtues was Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik who observes two accounts of creation in Genesis and argues these represent two opposing sides of our nature, Adam I and Adam II.

“If you are only Adam I, you turn into a shrewd animal, a crafty, self-preserving creature who is adept at playing the game and who turns everything into a game. If that’s all you have, you spend a lot of time cultivating professional skills, but you don’t have a clear idea of the sources of meaning in life, so you don’t know where you should devote your skills, which career path will be highest and best.” DB

“This book is about Adam II. It’s about how some people have cultivated strong character. It’s about one mindset that people through the centuries have adopted to put iron in their core and cultivate a wise heart. I wrote it, to be honest, to save my own soul.” DB

“Good, wise hearts are obtained through lifetimes of diligent effort to dig deeply within and heal lifetimes of scars. You can’t teach it or email it or tweet it. It has to be discovered within the depths of one’s own heart when a person is fairly ready to go looking for it, and not before.” Dave Jolly

Adam II: “Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable.” DB

“They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline.” DB

“These are the people who have built strong inner character, who have achieved certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to deepen the soul.” DB

Rites of Passage:
“The road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. When they were in crucible moments, they suddenly had a greater ability to see their own nature. The everyday self-deceptions and illusions of self-mastery were shattered.” DB

“Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.” Kierkegaard

“Such people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They find a vocation or calling. They commit themselves to some long obedience and dedicate themselves to some desperate lark that gives life purpose.” DB

Resist self-promotion:
When George H.W. Bush was running for president, if a speechwriter put “I” in one of his speeches, he would cross it out. In speeches he didn’t, his mother would call the next day and tell him he was talking too much about himself again. 

Shift from a culture of humility to a culture of “Big Me” where everyone’s encouraged to see themselves as the center of the universe. 

Purpose:
Don’t ask what you want from life, instead ask: “What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do?” DB

You have been thrown into a specific place with specific problems and needs. “Your job is to figure certain things out: What does this environment need in order to be made whole?” DB

“We don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.” DB

“The true self is what you have built from your nature, not just what your nature started out with.” DB

Putting lower loves above higher ones:
“If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning and companionship.” DB

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” Immanuel Kant

“The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself.” DB

Inner scorecard:
“Adam I achieves success by winning victories over others. But Adam II builds character by winning victories over the weaknesses in himself.” DB

“Self-respect is produced by inner triumph, not external ones.” DB

“The central fallacy of modern life is the belief that accomplishments of the Adam I realm can produce deep satisfaction. That’s false. Adam I’s desires are infinite and always leap out ahead of whatever has just been achieved. Only Adam II can experience deep satisfaction.” DB

“Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one.” 

Legacy:
“The message is the person, perfected over lifetimes of effort that was set in motion by yet another wise person now hidden from the recipient by dim mists of time.” DB

“But if you serve work that is intrinsically compelling and focus on just being excellent at that, you will wind up serving yourself and the community obliquely.” DB

Maturity:
“Maturity does not glitter. It is not built on the traits that make people celebrities. A mature person has moved from fragmentation to centeredness, has achieved a state in which the restlessness is over, the confusion about the meaning and purpose of life is calmed.” DB

Flaws:
“We are all stumblers, and the beauty and meaning of life are in the stumbling—in recognizing the stumbling and trying to become more graceful as the years go by.” DB

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity – Peter Attia

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Date read: 4/23/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

Incredibly useful and detailed book on longevity. Attia emphasizes the importance of focusing not just on lifespan—how long you live—but healthspan—the quality of your years. He details how Medicine 2.0 has missed the boat and treats medical conditions on the wrong end of the timescale after they’ve already taken hold. In Medicine 3.0, the focus is on prevention, and this demands that you take responsibility for your own health. Attia frames up the tactics in Medicine 3.0—exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional health, and exogenous molecules—and adds scientific rigor, as well as recommendations so you can begin applying them to your own life.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Longevity has two components:

1. Lifespan: How long you live

2. Healthspan: The quality of your years

Medicine 3.0:
Nearly all the insurance money flows to treatment rather than prevention: “Medicine’s biggest failing is in attempting to treat all these conditions at the wrong end of the timescale—after they are entrenched—rather than before they take root.” PA

Medicine 3.0 places greater emphasis on prevention rather than treatment, considers the patient a unique individual, focuses on an honest assessment of risk versus reward versus cost, and pays more attention to maintaining healthspan, the quality of life. 

“In Medicine 2.0, you are a passenger on the ship, being carried along somewhat passively. Medicine 3.0 demands much more from you, the patient: You must be well informed, medically literate to a reasonable degree, clear-eyed about your goals, and cognizant of the true nature of risk.” PA

“I never won a fight in the ring; I always won in preparation.” Muhammad Ali

Tactics:
“Changing how we exercise, what we eat, and how we sleep (see Part III) can completely turn the tables in our favor. The bad news is that these things require effort to escape the default modern environment that has conspired against our ancient (and formerly helpful) fat-storing genes, by overfeeding, undermining, and undersleeping us all.” PA

“There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.” Harry S. Truman

“Absorb what’s useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” Bruce Lee

Neurodegenerative diseases:
Exercise is the single most powerful item in our neurodegeneration prevention tool kit. Sleep is also a very powerful tool against Alzheimer’s. Studies have shown regular exercisers live as much as a decade longer than sedentary people. 

Strategy is based on the following principles:

1. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain: vascular health is crucial to brain health.

2. What’s good for the liver (and pancreas) is good for the brain: metabolic health is crucial to brain health.

3. Time is key: Think about prevention and play the very long game.

4. Our most powerful tool for preventing cognitive decline is exercise: lots of it.

Exercise:
Peak aerobic cardiorespiratory fitness (V02 Max) is the most powerful marker for longevity. 

Emotional health:
“Every man is a bridge, spanning the legacy he inherited and the legacy he passes on.” Terrence Real

“Family pathology rolls from generation to generation like a fire in the woods taking down everything in its path until one person, in one generation, has the courage to turn and face the flames. That person brings peace to his ancestors and spares the children that follow.” Terrence Real

“Who cares how well you perform if you’re so utterly miserable?” PA

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” Paulo Coelho

Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant – Roland Lazenby

Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby
Date read: 4/11/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

The definitive Kobe Bryant biography. Lazenby details Kobe’s upbringing, his struggles, his triumphs, and his coming to terms with how to balance basketball alongside family—often learning the hard way. Throughout the book, Lazenby explores Kobe’s impenetrable, unshakable self-belief, his singular focus, and his ability to punch above his weight. No one understood the power of visualization, preparation, and seeking world-class mentors as well as Kobe. Well worth your time and one of the most powerful sports biographies I’ve read.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Preparation:
Gained a reputation for being a master of study and intense preparation with a singular focus on the details. 

Even as a kid, would pour over footage of players: “Soon Joe was subscribing to a service that delivered video of games directly. Joe and Kobe would pour over them together, taking note of all the key subtleties, the footwork, a primer of drop steps and jab steps and V-cuts, the various offensive and defensive styles of NBA teams and their stars. ‘I used to watch everybody from Magic to Bird to Michael to Dominique Wilkins,’ Bryant recalled. ‘I used to watch their moves and add them to my game.’ It was the beginning of a career-long focus on studying game recordings, normally the domain of the Xs and Os wonks, who serve as assistant coaches.” Roland Lazenby

“By the time he was an NBA player, he would invest long hours each day breaking down his performances and those of opponents, far more than what any other NBA player would ever contemplate undertaking.” Roland Lazenby

By the time Phil Jackson joined the Lakers, Kobe had already mastered the triangle offense because of how much he studied the Bulls growing up. He knew the right spots on the floor, the right actions, etc.

“It began with his immaculate footwork—an array of pivots, reverse pivots, jab steps, and feints that allowed him to create the room to rise up in a tight space, often pinned in against the side-line; to elevate over the defender and make seemingly impossible shots under impossible circumstances. This unique skill was the perfectly formed product of his study of untold hours of videotape of every single one of the game’s great scorers. It also involved conversations and more film study with Tex Winter about footwork, and time spent with Jerry West talking about a million important details, such as the angle of his elbow in relation to his forehead for the perfect shot.” Roland Lazenby

On flights after games, while teammates were sleeping, Bryant would watch the game he just played to review and critique his performance, then watch the scouting video for the next opponent, all before allowing himself to sleep. 

Impenetrable, unshakable self-belief:
“At every turn, his declarations of future greatness have been met with head shaking and raised eyebrows because such dreams as ludicrous, impossible to fulfill. ‘Kobe’s crazy,’ the people around him concluded time and time again with a laugh.” Roland Lazenby

“Bryant’s existence has been a singular, almost inhuman, pursuit of greatness.” Roland Lazenby

“A lot of guys his age didn’t really believe in themselves yet. It’s not enough to be good; you’ve got to know you are good. Kobe, he believed it.” Gary Charles

Willpower: “He was always trying to get better, to the point that he cut everything and everyone off. It was just, he had a vision. He had a goal in mind, and that was it, that was the end-all, be-all. He played like every game was his last, every workout was going to be his last. He would outwit people, man. His will was just unmatched.” Donnie Carr

Visualization:
Kobe would play alone when he didn’t have anyone else to play against while his family was living in Italy. He called it ‘shadow basketball.’ “That, of course, involved intense visualization of the NBA stars he had stored in his imagination from the video screen.” Roland Lazenby

As a young teen playing in a Philadelphia summer league, Kobe’s counselor cautioned him against his fixation on playing in the NBA and urged him to consider more realistic plans. Kobe was focused on being one in a million and had an extreme sense of purpose paired with an elevated skill level to do it. 

“Kobe Bryant had a clear destination in mind, and if you weren’t one board, he had clearly conveyed the idea that he was the sort who wouldn’t hesitate to grab you by the collar and throw you right off the train.” Roland Lazenby

After his rookie season: “For the next six years young Bryant had lived his life as if on a mythical quest. The only way he could keep the whole dream going was to work harder and harder and harder, to spin his fantasies around and around until they wrapped him tight in a new reality. Visualization was immense for that. It drove his many hours of solitary practice time. In America, as in Italy, he took to playing entire games along on the court in his own personal practice right before he played them for real in front of audiences.” Roland Lazenby

Kobe’s focus entering the league was to be an All-Star, to be a starter, and to average 20 points per game. 

“Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t it is of no use.” Carlos Castaneda, The Teaching’s of Don Juan

Focus:
“Kobe on stage was probably the most focused kid I’ve ever seen on the court. No bullshit, no taking it easy. He’s not going to smile at you. He’s going to kill you from bell to bell, no mercy. He didn’t give a fuck.” Sam Rines

Pick a lane: Kobe failed to launch a successful hip-hop career—what many athletes were attempting to do at the time. He was laughed off stage at a performance during All-Star Weekend. “He put it in perspective. You need to respect the ground that everybody else walks on. He didn’t treat music the way he did basketball. It’s a different investment. You can have supreme confidence, but you can’t go in there thinking if you want to do this at a higher level, it takes less than what you put into basketball.” Scoop Jackson

Mental toughness is what set Kobe apart. Being able to accept responsibility night after night after night. 

Severed relationships:
“It’s like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Show me a hero, and I’ll show you a tragedy.” Anthony Gilbert

“In one fell swoop, in the days before the 2001 playoffs began, Bryant had simply removed his family from his life.” Roland Lazenby

“He was like the Russians with the Romanovs. He got rid of them all.” Sonny Vaccaro

Learning the value of family: “Despite all his ambition and drive, the basketball star found nothing more important than his two daughters. The children were the priority for which he would skip a workout….Bryant had long encountered self-destruction in life, and by age thirty-four, he had learned to back away and move toward centering his approach. In a life filled with focus on competitive titles and glory, he was perhaps learning once more that there were other important things to be won.” Roland Lazenby

Distance:
“Since he mostly worked out alone, his teammates rarely saw him developing his game. Between the obvious talent, the inexperience, and his reclusive nature, Bryant presented quite a mystery. Derek Fisher had come in as a rookie with Bryant, had played with him for two seasons, and still had absolutely no idea who the kid was.” Roland Lazenby

“His basic strategy for dealing with other Lakers was to talk as little as possible.” Roland Lazenby

Punch above your weight:
Summer before his senior year of high school, Kobe would scrimmage and play with pros while he was facing a decision on whether or not to go straight to the NBA or go to college first. “It remained difficult to draw too many conclusions from Bryant’s experience working out with the pros that summer except for one impression that really mattered—Bryant’s own. He came away thinking that he could do it, he could play against NBA players right away.” Roland Lazenby

Game 5 - Second Round of NBA playoffs:
Lakers down in the series with the Utah Jazz, 3-1.. Shaq fouled out with just under two minutes to go and the game was then in Kobe’s hands (it was still his rookie season, he was 18 years old). With one minute left in regulation, John Stockton blew by Kobe for a layup to tie the game. Kobe got the last shot to win it in regulation from fourteen feet and threw up an airball. “Overtime would only extend his nightmare. With O’Neal out of the game, the Lakers found themselves putting the extra period in the rookie’s hands. His three deep air balls goosed the home crowd into delight. Bryant raised his eyebrows, licked his lips, appeared almost, for a moment, to squeeze back a tear.” (page 268 for reference)

After Kobe returned to LA he was on the phone with Sonny Vaccaro who asked him how he felt about getting beat up by the press and fans for his crazy air balls. “Fuck ‘em,” Bryant replied quickly. “Nobody else wanted to shoot the ball.”

“That evening after the loss Bryant went straight to a gym at a neighborhood school as soon as he got home to L.A. ‘He went in the gym that night and shot until three or four in the morning,’ Scoop Jackson said. ‘There’s no crying, there’s no running to lay up with some woman he just met in a club. None of that shit. He went straight to the damn gym.’ ‘There’s not another teenager on the planet who could miss those shots, fail the Lakers, and recover from it,’ Vaccaro said, looking back.” Roland Lazenby

“It was an early turning point for me in being able to deal with adversity, deal with public scrutiny and self-doubt. At eighteen years old, it was gut-check time.” Kobe

“What if he didn’t have that game? What if he didn’t have that moment? What if he made one of those shots? What if he made one of those shots to win the game? Would he have turned out to be as good or better? I think that game was vital to how good he became. That level of embarrassment to happen to someone like him? The next year he came out like a fucking maniac.” Robby Schwartz

Mentorship:
“Tex Winter, the Lakers’ new assistant coach and resident offensive genius, would take the kind of grandfatherly approach that Bryant had long responded to. Winter could be harsh in his assessments of players, but he stressed early on to Bryant that when he criticized—and he would criticize often—he was aiming his comments at the player’s actions, not at the player himself.” Roland Lazenby

The Mamba Mentality – Kobe Bryant

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant
Date read: 4/5/23. Recommendation: 7/10.

Kobe Bryant’s firsthand account of his career, his work ethic, and his commitment to the game of basketball. Beautiful, coffee table book with incredible photography. I found Kobe’s perspective on preparation, playing the long game, and bouncing back from failure to be the most useful sections.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Preparation:
“More often than not, by the time I pulled in, Kobe would already be parked in the car next to my designated spot, taking a nap. He would be in the gym well before that, maybe by 6 AM to get his pre-practice workout done before anyone else showed up. That was the trademark of the final 10 years of his career.” Phil Jackson

“If I started my day early, I could train more each day.” Started at 5 AM and went until 7 AM, again from 11-2, and 6-8. By starting earlier he could set himself up for an extra workout each day.

“I never thought about my daily preparation. It wasn’t a matter of whether it was an option or not. It was, if I want to play, this is what I have to do, so I’d just show up and do it. My routine was grueling. It involved early mornings and late nights. It involved stretching, lifting, training, hooping, recovery, and film study. It involved putting in a lot of work and hours.” Kobe

Play the long game:
“I wasn’t scared of missing, looking bad, or being embarrassed. That’s because I always kept the end result, the long game, in my mind. I was always focused on the fact that I had to try something to get it, and once I got it, I’d have another tool in my arsenal. If the price was a lot of work and a few missed shots, I was OK with that.” Kobe 

“The mindset isn’t about seeking a result—it’s more about the process of getting to that result. It’s about the journey and the approach. It’s a way of life. I do think that it’s important, in all endeavors, to have that mentality.” Kobe

Dedication to family:
“At the same time, starting early helped me balance basketball and life. When my kids woke up in the morning, I was there, and they wouldn’t even know I had just finished at the gym. At night, I’d be able to put them to bed, then go work out again during my own time, not theirs.” Kobe

“There’s a fine balance between obsessing about your craft and being there for your family.” Kobe

How you respond is what matters:
“At the end of my first season in the NBA, we had made it to the Semifinals, up against Utah. But in the deciding fifth game, I let fly four airballs, and we lost our chance at the title. Those shots let me know what I needed to work on the most: my strength. That’s all the airballs did for me. In that game, nerves weren’t the problem. I just wasn’t strong enough to get the ball there. My legs were spaghetti; they couldn’t handle that long of a season. How did I respond to that? By getting on an intense weight-training program. By the start of the next season, my legs and arms were stronger and I was ready to get it on. In the immediate aftermath, I was never concerned by how the franchise or fans would react. I knew I would put in the work, which is what I did. In fact, as soon as we landed I went to the Pacific Palisades high school gym and shot all night long. I went back the next day and worked. And I worked and worked and worked. In my mind, it was never a matter of, ‘Oh no, I’ll never get another shot at this.’ I felt that my destiny was already written. I felt—I knew—that my future was undeniable and no one, not a person or play, could derail it.” Kobe

The Stock Horse and the Stable Cat – Phil Van Treuren

The Stock Horse and the Stable Cat by Phil Van Treuren
Date read: 3/12/23

Such an awesome concept—illustrated Stoic fables that appeal to both young readers and old—and it’s executed quite well. The story, characters, and illustrations are wonderful. The main lesson of the book is that events themselves are neither good nor bad, but it’s our judgment of those events that influence our perception. Since it’s a short read, I don’t have my typical notes listed below. But it’s well worth grabbing a copy for yourself and keeping it on your coffee table as a constant reminder.

Check out Stoic Simple to see more details or grab your own copy.

Boyd – Robert Coram

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
Date read: 3/10/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The story of one of the greatest fighter pilots and military strategists in history. John Boyd was such an entertaining character—he never backed down, he didn’t operate according to conventions, and he lived life on his own terms. He was the first man to codify maneuvers, tactics, and strategies of air-to-air combat, changing the way every air force in the world fights and flies. He was a founder of the military reform movement, challenging the careerists and bureaucracy in the Pentagon to reconsider their outdated mental constructs. After retirement, he immersed himself in the study of philosophy, theory of science, military history, and psychology, packaging everything he knew about all forms of conflict into a briefing called “Patterns of Conflict.” Entertaining cover to cover and a book that will help hone your own strategic thinking.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Background:
“He was first, last, and always a fighter pilot.” Wore the Air Force uniform for 24 years. Career spanned the last half of the 20th century. 

Childhood interests: During third grade, Boyd showed a strong interest in aviation, drawing airplanes after he finished working on class assignments. Rummaged through magazines at a friend’s house after school looking for stories or pictures of airplanes. In fifth grade, he rode in a small airplane with a local Erie man who owned a chain of drugstores that he knew through his sister.

In high school, he took a series of tests that told him he had an IQ of 90. He refused to retake the test and always cited his low IQ to bureaucrats so they would underestimate him. “I’m just a dumb fighter pilot. I don’t know any better. I had an IQ test in high school and they gave me a ninety.” 

Legacy:
Ideas greatly influenced the Gulf War in 1991. Became the first man to codify maneuvers, tactics, and strategies of air-to-air combat in 1959—the “Aerial Attack Study” which was the equivalent of the Bible of air combat. Changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights. At Georgia Tech, established the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory. Then founded the “military-reform movement” after retiring from the Air Force in 1975. Then immersed himself in the study of philosophy, theory of science, military history, and psychology, packaging everything he knew about all forms of conflict into a briefing called “Patterns of Conflict.” 

Greatest military theoretician since Sun Tzu: “The academics who know of Boyd agree he was one of the premier military strategists of the twentieth century and the only strategist to put time at the center of his thinking.” 

Self-perception:
Even from his earliest years, Boyd saw himself as “the man of principle battling superiors devoid of principle; the idealist fighting those of higher rank who have shirked their responsibilities; the man who puts it all on the line, and after receiving threat of dire consequences, prevails.” 

Fighter pilots:
“Aerial combat favors the bold, those who are not afraid to use the airplane for its true purpose: a gun platform. There is nothing sophisticated about sneaking up on someone and killing him. Aerial combat is a blood sport, a knife in the dark. Winners live and losers die. Boyd instinctively knew this and his flying was, from the beginning, that of the true fighter pilot.” 

“Fighter pilots fly with their fangs out and their hair on fire and they look death in the face every day and you ain’t shit if you ain’t done it.” 

Codifying aerial combat:
Pilots were intrigued by his handling skills and ideas. They asked him to write his tactics down and prepare diagrams of various tactical maneuvers. 

“American pilots believed that both they and the enemy had such an infinite number of maneuvers at their disposal that aerial combat could never be codified. Air combat was an art, not a science. After simulated aerial combat, a young pilot would be defeated and never know why. Nor could his instructors tell him.”

“When Boyd said he was going to “tweak up the tactics,” what he meant was that he was going to develop, and codify, for the first time in history, a formal regimen for fighter aircraft. He went about the job with a passion. He worked far into the night devising a series of briefings on fighter versus fighter and began to develop his skills as a lecturer.” 

In February of 1956, he published an article in the Fighter Weapons Newsletter entitled ‘A Proposed Plan for Ftr. Vs. Ftr. Training.’ Focused on teaching pilots a new way of thinking, illustrated maneuvers and results of those maneuvers. What were the effects on airspeed? What countermoves were available to an enemy pilot? How do you anticipate those counters?

Boyd became a legend for his skills as a fighter pilot, as well as his abilities as a teacher. 

Created a 150 page single spaced manual that he called the “Aerial Attack Study.” This became the official tactics manual for fighter aircraft. “For the first time the high-stakes game of aerial combat was documented, codified, and illustrated. While all other fighter pilots used their hands, Boyd used mathematics.” The first 600 copies disappeared almost overnight and although it was a classified document, pilots would hide them and take them home to study.

“Within ten years the ‘Aerial Attack Study’ became the tactics manual for air forces around the world. It changed the way they flew and the way they fought.” And it was written by a 33-year-old captain—Boyd. 

Thermodynamics + E-M Theory:
Boyd was studying at Georgia Tech studying mechanical engineering after his time working on the aerial attack study and his time here would seed his eventual E-M Theory. 

“The E-M Theory, at its simplest, is a method to determine the specific energy rate of an aircraft. This is what every fighter pilot wants to know. If I am at 30,000 feet and 450 knots and pull six G’s, how fast am I gaining or losing energy? Can my adversary gain or lose energy faster than I can?”

“When people looked at it, they invariably had one of two reactions: they either slammed a hand to their forehead and said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Or said it had been done before—nothing so simple could have remained undiscovered for so long. 

Realized that if E-M could quantify the performance of American aircraft, it could do the same for enemy aircraft. And eventually use it to design a fighter aircraft. 

“Boyd’s Energy-Maneuverability Theory did four things for aviation: it provided a quantitative basis for reaching aerial tactics, it forever changed the way aircraft are flown in combat, it provided a scientific means by which maneuverability of an aircraft could be evaluated and tactics designed both to overcome the design flaws of one’s own aircraft and to minimize or negate the superiority of the opponent’s aircraft, and finally, it became a fundamental tool in designing fighter aircraft.” 

Drawdown period:
E-M Theory: “He added more notes, more thoughts, more equations. And then he put it away and went into what he called his ‘draw-down period,’ thinking, ‘Oh, hell. Somebody has already done this.’ If what he had discovered was work done by someone else, he did not want to waste more time….Then it registered: if someone had reached the same conclusions he had reached and applied it to tactics, he would have known about it when he was at Nellis….He became excited all over again. The enormity of what he was in the process of discovering would change aviation forever.” 

Retired from the Air Force on August 31, 1975. He was 48 years old. Drove back to his hometown of Erie, PA. “For several weeks Boyd stayed, walking the beach, thinking about his new project and how he would go about researching and writing it. He let the ideas bubble, mulled them over, turned them back and forth, and examined them from all angles and then discarded most of them and began again. By the end of his visit he was rejuvenated. The Peninsula did that for him. He was overflowing with thoughts about the books he wanted to read and the ideas he wanted to explore. And then he returned to Washington. Even though he arguably had more influence on the Air Force than any colonel in Air Force history, his greatest contributions were yet to come. He was about to enter the most productive and most important part of his life.” The next chapter would focus on his learning theory.

“If you want to understand something, take it to the extremes or examine its opposites.” John Boyd

“He practiced what he preached. He considered every word and every idea from every possible angle, then threw it out for discussion, argued endless hours, restructured his line of thought, and threw it out for discussion again. Creativity was painful and laborious and repetitive and detail-haunted.”

Focusing on solutions, not problems or use cases:
Too big, too expensive: “Boyd had done some preliminary E-M calculations on the F-111 and knew what a terrible mistake the Air Force was making. Boyd knew that, left to its own devices, the bureaucracy always came up with an aircraft such as the F-111. The Air Force looked at technology rather than the mission.” 

Know your audience:
E-M charts: Boyd had to determine how to present his E-M theory and its implications to Air Force brass. He decided to take the data and map it on graphs that showed the differences between American fighter’s energy rate and the energy rate of its Soviet counterpart. Blue areas were where differences favored American fighters, red showed where Soviets held an advantage. “Blue is good. Red is bad. Even a goddamn general can understand that.” 

But his outspoken nature would always limit his trajectory and promotions in his career. He wasn’t willing to play politics and make people feel good about shitty decisions. 

Hard work and success:
“But hard work and success do not always go together in the military, where success is defined by rank, and reaching higher rank requires conforming to the military’s value system. Those who do not conform will one day realize that the path of doing the right things has diverged from the path of success, and then they must decide which path they will follow through life.” 

“To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?” John Boyd

“All the things that make the Pentagon so prized by careerists make it loathed and detested by warriors. The self-promotion and sycophancy and backstabbing treachery are all anathema to a warrior.” 

Guiding principle:
“Boyd was guided in his work by one simple principle: he wanted to give pilots a fighter than would outmaneuver any enemy. He didn’t become fixated on technology or ‘one-point’ numerical solutions.”

“Boyd was not as interested in his career as he was in the fate of the American fighting man, the man who—as the military says—is at the pointy end of the spear. He wanted these men to have the best possible equipment, whether it was an airplane or a tank. That was his life.”

“Boyd made men believe they could do things they never thought they could do. And most of them were men of integrity and accomplishment even before they met Boyd.”

Learning theory:
Started voracious reading program and his search for the nature of creativity. The next major focus in his life. He was trying to get a grasp on his learning theory. For Boyd, learning didn’t mean studying, it meant creativity. 

Wrote draft after draft of his learning theory on yellow legal pads. Told his friends he didn’t know where he was going with his research and was just letting it carry him along. 

Destruction and Creation: Spent more than four years researching and writing then distilling his work down to 11 pages. Core thesis focuses on “the danger of our mental processes becoming focused on internal dogmas and isolated from the unfolding, constantly dynamic outside world, we experience mismatches between our mental images and reality. Then confusion and disorder and uncertainty not only result but continue to increase.” If you use this to your advantage, you can stoke chaos in the enemy and leave them constantly off balance. Whoever can handle the quickest rate of change survives. This was the beginning of his ‘time-based theory of conflict.’

Four areas drew most of his attention: general theories of war, the blitzkrieg, guerrilla warfare, and the use of deception by create commanders. 

As he studied history, he found that very rarely would victorious commanders throw their forces head to head against the enemy. They didn’t fight wars of attrition. Instead, they used deception, speed, fluidity of action, and tactics that disoriented or confused, causing the enemy to unravel before the fight ever took place. 

O-O-D-A Loop: Observe-orient-decide-act cycle. Speed is the most important element of the cycle. Whoever can go through it the fastest prevails. And once the process begins, it must only continue to accelerate. “The key thing to understand about Boyd’s version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such fashion as to get inside the mind and the decision cycle of the adversary. This means the adversary is dealing with outdated or irrelevant information and thus becomes confused and disoriented and can’t function.” 

The key to victory is operating at a quicker tempo than the enemy. 

“To take the least-expected action disorients the enemy. It causes him to pause, to wonder, to question. This means that as the commander compresses his own time, he causes time to be stretched out for his opponent. The enemy falls farther and farther behind in making relevant decisions. It hastens the unraveling process.” 

Between Two Kingdoms – Suleika Jaouad

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
Date read: 3/7/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

A beautiful and inspiring memoir about Jaouad’s diagnosis with a rare form of leukemia in her early 20s and her struggle to survive. Four years later, she had survived. But she was then faced with the question of how she could possibly begin living again. So she borrowed a friend’s car, subleased her apartment, and set off on a 15,000-mile road trip over 100 days. Along the way she visited strangers who had written to her while she was sick in order to uncover her way back to herself. The book is full of thought-provoking sections on mortality, meaning, recovery, and how to reconcile our past with our present in order to find a path forward. Jaouad’s a brilliant writer and her story will steal your heart.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Moving to Paris and diagnosis:
“If Manhattan is where people move to jump-start careers, Paris is where they go to live out the fantasy of a different life.”

Itch (first symptom) had lessened since she moved to Paris, but the exhaustion was all consuming. She was drinking up to eight espressos a day. “I started to worry that my deep weariness might be something else. Maybe I just can’t cut it in the real world, I’d written in my journal.” 

Found herself returning to the clinics dreary waiting room multiple times for various colds, bouts of bronchitis, UTI’s. 

After her red blood cell count dropped significantly, she returned to the hospital in Paris, they stabilized her, then she flew back to the US where she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. An aggressive form of cancer that attacks the blood and bone marrow. Only 1 in 4 patients survived beyond five years past diagnosis. Suleika was 22 years old. 

“The diagnosis had formed an irreparable fracture: my life before, and after.”

Treatment:
“How strange to be here, in this depressing room, I thought with incredulity, while my peers were out there, starting careers, having babies, traveling the world, and hitting all the other milestones of young adulthood.” 

Isolation: Suleika was a year too old for pediatrics, but decades younger than most of the other patients in adult oncology. 

One afternoon, after more than five weeks in the hospital, she was going into bone marrow failure. The standard treatments were not working. She was enrolled in a phase II experimental clinical trial, meaning it was not yet known whether the new chemo drug combination was safe and effective.

Planning for the future:
“With mortality in the balance, one of life’s most delicious activities when you’re young—imagining your future—had become a frightening, despair-inducing exercise.”

“Then I howled into my pillow—a deep, blood-vessel-popping howl of frustration and envy directed at Will, at my friends, at everyone else who was out there starting jobs, taking trips, discovering new things—all unencumbered by illness.” 

Alchemize suffering into creative grist:
“Henri Matisse, while recovering from intestinal cancer, had worked on his design of the Chapel of the Rosary in Venice by pretending the ceiling of his apartment was the chapel, and attaching a paintbrush to a long pole, which allowed him to work from bed.”

Frida Kahlo, once a pre-medical student in Mexico City, was in a horrible accident when the bus collided with a streetcar. She suffered fractures of the clavicle, ribs, spine, elbow, pelvis, and leg. She was pierced by the streetcar’s iron handrail which entered her left hip. She was forced to abandon her plans of becoming a doctor. While she was bedridden, she stole oil paints from her father, ordered a special easel, and started to paint. “Kahlo transformed her confinement into a place incandescent with metaphor and meaning.”

“I decided to reimagine my survival as a creative act….If my body had grown so depleted that I now had only three functional hours each day, I would clarify my priorities and make the most of how I spent the time I had.”

Reorganized her bedroom so everything she needed was within reach—pens, notebooks, papers, bookshelves with her favorite novels, a wooden board to act as a desk while she laid in bed. “I wrote when I was home, and I wrote each day that I found myself back in the hospital. I wrote until the anger and envy and pain bled dry—until I could no longer hear the persistent beeping of monitors, the hiss of respirators, the alarms that constantly went off. I had no way of predicting all the place the Hundred-Day project would take me, but what I knew for now, was that I was starting to find my true power.” 

Started a blog: the concept was to create a platform for young adults with cancer who were often misunderstood and overlooked. Eventually, the New York Times caught wind, read her blog, and reached out to her to write for the paper. 

Prior to bone marrow transplant: “I worked around the clock for a month to draft thirteen columns before I entered the transplant unit, fueled by the knowledge that it was going to be a long time before I was well enough to write or walk or do much of anything else again….To this day, I’ve never been more prolific. Death can be a great motivator.” 

“I worked furiously, eager to get as much as I could done before the side effects of the chemo intensified. Inevitably they did, so as I typed, I kept a yellow commit bucket tucked under one arm.” 

Strangers started to write in as her column and blog gained traction. “Though I wasn’t allowed to leave my hospital room, writing had given me a portal through which I could travel across time, space, continents.”

“These strangers and their stories quickly became my conduits to the outside world. I relished the letters I received…”

“Before the transplant, writing had been a refuge for me; now it most often resulted in frustration and tears. But I was determined to do what I could while I could, even if that meant pushing my body beyond the boundaries of what was prudent.”

“Since the launch of ‘Life, Interrupted,’ it had been syndicated in magazines and newspapers and was gaining a sizable following. I didn’t have the stamina to write a new column each week, but I did keep writing, slowly, every day, even if it was only a paragraph.” 

Mortality:
“We are all terminal patients on this earth—the mystery is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ death appears in the plot line.” 

“Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” Susan Sontag

Meaning:
Meaning is not found in the material realm—dinner, jazz, cocktails, conversation or whatever. Meaning is what’s left when everything else is stripped away.” Howard, a retired art historian from Ohio, who wrote into Suleika while she was sick.

“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning.” 

Recovery:
“It’s where I find myself now, on the threshold between an old familiar state and an unknown future. Cancer no longer lives in my blood, but it lives on in other ways, dominating my identity, my relationships, my work, and my thoughts.”

“After three and a half years, I am officially done with cancer—more than four years, if you start with the itch. I thought I’d feel victorious when I reached this moment—I thought I’d want to celebrate. But instead, it feels like the beginning of a new kind of reckoning. I’ve spent the past fifteen hundred days working tirelessly toward a single goal—survival. And now that I’ve survived, I’m realizing I don’t know how to live.” 

“Even acknowledging this schism feels impossible: I’ve already put my parents through so much, and I don’t want to worry them with the challenges I am facing now…But the contradictions leave me mired in unanswerable questions: Will my cancer return? What kind of job can I hold when I need to nap four hours in the middle of the day…?”

“During my time in treatment, I’d had one simple conviction: If I survive, it has to be for something. I don’t just want a life—I want a good life, an adventurous life, a meaningful one. Otherwise, what’s the point?” 

“Recovering isn’t about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.”

“After you’ve had the ceiling cave in on you—whether through illness or some other catastrophe—you don’t assume structural stability. You must learn to live on fault lines.”

Travel:
“My time in India has given me a glimpse into how travel can hurtle you out of old ways of being and create conditions for new ones to emerge.”

Road trip: “It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that I need to leave the familiar, but I don’t want to do it entirely alone—I want to seek out others who can offer perspective into my predicament, who can help guide my passage. By the time I finally pass my driver’s test, the next step is obvious: I am going to go on a road trip and visit those who sustained me when I was sick.”

Covered 15,000 miles, 33 states, visiting more than twenty people, over the course of 100 days—the maximum amount of time her medical agreed to before her next follow up. 

“I am nothing like the girl who left home nearly fifty days ago. I am a sojourner, an adventurer, a road warrior, crushing the big miles, even if I still go to sleep shattered with exhaustion at the end of each day.” 

When we travel we take three trips. The first is of preparation and anticipation. The second is the trip you’re actually on. The third is the trip you remember. The key is to be present wherever you are in your journey at this moment. 

Threads of past, present, future:
“Maybe the challenge is to locate a thread that strings these selves together.” 

“To be well now is to learn to accept whatever body and mind I currently have.” 

“Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”

Personal History – Katharine Graham

Personal History by Katharine Graham
Date read: 3/4/23. Recommendation: 10/10.

The best autobiography I’ve ever read. Graham tells her own story with honesty and candor. She reflects on how she built her own strength and self-confidence navigating a business world dominated by men while leading the Washington Post through its crucible moments of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the pressmen’s strike of 1975. The Post not only endured but thrived, elevating its position among the most respected newspapers in the country thanks to Graham’s dedication to serving the public good, her ability to make tough decisions, and her commitment to upholding high journalistic standards.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Upbringing:
The children were an afterthought to Katharine’s mother, Agnes. She rarely mentioned them individually. The first time Katharine appeared in her diary by initial was two years after her birth. 

“My difficulties were much more tied to a lack of guiding personal relationships, for I had more or less to bring myself up emotionally and figure out how to deal with whatever situations confronted me. At the same time that I was surrounded by extreme luxury, I led a life structured and in many ways spartan, circumscribed by schools and lessons, travel and study.”

“My mother’s effect on us was often contradictory. We received every encouragement for what we accomplished, yet her ego was such that she trampled on our incipient interests or enthusiasms. If I said I loved The Three Musketeers, she responded by saying I couldn’t really appreciate it unless I had read it in French, as she had.”

Between fourth and fifth grade, she spent the entire summer by herself reading nearly 100 different books on the third floor of Mount Kisco. 

Self-esteem:
Upon graduating high school: “I still felt fairly different and shy and believed I had only a few friends. Apparently my class didn’t see me the way I saw myself. My senior yearbook entry describes a girl known for her laugh and manly stride. My class prophecy read: ‘Kay’s a Big Shot in the newspaper racket.’ But I envisaged no such future for myself or, in fact, any specific future at all. Rather than creating my own way, what I was trying to do all the time was figure out how to adjust to whatever life I found.” 

After departing for college, she read the Post daily and offered feedback: “I found myself deeply involved with the struggle to improve the paper. Somewhat to my surprise, given that I thought of myself during this period as unsophisticated, unworldly, and fairly unopinionated. I seem to have been full of independent appraisals of the paper and what it was printing.”

The Washington Post – beginnings:
In June of 1933, Katharine’s father, Eugene Meyer, bought The Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction. The paper had fallen on hard times and was led by an aimless owner. Five years earlier her father had tried to buy it for $5m, at the auction he got it for $825k. 

Eugene soon realized the newspaper business wasn’t like the other businesses he knew. The space was competitive. The tactics he applied weren’t generating results. The beginning was a struggle. But he always maintained his belief that a newspaper is a public trust, meant to serve the public. And over time, he stuck with it and began to create his own success. See his original principles on page 63.

The Washington Post – Phil Graham years:
Phil, Katharine’s husband, joined the Post as associate publisher in January of 1946 at the age of 30. He would learn an entirely new and competitive business, starting at the top as deputy to Eugene. He was relentless and worked incredibly hard as a close collaborator. By 1947, Phil had established himself as the defacto leader of the paper. He was involved in everything. 

By 1948, circulation had increased from 50k to 180k daily. Advertising had gone from 4m lines to 23m. The Post had been awarded numerous prizes. Eugene decided to officially pass the paper on to Phil and Katharine so it would stay in the family.

Over time, all of Phil’s responsibilities and interests built up—he was stretched thin—and that took a toll on his health and endurance. He suffered from various illnesses, often drank too much, and lashed out in explosions of anger at people who provoked him in the slightest. There were shadows building.

Phil eventually suffered from severe manic depression (bipolar disorder). He grew completely dependent on Katharine, almost like a child. The time between his hyperactivity and despair started growing more severe and occurring closer together. Then he ran off and had a public affair and announce his intention to divorce Katharine. 

Phil was hospitalized for his own safety. But negotiated his own release and went with Katharine to their farm in the countryside. After lunch they went upstairs for a nap, Phil excused himself to lie down in a separate bedroom. A few minutes later Katharine heard a gunshot. Phil had killed himself. She found him in the downstairs bathroom. 

Living in Phil’s shadow: 
“Despite my pleasure in the life I was leading during these years, I can see now that I was having problems I didn’t acknowledge to myself. I was growing shyer and less confident as I got older. I still didn’t know how to look my best or handle myself in social situations. I was afraid of being boring, and went on believing that people related to us entirely because of Phil.” 

“At the same time he was building me up, he was tearing me down. As he emerged more on the journalistic and political scenes, I increasingly saw my role as the tail to his kite—and the more I felt overshadowed, the more it became a reality…The wit he had turned on others he now turned on me. I became the butt of the family jokes. Strangely, I was still so mesmerized by him that I didn’t perceive what was happening, and even played along with it.” 

“I felt as though he had created me and that I was totally dependent on him…The truth is that I adored him and saw only the positive side of what he was doing for me. I simply didn’t connect my lack of self-confidence with his behavior toward me.”

When she and Phil were splitting up, Katharine was intent on keeping the paper in her family until one of her children could run it. Her friend, Luvie Pearson, looked at her and said, “Don’t be silly, dear. You can do it….You’ve just been pushed down so far you don’t recognize what you can do.” This was the first time she ever contemplated the idea that she could actually run the Post.

On her father’s death:
“People react in such complicated ways to any death, but particularly to the death of a parent, because a lot of what one feels is about oneself and the sense that nothing now stands between that self and dying. You have now become the older generation.”

The Washington Post - Katharine’s rise:
After Phil’s death: “It’s hard to remake decisions and even harder to rethink non decisions. Sometimes you don’t really decide, you just move forward, and that is what I did—moved forward blindly and mindlessly into a new and unknown life.”

September 20th, 1963, Katharine was elected president of The Washington Post Company at a board of directors meeting. 

“I naively thought the whole business would just go on as it had while I learned by listening. I didn’t realize that nothing stands still—issues arise every day, big and small, and they start coming at you. I didn’t understand the immensity of what lay before me, how frightened I would be by much of it, how tough it was going to be and how many anxious hours and days I would spend for a long, long time. Nor did I realize how much I was eventually going to enjoy it all.” 

Redefining her role: Comparing herself to her exaggerated idea of Phil’s ability and accomplishments only made things more challenging. “I had to come to realize that I could only do the job in whatever way I could do it. I couldn’t try to be someone else, least of all Phil.”

“What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes, and step off the edge.”

Her devotion to the Post and her overwhelming desire to keep the paper in the family, despite her insecurity and lack of knowledge, she knew she had to make it work. She got down to the job and set out to learn everything she could. 

“Most of all, what I know I did well in these years was to care about the company. I took an inordinate interest in all that we did…I tried to create an atmosphere that gave people the freedom to do their jobs, an environment in which good ideas would always be heard. I think I shared the highs and the lows, the failures as well as the successes.” 

The Pentagon Papers:
The New York Times got a hold of classified documents and started running articles about the secret history of decision-making in Vietnam—the Pentagon Papers. More formally titled, “History of the United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy.” Secret of Defense Robert McNamara had commissioned the review in 1967 before he had left the Pentagon. This resulted in a year-and-a-half-long study, with a 3000 page narrative history, and 4000 page appendix of documents. It was 47 volumes covering American involvement in Indochina from WWII to 1968 when peace talks began on the Vietnam War began in Paris. The government forced the Times to suspend publication. The Post was the only other paper that was able to get its hands on the raw documents—though it was a 4400 page jumbled mess of unordered pages without page numbers. 

Internal team at the Post was conflicted about publishing and defying court orders. But the company’s soul was at stake. The editors were pushing to publish in solidarity with the Times on the issue of freedom of the press. Their lawyers pushed back. Publishing could destroy the paper. But not publishing and advancing their own cause could do the same thing. Katharine made the decision to publish. 

Supreme Court eventually ruled that the government had not met the burden of showing justification for restraining further publication. 

The Post, as a policy, never published information based on intercepted communications, signal intelligence, or cryptography that endangered national security. This was a pledge they kept even with the Pentagon Papers.

“That was a key moment in the life of this paper. It was just sort of the graduation of the Post into the highest ranks. One of our unspoken goals was to get the world to refer to the Post and New York Times in the same breath, which they previously hadn’t done. After the Pentagon Papers, they did.” Ben Bradlee

Watergate is ultimately what led to the Washington Post becoming a household name.

Integrity:
In 1970, the Post hired an ombudsman whose job it was to receive and review complaints about what appears in the paper—only the second paper to do so.

During Watergate created strict rules to ensure fair coverage and accurate details, despite the abuse Katharine and the paper were facing from the Nixon administration. Every bit of information attributed to an unnamed source had to be supported by at least one additional independent source. They ran nothing that was reported by another newspaper, television or radio station without independently verifying and confirming by their own reporters. Every word and every story was read by at least one senior idiot before it went into print. “No matter how careful we were, there was always the nagging possibility that we were wrong, being set up, being misled.” 

Warren Buffett:
Warren joined the board of The Washington Post Company in 1974 and started mentoring Katharine in business education. During meetings he would bring as many annual reports as he could carry and took Katharine through them, describing different businesses, illustrating his points with real-world companies and case studies, identifying the differences between good businesses and bad ones.

Helped her discover self-confidence: “Warren summed up our learning relationship by suggesting that I seemed to go around as though I were seeing myself through the distorting mirrors of a carnival fun house. He saw it as his task to get me a better mirror that could eliminate the distortions.”

“He later told me that he subscribed to Charlie Munger’s ‘orangutan theory’—which essentially contended that, ‘if a smart person goes into a room with an orangutan and explains whatever his or her idea is, the orangutan just sits there eating his banana, and at the end of the conversation, the person explaining comes out smarter.’ Warren claimed to be my orangutan. And in a way he was. I heard myself talk when I was with him and I always got a better idea of what I was saying.” 

The pressmen’s strike:
Early morning on October 1, 1975, the contracts between The Washington Post and its unions had expired at midnight. Around 4am, the pressmen disabled all nine presses, including setting fire to one and beating the press foreman, Jim Hover. The pressmen walked out, taking the other unions with them, and started picketing. When Katharine arrived there was a foot of water covering the floor, smoke, and chaos. 

Katharine never wanted a strike and told the managers to avoid one if possible. And once it began, she didn’t want it last one second longer than necessary. None of their preparations in case a strike had occurred had planned for the presses being so badly damaged—electrical wiring ripped out, essential operating parts removed, oil drained out to strip the gear, and newsprint rolls slashed, or having all the craft unions in the building out on strike together.

Once they fixed one press, a group of advertising executives and others stepped in to run the press. They were able to print 100k papers that same night. Afterwards, the papers made their way through the mailroom where they were bundled up by another crew of executives and sent down the chutes to the waiting trucks. 

Preparing the mailing for the large Sunday papers was time-consuming and dirty. Katharine worked the mailroom on Saturday nights throughout the strike, as well as several other nights during the week. Went on duty when presses started to run at 930pm, didn’t finish until 3 or 4am. Left them filthy, sweaty, and covered with paste. “We had to roll up each individual paper in a brown wrapper, paste on an address label, seal the whole thing shut, and throw the finished, wrapped package into the big, smelly, heavy, and unwieldy canvas bags at the side of the work table, which we then dragged over to another station from which they were finally hauled off to the post office. 

“The whole job was so tedious and interminable that we came to look on it as our supreme service for the cause, the ultimate sacrifice. Warren Buffett, who spent several Saturday nights in the mailroom with us, said it made him rethink the price of the Sunday paper—no price was sufficient.”

For the first ten days of the strike, they operated at a high level of activity and stress. Facing uncertainties, difficulties, and violence at the picket line. Katharine received threats and personal attacks. Nails and tacks were spread across the alley entrance near the office and resulted in flat tires for those coming into the office. Pressmen began picketing the paper’s advertisers and boycotting their goods. They passed out flyers for consumers to boycott the advertisers goods, went into stores and dumped goods off shelves, and in one instance poured oil into a store’s fish tank, killing all the fish. 

“We had weathered a strike we hadn’t asked for and didn’t control. The Post survived this crucial test, but there was no ‘clean victory’—it was a painful one for the Post, for its guild and craft-union members, and for the Washington community. It divided the paper, creating a false atmosphere of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ Nearly two hundred people lost their jobs.”

“I never wanted the strike. I know that many people believe I deliberately set out to destroy a union, but that was certainly not the case….I never dreamed it was possible to replace the pressmen, not did I feel it was desirable….Most people at the Post are still represented by unions.”

The Washington Post has lived long and honorably with its unions…Katharine believed that they benefited from strong, healthy trade unionism. She always believed that. But she stands by the choice to go around the union because she had no other choice. The future of the company hung in the balance. The strike was a great tragedy that could have been avoided with wiser union leadership. Many good pressmen were caught in the crosshairs, they either had to resign from the union or remain with leaders who led them so poorly and had done tremendous harm. 

“I felt that the philosophy that any union is right no matter what it does was an odd cause for which to sacrifice one’s career. I wish the pressmen had influenced their union leadership to be responsible in the first place. Failing that, I wish they had returned as individuals. Unfortunately, many followed Dugan over the cliff.”

The strike taught Katharine necessary, but painful lessons about the need for strong and compassionate managers who are knowledgeable about the work, labor relations, and communications. The paper became more efficient, flexible and productive as a result. Went from 17 pressmen on each press before the strike to 8 person crews afterwards. Press speeds increased. Atmosphere improved throughout the building. Katharine focused on establishing better communication within the company and it resulted in a stronger paper.

How I Built This – Guy Raz

How I Built This by Guy Raz
Date read: 3/1/23. Recommendation: 7/10.

Based on Guy Raz’s podcast of the same name, this book shares insights from some of the world’s top entrepreneurs on building, launching, and scaling their ideas. Great chapters on identifying risk, extending your runway, harnessing the power of your story, and being deliberate about your location.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Scary versus dangerous:
“One of the things we taught people to do was rappel off a cliff. It is a very scary thing to do, but you are also held by a belay rope, and that rope would hold a car. So walking off the cliff backwards is scary, but it’s not dangerous. Walking across a thirty-five-degree-angle snowfield on a beautiful late May afternoon with bright blue sky, on the other hand, is not scary at all, but it is very dangerous, because the snow is melting, eventually it is going to find a layer of ice, the water will lubricate that ice, and then you have an avalanche. That is dangerous but not scary.” Jim Koch

“In my situation, staying at BCG that was dangerous but not scary. The danger was continuing to do something that didn’t make me happy and getting to sixty-five years old looking back and going, ‘Oh my God, I wasted my life.’” Jim Koch

“Failing is scary. Wasting your life is dangerous.” Guy Raz

Michael Dell on the origins of Dell Computer Corporation: There was nothing dangerous about his idea, he loved working on computers. He knew them inside and out. The reality was the scariest thing about starting the business—the unknown. “The danger for Michael was in relenting to his parents’ demands that he become a doctor, in hating every waking second of it while he watched the personal computing revolution unfold in front of him, and then in resenting his family for the rest of his life because they pushed him down a path that he knew in his heart was wrong for him.” Guy Raz

Safety nets:
Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines, didn’t give up his law practice until 1981—fourteen years after founding Southwest. Draymond John continued to work at Red Lobster for six years after he started FUBU, only after he secured a multi-million dollar round of financing. Both used their jobs to create runway for their ideas. 

Avoid catastrophe: “By doing things smartly and safely like this, you’ll give yourself more time and more room to operate, while simultaneously reducing the chances that failure can ruin your life.” 

Never be unprepared:
Each founder that Raz highlights in his book has one thing in common: they’ve done their homework. They know their product, business, customers, and industry inside and out. And this gives them a deep confidence in the viability of their ideas. 

“They knew their ideas would work because they knew their stuff.”

The role of research for artists and entrepreneurs is the equivalent of practice for athletes or rehearsal for actors. “It’s deep work and repetition that sear the fundamentals into your muscle memory….so when the lights come on and it’s time to do something for real, you can put all that prep work away and just act or play or build. You can create freely, without reservation or hesitation.” Guy Raz

Relationships:
“My best business decisions really have to do with picking people. Deciding to go into partnership with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list…Having somebody who you totally trust, who’s totally committed, who shares your vision and yet has a little bit different set of skills, and also acts as a check on you—and just the benefit of sparking off of somebody who’s got that kind of brilliance—it’s not only made it fun, but it’s really led to a lot of success.” Bill Gates

Know your story:
“The story must explain at a fundamental level why you exist.” Ben Horowitz

“The basic story that answers the big ‘why’ questions is the one that creates loyal customers, finds the best investors, build an employee culture that keeps them committed to the venture, and keeps you committed and grinding away when things get real hard and you want to give up (and you will).” Guy Raz

Location matters:
Three different approaches to location: moving in order to break into your industry, moving in order to break out of your industry, or staying put right where you are. What matters is that you’re intentional in that decision. 

Master your craft:
“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.” Walt Disney

Write Useful Books – Rob Fitzpatrick

Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction by Rob Fitzpatrick
Date read: 2/27/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The best modern resource that I’ve read for writing a compelling nonfiction book and successfully self-publishing. Fitzpatrick offers advice on effectively scoping your book, adopting an iterative approach, testing with beta readers, navigating a successful launch, and hacking Amazon to optimize for sales and growth. If you’re interested in writing your own book, it’s a go-to resource and quick reference.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Positive reviews:
The secret to a five-star Amazon rating is to be clear about what your book is promising so people can decide if they don’t need it. Good books get bad reviews when they make their promise too broad, luring the wrong people into purchasing the book. State who the book is for and what they’re going to get out of reading it. 

Pick your target:
“Nearly every author attempts to include too much stuff for too many different types of readers. But that’s the recipe for writing something mediocre for everybody and mind-blowing for nobody—every chapter that the amateur adores, the expert endures, and vice versa.”

Scope:

1. When someone decides to buy and read your book, what are they trying to achieve or accomplish with it? Why are they bothering? After finishing it, what’s different in their life, work, or worldview? That’s your book’s promise.

2. What does your ideal reader already know and believe? If they already believe in the importance of the topic, then you can skip the sections attempting to convince them of its worth. Or if they already know the basics, you can skip those. 

3. Who is your book not for and what is it not doing? If you aren’t clear on who you’re leaving out, then you’ll end up writing yourself into rabbit holes, wasting time on narrow topics that only a small subset of your readers actually care about. Deciding who it isn’t for will allow you to clip those tangential branches. 

Relevancy:
To stay relevant for years, you need to pick a promise that will remain relevant and important for 5+ years. And avoid overreliance on temporary tools, trends, and tactics. For example, The 4-Hour Workweek feels mostly dated at this point because most of its content relied on tools that are now outdated. 

“To create a book that lasts and grows, the formula is simple: do the best job of solving an important problem for a reader who cares without anchoring yourself to temporary tools, tactics, or trends. That’s partly about good scoping and partly about writing something that delivers real results to the average reader. And to accomplish that second goal, you’ll want to begin testing the book’s foundations with real people, even before it has even been written.” 

Learner’s goals:
“Readers aren’t buying your useful book for its storytelling or suspense. They are buying it as the solution to a problem or a path toward a goal. They’ll stay engaged for as long as you are regularly and consistently delivering on that promise.”

Arrange the content around the learner’s goals instead of your own convenience. That’s what makes it feel easy and engaging. Create rapid, consistent delivery of value in your book. 

Editing:
Deleting entire chapters is mainly about scoping—the reader doesn’t need this. Deleting anything smaller is about a mix of editing and reader experience design.

“Your early drafts already contain plenty of value. The challenge isn’t to add more good stuff. It’s to delete all the fluff that’s delaying readers from getting to it.” 

Front-loading:
“The likelihood of your readers recommending your book is based on the amount of value they’ve received before either finishing or abandoning it. And they’re most likely to abandon at the start.”

• Can you delete or reduce the front-matter (foreword, intro, bio)?

• If your book begins with value-enablers (theory, context, foundations), can you rearrange it to insert pieces of real value far earlier?

• If your whole book is building up toward a grand conclusion, can you simply start with the big reveal?

The faster you can deliver value, the happier and more engaged your readers will be. 

“A strong start can keep folks going through a weaker ending, but a strong ending can’t save a disappointing start.”

Beta-readers:
Find readers who want what you’re creating so badly that they’re willing to endure an early, awkward manuscript to get to it. They offer three types of insights:

1. What they say in their comments (qualitative)

2. Where they begin to become bored, start skimming, stop reading, and stop commenting (quantitative insights)

3. How they apply the book’s ideas in their lives (observational insights)

You’ll receive more helpful feedback by showing a less polished product because people will be less afraid to hurt your feelings. 

Beta reading runs in interactions of 2-8 weeks. First week or two gather feedback. Next six weeks factor that into a major revision. After each iteration, the manuscript will get stronger, and its problems will get smaller. 

Aim for 3-5 deeply engaged readers per iteration. Requires inviting 12-20 people who claim that they would love to read it. Roughly half won’t open it. Another half will submit one comment before giving up. 

Aim for 1-2 full iterations of beta reading (should take 1-4 months, depending on how quickly you can do a rewrite). You should continue iterating until your beta readers have shown you that you’re finished. 

Strong signals that you’re finished with beta-reading phase: It feels easy to recruit new beta readers since they want what you’re offering (desirable). Most of them are receiving the value and reaching the end (effective and engaging). At least some of them are bringing their friends (the recommendation loop is running). 

Tips: move the manuscript into a tool that allows for live feedback, add instructions explaining the most helpful types of feedback that a reader can give. 

Save the most influential readers for last. If an influential beta reader mentions they love what you’ve written, then request a testimonial for your book’s cover or Amazon page. Keep them in the loop on launch timelines and send them a few signed copies once the book is published. 

The best way to detect boredom is to find where readers are quietly giving up. 

Seed readers:
Get your book into the hands and hearts of 500-1000 seed readers before taking your foot off the gas.

Marketing options:

1. Digital book tour via podcasts and online events

2. Amazon PPC advertising

3. Event giveaways and bulk sales

4. Build a small author platform via writing in public

Write in public: Share your writing, drafts, and excerpts. Share your research and references. Share your process and progress. 

Wild – Cheryl Strayed

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Date read: 2/25/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

I had high expectations and Cheryl Strayed’s memoir still blew me away. She’s such a wonderful writer. She reflects on her own truth and struggles in a way that gives a voice to an experience that so many other people can relate to. The book details her solo three-month hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and the painstaking miles where she was able to reflect on everything that had left her broken and begin to make herself whole again. It’s a wonderful story of letting go, finding yourself, persevering, and choosing gratitude despite it all.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Adventure:
Solo three-month hike on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)

“I’d set out to hike the trail so that I could reflect upon my life to think about everything that had broken me and make myself whole again.” 

“But the truth was, at least so far, I was consumed only with my most immediate and physical suffering.” 

“But hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard.”

“I thought it would help me find my center, to come out here.”

“I had only just begun. I was three weeks into my hike, but everything in me felt altered. I lay in the water as long as I could without breathing, alone in a strange new land, while the actual world all around me hummed on.” 

What mattered was utterly timeless: “It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.”

Tragedy:
Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and told she had a year to live. But she only lived 49 days after her diagnosis. During that time, each day was an eternity. 

“It was only after her death that I realized who she was: the apparently magical force at the center of our family who’d kept us all invisibly spinning in the powerful orbit around her. Without her, Eddie slowly became a stranger. Leif and Karen and I drifted into our own lives…we were four people floating separately among the flotsam of our grief.”

Fear:
“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves…Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid.”

Doubt:
“I staggered north toward Kennedy Meadows, furious with myself for having come up with this inane idea. Elsewhere, people were having barbecues and days of ease, lounging by lakes and taking naps….I was going to quit. Quit, quit, quit, I chanted to myself as I moaned and hiked and rested (ten, five, ten, five). I was going to get to Kennedy Meadows, retrieve my resupply box, eat every candy bar I’d packed into it, and then hitch a ride to whatever town the driver who picked me up was going to.” 

Letting go:
“Perhaps the impulse to purchase the PCT guidebook months before had been a primal grab for a cure, for the thread of my life that had been severed. I could feel it unspooling behind me—the old thread I’d lost, the new one I was spinning…”

The void: the place where things are born, where they begin. Black holes absorb energy and then release something new and alive. 

“It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn’t have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I’d done was true.”

“How wild it was, to be let be.”

Rediscovering yourself:
“Someone was in here. It was me. I was here. I felt it in a way I hadn’t in ages: the me inside of me, occupying my spot in the fathomless Milky Way.”

Perseverance:
“So much of being able to hike the PCT depended upon mind control: the stout decision to move forward, regardless. I covered my wounds with duct tape and 2nd Skin, then I put on my socks and boots and hobbled over to the campground’s spigot to fill up my two bottles with sixty-four ounces of water, which had to last me for fifteen searing miles across Hat Creek Rim.”

“Miles weren’t things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate struggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched….The PCT had taught me what a mile was. I was humble before each and every one.”

Gratitude:
“Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know, though I felt it somehow already contained within me.” 

Brave Enough – Cheryl Strayed

Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed
Date read: 2/23/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

If you’ve read any of Strayed’s work or heard her speak, you know how compelling her advice, thoughts, and quotes are. The way she structures and communicates her ideas is both memorable and original. Brave Enough is a tiny book that’s a compilation of her most famous quotes about love, compassion, forgiveness, and endurance. It deserves a spot on your desk to act as a constant reminder and reference as you face challenges in your own work and life.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Do the work:
“We don’t reach the mountaintop from the mountaintop. We start at the bottom and climb up. Blood is involved.”

“Stop asking yourself what you want, what you desire, what interests you. Ask yourself instead: What has been given to me. Ask: What do I have to give back? Then give it.”

“You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.”

Live your truth:
“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards…You have to be kind. You have to give it all you’ve got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.” 

“Eight of the ten things you have decided about yourself at the age of twenty will, over time, prove to be false. The other two things will prove to be so true that you’ll look back in twenty years and howl.” 

“Trust your gut. Forgive yourself. Be grateful.”

“Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.” 

“You can’t fake the core. The truth that lives there will eventually win out. It’s a god we must obey, a force that brings us all inevitably to our knees. It asks, eternally: Will you do it later or will you do it now?” 

“Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.” 

Allow yourself to evolve:
“Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.”

“It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.” 

“Transformation doesn’t ask that you stop being you. It demands that you find a way back to the authenticity and strength that’s already inside of you. You only have to bloom.”

“If it is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.” 

Kindness:
“We are all entitled to our opinions and religious beliefs, but we are not entitled to make shit up and then use the shit we made up to oppress other people.” 

Roots:
“It’s in the most basic, essential, beginning stories that so much of our lives are written. Who loved you best? What made you finally believe in yourself? From what garden or pot or crack in the pavement did you grow? How did you get your water?”

“Humility is about refusing to get all tangled up with yourself. It’s about surrender, receptivity, awareness, simplicity. Breathing in. Breathing out.” 

Success:
“Success is measured only by your ability to say yes to these two questions: Did I do the work I needed to do? Did I give it everything I had?”

Tiny Beautiful Things – Cheryl Strayed

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed
Date read: 2/21/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

The best of Strayed’s advice from her column Dear Sugar in a single collection. The columns cover dozens of topics from relationships and finding yourself to writing and doing hard things. At its core, as Strayed explains, the column has always been about connection and one person writing a letter to another—in pain, courage, confusion, clarity, love, and faith. My favorite columns were those that discussed writing, authenticity, rites of passage, and taking what’s yours.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Origins of Advice from Dear Sugar:
At its core, Dear Sugar has always been about one person writing a letter to another—in pain, courage, confusion, clarity, love, and faith. And about connecting. “It has always been about believing that when we dare tell the truth about who we are and what we want and how exactly we’re afraid or sad or lost or uncertain that transformation is possible, that light can be found, that courage and compassion can be mustered.”

Writing:
“As my thirtieth birthday approached, I realized that if I truly wanted to write the story I had to tell, I would have to gather everything within me to make it happen. I would have to sit and think of only one thing longer and harder than I thought possible. I would have to suffer. By which I mean work.”

“But I’d finally reached a point where the prospect of not writing a book was more awful than the one of writing a book that sucked.” 

“When I was done writing it, I understood that things happened just as they were meant to. That I couldn’t have written my book before I did. I simply wasn’t capable of doing so, either as a writer or a person. To get to the point I had to get to to write my first book, I had to do everything I did in my twenties. I had to write a lot of sentences that never turned into anything and stories that never miraculously formed a novel. I had to read voraciously and compose exhaustive entries in my journals…”

“I’d finally been able to give it because I’d let go of all the grandiose ideas I’d once had about myself and my writing…I stopped being grandiose. I’d lowered myself to the notion that the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. Which meant I had to write my book.”

“I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to. The only way you’ll find out if you ‘have it in you’ is to get to work and see if you do.” 

“So write, Elissa Bassist. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.” 

Take what’s yours:
“Nobody is going to give you a thing. You have to give it to yourself. You have to tell us what you have to say.” 

“I woke up to the realization that if it was true that my life was going nowhere and the reason it was going nowhere was me, then it was also true that only I had the power to change it. No one could do it for me. I had to do it myself, wildly.”

Authenticity is your now:
“The future has an ancient heart.” Carlo Levi

“Who we become is born of who we most primitively are; we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives.” 

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with law school, but don’t go unless you want to be a lawyer. You can’t take a class if taking a class feels like it’s going to kill you.”

“Let whatever mysterious starlight that guided you this far guide you onward to whatever crazy beauty awaits.” 

Rites of passage:
“Difficulty, solitude, and risk, are the three things that all rites of passage have in common. It’s because putting ourselves in situations where we must do hard things that scare us without anyone there to intervene pushes us beyond what we previously thought ourselves capable of. It expands our perception of our own courage, strength, and endurance.”

“I tested myself when I went on my long hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, which I embarked on about nine months after I hacked my braid off in Blue Fourche. I had to do something hard so I could know my strength. I had to do something scary so I could find my courage. I had to do something alone so I could see who I was. I didn’t know that doing those things at twenty-six would change my life in all the ways it has….”

Quench Your Own Thirst – Jim Koch

Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two by Jim Koch
Date read: 2/18/23. Recommendation: 7/10.

Jim Koch’s inspiring story of founding the Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) and lessons learned in building a meaningful business along the way. Koch has great sections on risks, the difference between what’s scary and what’s dangerous, charting your own path, and doing the right thing.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Taking risks:
Spring of 1984 decided he was going to leave his job as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to start his own beer company (the Boston Beer Company, famous for Samuel Adams). His family had a legacy of brewing beer (five generations on his father’s side were brewmasters). His dad thought he was an idiot, leaving a high-paying job. Jim’s response was that he can make a living, but not the living he was currently making. And that was enough, and he’d be happier running his own small brewery than constantly traveling across the country and working for someone else like he was in his consulting role. 

People were perplexed as to why he was leaving a great consulting job for a new unexpected path as a brewer-entrepreneur. He was supporting his wife and two small children. What if he blew up his life? What if it failed? But it wasn’t as scary as it looked from the outside. 

“Most risks aren’t really risky. Isn’t the biggest risk of all that you’ll waste your life doing what you don’t really enjoy doing, making compromise after compromise?”

“By the time I reached my mid-thirties, starting a company didn’t seem fundamentally different from any other practical task I’d attempted. I wasn’t terrified at the prospect of leaving stability and familiarity behind, because I knew things would work out. Even if the solution to a problem didn’t come to me immediately, I knew that if I hung in there, I would find it. I just needed to be in the right frame of mind to see it.” 

Scary versus dangerous:
“At Outward Bound, we taught people to rappel off a cliff—you literally walk off a cliff backward into empty space. That scares the bejesus out of most people trying it, or even watching it, for the first time. In truth, that rope is strong enough to hold a car. But the first time you do it, it’s pretty scary. It’s just not very risky.”

“Other kinds of situations, however, really are dangerous even if they don’t seem like it. Let’s say it’s a really beautiful early spring day. You’re on the side of a mountain or glacier, walking across a sunlit slope that isn’t too flat or too steep. You think everything is fine, but you’re wrong. The sun is hitting the top layer of snow, causing some of it to melt. The water is trickling down into layers of the snow and ice below. When enough water hits a layer of less-dense snow that had fallen on top of an icy layer months ago, the entire layer begins to slide, and the snow breaks free. All of a sudden, you have an avalanche. Not just an avalanche—AN AVALANCHE! These things can be hideously dangerous. People caught in avalanches tend not to survive. This is real danger, despite the bright sunlight and the sparkling snow.” 

Chart your own path:
When Jim was 24 (1973), he was enrolled in graduate school (a dual J.D./M.B.A. program at Harvard). He felt trapped and decided to drop out. Went to work at Outward Bound, an intensive outdoor program designed to foster mental toughness. Gave him a chance to open his mind and build perspective away from Harvard. Cast aside the weight of people's expectations and came to grips with his true self. 

“It may have seemed like I was a ‘dropout,’ and in a literal sense I was. I was moving in no particular direction, toward no particular goal. To my Harvard classmates, I looked like a loser. But I was also laying the foundation for life as an entrepreneur. I thought of myself as gathering my forces.” 

“When I launched the Boston Beer Company, I knew what I wanted: freedom, personal growth, connectedness with others, and the opportunity to do something that mattered, at least to me. I got all of those benefits long before I realized any financial returns. I have enjoyed the freedom of being my own boss, waking up every morning to decide what I need to do that day, stretching myself to learn new lessons or to find new capabilities.”

Focus on meaningful work:
“If you’re going to work hard, you should find it satisfying and meaningful. Work is too much a part of your life and identity not to.”

Loved the intellectual challenge of consulting, but not the travel and being away from his young family. “I wanted to see more of my family while doing something I enjoyed, something that was meaningful.” 

My idea boiled down to: Make great beer. Give it to people fresh. Find customers.

Ignorance:
“Ignorance can actually be a huge asset, giving you the best vantage point. When I started the Boston Beer Company, I had no serious beer industry experience on my side—only ignorance…” 

Clear goals:
After launching the company, the goal was to get their beer into 100 bars in Boston that they handpicked. They got every single one of them.

Do whatever it takes:
Late summer afternoon in 1985, Jim walked into a Boston bar that he wanted to carry Samuel Adams after the lunch rush. He asked the bartender to see the manager. The bartender said that he wasn’t there during the day, he was only there on Thursday nights. Jim replied he would come back then and asked when a good time would be. The bartender said after 10pm—that was his way of screening out salespeople from a regular beer distributor who wouldn’t ever show up that late after work hours. But Jim did. Because that was his livelihood. 

The right thing is the hard thing:
Beer needs to be fresh to taste its best. After 4-5 months in a can or bottle, the character degrades and it starts to taste stale. But unsold beer sits in distributors warehouses for months. And breweries rarely took beer out of circulation to replace it. In 1988 bottles came with a freshness dating system made up of a series of little notches that corresponded to a secret code and could only be deciphered with a code card. Created an opportunity for the Boston Beer Company (BBC). They decided to print an expiration date in plain English on bottles and cans. And they created an amnesty program for distributors—if they returned expired beer, BBC would reimburse them. Practice of buying back beer was unprecedented. They were destroying about $100k worth of beer (now over $6m). 

Sunk costs and avoiding catastrophic decisions: In 1986, decided it was time to build their own brewery. They didn’t technically need one, they had a contract brewing arrangement that was working well for them. Spent two years designing the new brewery and buying some of the equipment. They raised outside capital ($11m) and estimated the brewery would cost $8m. But the formal bids came back at $15m. Jim was tempted to bet the farm to make it happen, because that’s what entrepreneurs are supposed to do right? A mentor told him “don’t risk what you don’t have to get what you don’t need.” He ended up backing out, selling the equipment they had already purchased at a nearly total loss (roughly $2.5m). 

Mornings on Horseback – David McCullough

Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough
Date read: 2/14/23. Recommendation: 10/10.

The best biography that I’ve read on Theodore Roosevelt—though it only covers his early years from age 10 to 27. These were the years that Roosevelt grew from a fragile child and naive New York assemblyman into a hardened cowboy in the Badlands of North Dakota. McCullough was one of the best biographers and historians we’ll likely ever see. He breathes life into Roosevelt’s coming-of-age, grief, and transformation.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Childhood:
Extremely frail, sickly, undersized, nervous, and timid as a child. Faced chronic stomach trouble, headaches, colds, fevers, and asthma. 

He found joy in adventuring, watching birds and animals, anything to do with nature.

Filled his notebooks with descriptions and observations of ants, spiders, beetles, and dragonflies.

Created his own “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” in the back hall of the fourth floor of his family home.

Spent childhood summers in houses along the Hudson, riding, swimming, and running barefoot. Went on expeditions with his father to the Adirondacks. It fueled his love for nature and the outdoors. 

Urgency:
Teddy Roosevelt lived his life with urgency, constantly moving and favoring action.

“Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.” Theodore Roosevelt

“He was a figure of incessant activity, of constant talk, constant hurt, a bee in a bottle.” DM

At Harvard, he busied himself with boxing lessons, dance classes, horseback riding, wrestling, and long hikes. He was always ready to join anything with no questions asked. He held an amazing array of interests. Joined the Rifle Club, Art Club, Glee Club, became president of the Natural History Society, started a Finance Club, was named to the editorial board of the Advocate, the undergrad magazine. 

Purposeful: “The ever-admiring John Woodbury seems to have been alone in his forecast of distinction. Woodbury, as he said later, figured Theodore might amount to something—as a professor of history perhaps—if only because he seemed to know what he wanted. To most others he remained likable but peculiar and much too intense for comfort.” DM

Transforming himself:
Around twelve years old, his father sat him down and said, “Theodore, you have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should…You must make your body.”

Teddy started doing daily workouts and built a gym on their own back piazza.

“It was no good wishing to appear like the heroes he worshipped if he made no effort to be like them. Strength had to come first; one must be strong before everything else.” DM

“There was to be a misconception in later years that he conquered his childhood infirmities mainly through willpower and bodybuilding, that he rid himself of asthma by making himself a strong man. But that is not quite the way it happened. First of all, he never would be rid of asthma entirely, and if there was a point at which he clearly found reprieve from suffering of the kind he had known, it came well before he attained anything like rugged manhood. It came when he went to Harvard, when he left home and was on his own in ways he had never been.” DM

“Look out for Theodore. He’s not strong, but he’s all grit. He’ll kill himself before he’ll even say he’s tired.” Doctor Thompson in 1878 cautioning the guides who Roosevelt ventured into the Maine wilderness alongside. 

Skating expedition:
Indomitable will: One bitter winter’s day while he was at Harvard, Roosevelt went with Richard Welling, fellow classmate and future prominent New York attorney, on a skating expedition to Fresh Pond. It was bitterly cold, windy, and the ice was rough. Any sane man would have turned around, but Theodore kept exclaiming in delight as they beat their way across the pond, despite not knowing how to skate very well. “The harder the wind blew, the more miserable Welling felt, the greater Theodore appeared to be enjoying himself.” Welling felt his own grit had never been put to the test as much as it was that day and finally after being out on the pond for three hours and it was too dark to see, Roosevelt suggested they venture back home. 

Early political career:
At 23, he was the youngest member of the New York Assembly (127 members). But nothing seemed to intimidate him, he plunged ahead, deferred to no one. Spent time mingling with the other assemblymen who were farmers, mechanics, liquor dealers, newspapermen, and lawyers.

During his first term in 1882 (five months), he spoke to everyone he could, grilling them for details on how things were done, issues of the day. He was a voracious reader, working his way through stacks of papers every morning. He saw and formed an opinion on seemingly everything. By his second term in 1883, he knew more about state politics than 90% of the members. 

Was relentless in fighting corruption and championing reform. Went to witness and gather information firsthand, as he did with the Cigar Bill. Was willing to change his mind and do the right thing, even if it went against traditional Republican stance. 

“He never doubted the moral virtue of any of his own positions or the need to punish the wicked. (At one point he called for the return of the public whipping post as punishment for any man who inflicted brutal pain on a woman or child.)” DM

Acted as a gentlemen doing his part in the public interest, never signaled that he was a ‘professional’ politician as that would have been the equivalent of calling himself corrupt. “Oddly, for all his quick success in politics, the passion and energy he exuded, he was still unable, or unwilling, to accept politics as his lifework. He never spoke of it as a career or calling.” DM

Tragedy:
On February 12th, Alice (Teddy’s wife) went into labor and had a baby girl, Alice. They telegraphed Teddy who was in Albany the next morning letting him know that mother and child were doing well. A few hours later a second telegram arrived and Teddy rushed for the next train. When Corinne arrived (Teddy’s sister) Elliot (Teddy’s younger brother) famously said ‘There is a curse on this house! Mother is dying, and Alice is dying too.” Mittie (Teddy’s mother) was dying of Typhoid fever and passed away at 3am on February 14th. Alice died at 2pm that same afternoon while Teddy held her in his arms. 

“The sole, overwhelming lesson was the awful brevity of life, the sense that the precipice awaited not just somewhere off down the road, but at any moment. An asthmatic childhood had shown that life could be stifled, cut off, unless one fought back, and all Papa’s admonition to get action, to seize the moment, had the implicit message that there was not much time after all. Father had died at forty-six; Mittie had been only forty-eight; Alice all of twenty-two, her life barely begun. Nothing lasts. Winter waits.” DM

Teddy’s response: Three days later he returned to Albany and was back at work arguing for his Reform Charter Bill. He poured himself into work—writing, writing, delivering speeches, interviewing witnesses, leading inspections. He worked harder, faster, and longer than he ever had before. He was relentless. 

His newborn daughter, Alice, was entrusted to Bamie (Teddy’s older sister). 

On the day Alice and his mother died, Teddy made a large X on the page in his empty diary on February 14th and wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

Dakota Badlands:
After the tragedy he faced losing his mother and sister, and losing the fight against deterring the Republican Party from nominating James G. Blaine as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1884, he left for the Dakota Badlands to go ranching for the rest of the summer and part of the fall. He was still only 25 and despite his defeat in not getting the candidate he hoped for, he left quite the impression. 

In the Badlands, he found a way to unburden himself of the things he couldn’t talk about. Out West, he was able to reinvent himself and be someone entirely different from the man he had been back home in New York. His background, family, education, all the conventions of polite society counted for nothing. Nobody knew him or his family. Everybody was a stranger and preferred it that way. 

“Some days he rode as much as a hundred miles. The dust and heat were terrific. On stifling hot evenings the mosquitoes would rise from the river bottoms in great clouds to make the nights one long torture for men and horses.” DM

“Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health, Theodore Roosevelt passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning from his Dakota ranch to New York and civilization.” Pioneer Press as he returned to visit home

Spent close to three years in the badlands and had his own ranch, the Elkhorn, built. During this time, the American public, political allies, political enemies, thought he had disappeared from the public eye and political arena for good. 

“When he got back into the world again, he was husky as almost any man I have ever seen who wasn’t dependent on his arms for a livelihood. He weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, and was clear bone, muscle, and grit.” Bill Sewall

Return:
As soon as he returned to public life, the Republicans asked him to run for mayor of New York. He accepted even though he had no chance of winning. Opponents were Democrat Abram Hewitt and Labor candidate Henry George. Hewitt won, Roosevelt finished third. At 28, he was the youngest man who had ever been a candidate for mayor. 

Presidency:
William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 catapulted Theodore Roosevelt into the presidency and he became the youngest President in history at 42 years old. But well prepared for the job. He had served 6 years as a reform Civil Service Commissioner (under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland), two years as Police Commissioner of New York City, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy on the eve of the Spanish American War, as a colonel in the Rough Riders—and ‘hero of San Juan Hill’—as Governor of New York, and as Vice President. 

Increased the area of national forests by 40 million acres, established five national parks, sixteen national monuments (including the Grand Canyon), 51 national bird sanctuaries, and made conservation a popular cause. 

The Bully Pulpit – Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Date read: 2/10/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

The story of a remarkable friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, the way it built up each man, and eventually tore them both down. Goodwill details their upbringing, the events that shaped their lives, and how they came to navigate their political careers. She also discusses the backdrop of the Progressive era where a new vision for the relationship between the government and the people under Roosevelt’s leadership started to set in. I read this mainly for context on Roosevelt so my notes reflect a narrow perspective. But the entire book is captivating and worthy of its Pulitzer Prize.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Reform:
End of Roosevelt’s tenure, mood of reform swept the country, creating a new kind of presidency. Anti-trust suits had been won and legislation passed to regulate railroads, strengthen labor rights, curb political corruption, end corporate campaign contributions, impose limits on the working day, protect consumers from unsafe foods and drugs, and conserve vast swaths of natural resources for the American people.

“Roosevelt would focus the charge of a national movement to apply an ethical framework, through government action, to the untrammeled growth of modern America.” DKG

Square Deal had awakened the country to the need for government action to allay problems caused by industrialization. 

Friendship between Taft and Roosevelt:
Lifelong, mutually beneficial friendship. No man Roosevelt trusted more to carry out his legacy of active moral leadership and progressive reform. 

Initial foray into politics:
When he began inquiring about the local Republican organization, friends and family warned him that district politics were low and the world of saloon-keepers and horse-car conductors. Rough and brutal men. Started attending monthly meetings. Grew close with Joe Murray, thickset, red-haired Irish boss. Roosevelt later credited him with launching his political career. 

Murray determined that the incumbent Republican assemblyman for the Twenty-first District could not hold his seat in the fall elections in 1881, having been linked to corruption, surprised his compatriots by nominating the 23-year-old Roosevelt. TR was elected as the youngest member of the New York State Assembly. Less than two decades later he would become the youngest president in the history of the United States. 

“His three terms in the New York State Assembly had provided Roosevelt with considerable reason for pride and satisfaction in his accomplishments. He had led the fight against Judge Westbrook and had been instrumental in the passage of both the cigar bill and civil service reform…” DKG

“The assembly had proved a great school for Roosevelt. He had learned to cooperate with colleagues far removed from his patrician background…” DKG

“He fought with gusto against fraud and corruption, delivering speeches studded with bold and original turns of phrase.” DKG

Tragedy:
After Roosevelt’s mother and wife passed away on the same day, he was in a dazed, stunned state. Then he decided (as he learned from his father’s death), that frantic activity was the only way to keep sorrow at bay. But he was a changed man, there was a sadness about his face that he never had before.

Systematically suppressed his wife’s memory, failed to even recognize Alice (his first wife and widow) in his autobiography.

Returning to Albany: Upon his return, he immersed himself in long hours of work and daily sessions. The camaraderie of his fellow legislators helped mitigate his misery. In the weeks that followed he led a torrent of dramatic investigations and eventually nine reform bills were reported to the floor. 

Civil Service Commissioner:
“For sixty years, politicians in both parties had been complicit in a spoils system where officials (postal carriers, typists, stenographers, and clerks) were appointed, promoted, or fired according to their politics rather than their merit.” DKG

From the start, Roosevelt understood that public opinion was the best way to hold party leaders in the cabinet and in the Congress accountable. 

In order to change the average citizen’s attitude toward the spot system and current way of business, he had to instill his own outrage into the public…to popularize the reformist cause and initiate change from the bottom up.

Within his first few weeks, he initiated an investigation into the New York Customs House where he found that clerks were leaking examination questions to favored party candidates for a fee. Issued a scathing report demanding the dismissal and prosecution of guilty clerks. This early action served as notice that civil service law was going to be enforced without fear or favor. 

Leveraged a network of progressive journalists and editors to point out infractions of the law in their localities.

Found that Indianapolis Postmaster, William Wallace, had made a number of irregular appointments that violated civil service standards. Exposed this in the newspaper and it chastened Wallace to change. Within a couple of years his administration was deemed a model of fairness and justice. 

“Roosevelt seemed to feel that everything ought to be done before sundown.” President Harrison, dared not remove Roosevelt despite the feathers he ruffled because he had the influential newspapers supporting him and the public behind his cause of violations of the civil service law. 

“He isn’t afraid of the newspapers, he isn’t afraid of losing his place, and he is always ready for a fight. He keeps civil-service reform before the good people and as the case often is, his aggressiveness is a great factor in a good cause.” The Boston Evening News

When Grover Cleveland was elected asked Roosevelt to stay at his post for another year or two despite not being in the same political party. Theodore got along better with Cleveland than he had with Harrison. Cleveland trusted his even hand.

New York Police Commissioner:
Showmanship: As he approached his new headquarters at 300 Mulberry Street in the heart of Little Italy, he energetically greeted the reported as he sprinted up the stairs, and signaled for everyone to follow as he asked where the offices were and what they should do first. 

He was appointed president of the four-man board and drove the other board members crazy. 

Two sides of his role as police commissioner: 1) daily work of managing the police department, 2) the opportunity to use his position, which encompassed membership on the health board, to make the city a better place to live and work for those whom the conditions of life and labor were hardest.

Corruption: Found new police recruits were forced to pay Tammany a fixed fee for their appointments. The fee was well beyond the means of most, but officers understood they would make the money back with plenty to spare over time. Superintendent Tom Bynes had amassed a fortune of $350k, while his chief inspector Alec Williams could not explain the unusual size of his bank account when forced to testify. 

At his first press conference, Roosevelt announced that appointments and promotions would be based on merit alone moving forward. The police force had heard something similar before, but soon felt the weight of Roosevelt’s pledge. Within three weeks he forced Superintendent Bynes and Alec Williams to resign. He would spare no one in his campaign to root out corruption. 

Roosevelt accompanied reporters on a series of unannounced inspections between midnight and sunrise to determine whether officers were doing their jobs. If he found an officer patrolling his beat and doing a satisfactory job, he would pat him on the back. If he found someone sleeping or slacking off, he would summon them to appear before him the next morning. 

Predawn missions attracted press attention across the country. Roosevelt found them to be great fun but they meant he would go up to forty hours without sleep at a time. 

Sunday Law: passed by state legislature four decades earlier to satisfy rural constituents. No one took it seriously, but it warped into a massive vehicle of police and political blackmail and extortion. Saloons could stay open on Sundays as long as they made monthly payments to police and politicians. Roosevelt enforced the law but pissed off the public who later led a giant protest of some 150,000 people in NYC. Roosevelt attended and the crowd ended up cheering his good humor and the way he poked fun at himself. As November 1895 elections approached, Roosevelt stood his ground. His unpopular stance ushered in a democratic wave of votes, Republican bosses were livid at Roosevelt, blaming him for his uncompromising policy. 

1896 presidential contest between McKinley and Brian gave Roosevelt a path out and a way to earn the good favor of the Republican bosses once more. Traveled through the state and country to stump for the Republican nominee. Lent his energetic voice to McKinley’s campaign—represented his best hope for regaining the confidence of the Republican bosses. Gave all his time, energy, and ability to the work of the campaign. McKinley’s victory helped him get appointed as assistant secretary of the Navy, providing a graceful exit from his post as police commissioner. 

Time as police commissioner had deepened and broadened his outlook on social and economic issues. 

Assistant Secretary of the Navy:
McKinley appointed him as Assistant to John Davis Long because he thought Roosevelt was too eager for war.

As tension with Spain escalated in Cuba, Roosevelt did everything he could to prepare the U.S. Navy for war. Ordered the purchase of guns, ammunition, supplies, created war plans, scheduled additional gunnery drills, stocked distant supply stations with coal. 

In January 1898, McKinley agreed to ration the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor as “an act of friendly courtesy” to the Cuban people. Resisted mounting pressure for intervention. Then on February 15th, the Maine exploded killing 262 Americans. The cause of the explosion was never determined with certainty, but the blame was affixed to the Spaniards. 

Lieutenant colonel:
The country moved towards war with Spain in 1898, Roosevelt could not pass up the opportunity to go to Cuba and test himself on the field of battle.

Acted as lieutenant colonel under his friend Leonard Wood. 

“The press found the story of the so-called Rough Riders irresistible from the start—a volunteer regiment in which cowboys, miners, and hunters served on an equal footing with Ivy League graduates, Somerset Club members, polo players, tennis champions, and prominent yachtsmen.” DKG

“Up and up they went in the face of death, men dropping from the ranks at every step. The Rough Riders acted like veterans. It was an inspiring sight and an awful one…Roosevelt sat erect on his horse, holding his sword and shouting for his men to follow him until they gained the summit at last.” 

Spanish surrendered thirteen days later, by the middle of August, four months after the war began. Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were on their way to a triumphal homecoming. 

Governor of New York:
Inaugurated as governor of New York on January 2, 1899 in Albany. 

Relentless work ethic: He was unlike any governor New York had known. Arrived in the office well before the usual hour of 9am, sorting through hundreds of letters that arrived each morning. At 10am started his official day, spending an hour with assemblymen and senators, followed by rapid-fire meetings with political delegations, members of his administration, and individual petitioners. Returned home somewhere around 5-7pm. Evening hours were set apart for his literary work, socializing, reading, and spending time with his family. 

Vice President:
Roosevelt was horrified at the thought of spending four years as VP. “His friends were in despair, his enemies triumphed. At last they had him where they wanted him.” Jacob Riis

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – Steven Pressfield

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – by Steven Pressfield
Date read: 2/7/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

Similar to The War of Art, Pressfield continues his tried and true method of packing concise inspiration into a quick read. The main message of the book is about shifting your creative center of gravity from the superficial and fearful ego to the deep and fearless self. This requires committing for the long haul. Must read for any entrepreneur or artist trying to create something from nothing.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Show up:
“When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day’s work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don’t judge myself on quality. I don’t hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?” SP

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” Goethe

“Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, ‘Maybe we can do this some other time.’ There is no other time.” SP

“Putting our ass where our heart wants to be is the equivalent of Alexander charging into the breach at the Granicus River or at the Issus or Gaugamela. We too are risking it all. We too hold nothing back. We too have hurled ourselves headlong into the unknown.” SP

Location matters:
You must leave the place where you live and move to the hub of the creative world where your dreams are most likely to come true. There’s no substitute for being in the heart of the action. Ernest Hemingway moved to Paris. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. 

Commitment:
“The positive face of commitment is self-empowerment. The very act of putting our ass where our heart wants to be makes a profound impression, not just on those we wish to work with or be mentored by, but on ourselves.” SP

“In myth and legend, when the hero commits to an intention by taking bold action, he enacts a Cosmic Overthrow. He ‘crosses the threshold.’ Like Luke Skywalker heading with Obi Wan Kenobi for Mos Eisley spaceport or Dorothy being swept away from Kansas by a cyclone, the hero moves from the Ordinary World to the Extraordinary World. She has gone from the Known to the Unknown.” SP

“The universe responds to the hero or heroine who takes action and commits. It responds positively. It comes to the hero’s aid.” SP

Perseverance:
“For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.” SP

“Resistance is always strongest at the finish.” SP

“Killer instinct is not negative when we use it to finish off a book, a screenplay, or any creative project that is fighting us and resisting us to the bitter end. Steel yourself and put that sucker out of its misery.” SP

Visualization:
“What fascinates me about the character of Alexander the Great is that he seemed to see the future with such clarity and such intensity as to make it virtually impossible that it would not come true—and that he would be the one to make it so. That’s you and me at the inception of any creative project. The book / screenplay / nonprofit / start-up already exists in the Other World. Your job and mine is to bring it forth in this one.” SP