Concept: Book list

[garrett-sutton]

Create a small post for every book I read.

Make a category for books

[garrett-sutton]

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

• advantages we perceive are not always advantages in the real world. Gladwell uses the elite vs average school example. There's some evidence to indicate the small school standout does better than the middle of the road elite school kid.
• being an underdog can be not much of an underdog if you play unconventionally. Can turn your perceived disadvantage into advantage

[garrett-sutton]

Ikigai

• about "finding purpose" and how that helps with longevity
• focus on Japanese centenarians on Okinawa
• Okinawa has the highest density of people over 100

[garrett-sutton]

Ikigai

• about "finding purpose"

[garrett-sutton]

Pragmatic Programmer:

• take responsibility for your work
  • spend time learning new things outside of work
• recognize problems and do your best to incrementally fix things you come across without expanding scope too much
• perfect software is not really a thing and gets in the way of good enough
• invest in you
  • make learning a habit
  • learn different things
  • try to find emerging things to learn about
  • assess what you know
  • these might look like:
    • reading technical and non technical books each month
    • take classes
    • read news and online tech posts
    • experiment/tinker
    • learn what others are working on outside of your company

[garrett-sutton]

pragmatic programmer

• DRY -> Don't Repeat Yourself. Don't duplicate things. Put knowledge in one place (i.e. documentation and code too).
• Orthogenality -> deliberately to keep components separate from one another such that a change to one doesn't impact another one. Note that when you'll notice a non-orthogenal system when a change requires multiple components to be changed.

[garrett-sutton]

David and Goliath

• doing hard things
  • I've tried to use running and riding my bike as an avenue to expose myself to doing ting something hard. However, this may only be able to take me so far. I routinely run easy, so a lot of days don't necessarily expose me to something overly challenging (other than the 5:30 AM workout).
  • With respect to endurance sports, it feels like consistency (regardless of how you slept) is vital to keeping your foot on the gas. The occasional workout and race feel like they also help in molding the mind.
  • Need to check-in to make sure I'm not being complacent / avoiding the hard thing.
• thinking about doing hard things with kids.
  • There's an additional layer added onto this with kids.
  • Gladwell tells an additional story about someone who grew up in lower class neighborhood and has worked to become one of the most successful people in Hollywood. The way that he grew up is drastically different from the way that his kids will grow up. And it's worth taking time to think about. Hard things for kids aside, there's still a responsibility of disipline that a parent like that keep in mind. When they grew up, they couldn't have something simply because their family couldn't afford it. Now, as a highly successful adult, they can afford it but that doesn't mean they should never tell their kid no. Kids still need some of that struggle. It's what shaped that now rich Hollywood person in the first place. So, just when you think you want your kids to grow up just like you did, it's important to realize how challenging that might be. You may have been exposed to hardships that you worked through to get somewhere and because you made it to that somewhere, your kids may not be exposed to similar hardships. It's difficult because every parent wants their kids to have it better than they did. But in wanting the very best for them, we may be hurting them if we just give. They may need to be exposed to hard things in order to make it for themselves.