Below is an image of my visual notes of Think Better, by Tim Hurson.
The author covers the following key ideas in the book:
Hi folks!
Let’s explore a book where economics and sociology come together to explore unusual ideas. This is one book that would challenge the way you look at economics and the world. Freakonomics will help you make better decisions by showing you how your life is dominated by incentives, how to close information asymmetries between you and the experts that exploit you and how to really tell the difference between causation and correlation. This article explores the themes talked about in every chapter of the book.
Chapter 1: Three kinds of incentives dominate your life
The Power of Incentives
An incentive is meant to get you to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. It is used by those who wish to influence your behaviour. Nearly every decision can be explained through incentives. The types of incentives that dominate your life are economic, involving gain or loss of time and money, social, related to you looking good in front of your peers or isolated from them, and moral, which appeals to your conscience and drives you to do the drive thing. The more these types of incentives are combined, the more powerful the incentive gets.
For instance, the disincentive to commit a crime is pretty strong. You could lose your job (economic), your friends (social), your conscience (moral) and even your freedom, such as losing your house. Because of incentives, people are sometimes driven to cheat. Due to severe test-taking techniques that were put in place in a public school in Chicago, schoolteachers became incentivized to change their students’ answers on tests to avoid being penalized for poor scores. Similarly, sumo wrestlers in Japan were incentivized through bribes to throw certain important matches and allow the opponent to win.
Chapter 2: the Ku Klux Klan is similar to real estate agents
Information Asymmetry
Stetson Kennedy had infiltrated the 1940s KKK and published a big chunk their secret information, thereby erasing the informational advantage they had that made people fear them. Real estate agents also have an informational advantage over their clients, which they often use to their advantage. They manage to close deals quickly by selling houses for less than they are worth since they have less to gain from a higher sale than the sellers do. Experts too, abuse the information asymmetry existing between themselves and their consumers. This is where the Internet comes in and aims to reduce this imbalance by making information easily available to all people alike.
Chapter 3: Conventional wisdom can often be wrong
Trust the Data
There was once a man who studied the organization of the Black Disciples crack gang in Chicago. His analysis of their financial records resulted in debunking the myth that most drug dealers are wealthy. Most street-level dealers earned far less than minimum wage, an average of three dollars an hour. Crack gangs are actually quite structurally similar to any American corporate business, wherein a handful of people at the top mint money while hundreds at the bottom are barely able to get by. Such people who make less continue to remain in the business because they hope to move up one day. This is the same mentality which drives entertainers as well as athletes, who see prospects of moving up as well.
Chapter 4: “Where have all the criminals gone?”
Big Effects Can Have Small Causes
Romania experienced a huge rise in crime after its dictator banned abortion. In contrast, in the mid-1990s, in the United States, crime had been rapidly rising in the previous year, when suddenly, the trend suddenly reversed, leaving many experts puzzled and clueless. It was later discovered that the crime drop was heavily linked to the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision nearly twenty years ago. When abortion was legalized then, many low-income, low-education, teenage mothers were able to take advantage of it. This meant that many babies who would have grown up impoverished and would have been more likely to turn into criminals as they became older were not even being born! Nearly two decades later, this generation of potential criminals would have been teenagers. Since these kids were never born, it resulted in a sudden drop in crime.
Chapter 5: Just because two things happen simultaneously doesn’t mean that one causes the other
Correlation vs. Causation
How parents fall prey to the correlation vs. causation trap is demonstrated in the proliferation of popular theories about how “best” to raise children. Many parents obsess over doing exactly the right thing so their children will turn out successful. Such parents are misguided and the things they do matter much less than the things they actually are. Parents who are highly educated with a high income are most likely to have successful children and these factors are determined even before the child is born. This same truth applies to naming children too, as seen below.
Chapter 6: The name given to a child does not cause their success or failure
What Data Can Teach Us
The name given to a child does not cause their success or failure, but rather is a reflection of the status and circumstances of the parents. Names too, move down through society wherein high-income parents begin to use one particular name, which then trickles to low-income parents and becomes less popular.
Epilogue: Interpret the world in a new way
While there is no single unifying theme to this book, the main takeaway is a newfound way of thinking, looking at, and interpreting the world according to the tools of economics discussed above. Quoting Stephen Dubner, one of the authors of Freakonomics,
“Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, whereas it is economics that represents how it actually does work.”
That’s all, folks!
P.S. You’ll also find my notes on the lessons along with a few anecdotes here.
Notes:
Incentives for Sumo wrestlers
In a sumo tournament, all wrestlers in the top division compete in 15 matches and face demotion if they do not win at least eight of them. The sumo community is very close-knit and the wrestlers at the top levels usually know each other well. Consider the case of a wrestler with 7 wins, 7 losses, and 1 fight to go. The next match is against an 8–6 wrestler. Statistically, the 7–7 wrestler should have a slightly below even chance, since the 8–6 wrestler is slightly better. However, the 7–7 wrestler actually wins around 80% of the time. Those who already have 8 wins collude with those who are 7–7 and let them win, since they have already secured their position for the following tournament. Despite condemnation of the claims by the Japan Sumo Association following the book’s publication in 2005, the 2011 Grand Tournament in Tokyo was cancelled for the first time since 1946 because of match-fixing allegations.
Further takeaways from the book
‘Leading’ comprises a series of anecdotes in the fields of management and leadership. Sir Alex Ferguson narrates incidents that have occurred on and off the field that he has converted into leadership lessons, as he looks back on his tenure as Manchester United’s manager for 26 years. Under his leadership, the club became one of the most successful sporting clubs in the world and won 49 trophies. This book is an inspirational guide to leading, from one of the greatest football managers of all time.
This post enlists the key ideas in the book along with the situations that helped Sir Alex Ferguson become a better coach and manager.
Key idea 1: Coaches must continuously observe as well as listen
“We’ve got two ears and two eyes – but just one mouth. Is it a coincidence, or should we be listening and observing twice as much as we talk?” By merely learning to listen and observe, Sir Alex Ferguson got to know several tips through other people that came in handy on multiple occasions. For instance, Jimmy Sirrel, the manager of Notts County, once mentioned to Sir Alex that he took care to ensure that the player’s contracts never expired around the same time as this would help prevent collusion against the manager and the club.
Sir Alex also learnt to observe by taking a step back and focusing on the right set of things. His assistant manager Archie Knox suggested to him to get an overall picture of his players by zooming out. Rather than running his training sessions, he learnt to sit back and watch them. This turned out to be a turning point in Ferguson’s coaching career because when coaching his players, he would be on the field and his focus would naturally be on the ball. By stepping back and observing his players train from a distance, the overall patterns of the behaviour, attitudes and energy levels of his players became clear.
Nevertheless, focusing on the fine details can be useful in cases where one must ‘know one’s enemy’. Sir Alex developed a system of scrutinising the opposing teams before a match by analysing the video footages of their games.
Key idea 2: Discipline and determination will lead you to success
Sir Alex was quite strict regarding dress code and being well-groomed. Earlier, players used to wear jerseys of any company that sponsored them, giving the entire team an unprofessional look. He implemented a proper dress code to eliminate this and also put in place rules regarding haircuts and jewellery. He made it crystal clear to his players that a lax attitude would not be tolerated under any circumstances.
Moreover, he was always the first to arrive in practice sessions and the last one to leave. He led by example to convey this behaviour to all his players. Quoting Ryan Giggs, a Manchester United player since 1993:
“We might have got home from a European away game at 4 in the morning, yet you can pretty much guarantee he’ll be the first in at Carrington at 8am the next day – and will be the last to leave. You’ll then stick the TV on later that night and see him at a function in London. It’s unbelievable!”
Quoting Sir Alex himself:
“I was able to discuss who was injured, and when was the training table coming by, long before anyone else was in the building. When I started continually coming in at that time, then all of a sudden other people started to come in at the same time as me.”
Key idea 3: Stay humble, and learn to think several steps ahead even in times of setbacks
Sir Alex strived to balance his players’ strengths and weaknesses, and led them on their journey to success. He communicated with all of his players privately. When players needed to talk to him, the first thing he would do is turn his chair around. He took pride in the fact that he would sit with players and explain the reasons behind his decisions. He’d say: “I have been dropped from a Cup final in Scotland as a player at ten past two, so I know what it feels like.” By doing this, Ferguson showed concern for people around him, and his team members knew that he had their backs. When people felt valued and cared for, they pushed themselves to hit targets. Players like Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo were working so hard that the other players felt, “Now wait a minute, if he is doing it, I’ve got to do it.” It also helped that the players on the team had great character and great desire to win matches.
When things went great, Sir Alex remained down-to-earth and gave credit where it was due to his team, and when things went wrong, he took the blame on himself by saying “It was my fault.” He strongly believed that instead of blaming others, spend time to figure out what you did wrong and learn from it. It’s useless to get lost in self pity. This is why, in general, team members with winning attitudes take great pride even in failure and look forward to avenging defeats.
“We are all haunted by failure, and we should only give up when we are dead.” Sir Alex believed that when people have the fear of failure, it automatically gives the hunger to succeed. In 2012, when Sunderland fans celebrated by mocking Manchester United players who had lost the league to Manchester City, rather than wallow in self-pity, Sir Alex told his players to “learn from the defeat and humiliation and come back stronger.” The subsequent season, the same players along with their new signing Robin Van Persie were crowned as champions.
Key idea 4: Praise and presence go a long way in getting the best performance from your players
Sir Alex always taught his players to bounce back from a defeat. His motto was “Deal with failure and don’t be a quitter!” Despite providing criticism to help players improve their skills, he knew that support was more effective than criticism when change was needed. For instance, he’d always wait until the players had calmed down after a game, rather than criticizing them immediately afterwards. Also, he would present his criticism as a form of encouragement, letting players know that he believed they were capable of better performance.
“I never spent much time looking back at a win or in defeat. It never did me any good looking back. It’s always on to the next day and the next challenge. Things would affect my players and you have got to bring them back to earth. ‘We have a big game next week, let’s start working for that one.’”
As Andy Cole said, “If you lose and Sir Alex believes you gave your best, it is not a problem… but if you lose in a limp way, then mind your ears!” Ferguson set high standards and used his creativity to tell inspirational stories to keep his troops motivated. When David Beckham was lambasted by the press for receiving a red card in a 1998 World Cup match against Argentina, Ferguson knew the least helpful thing he could do was to criticize Beckham like everyone else. Instead, he spoke with Beckham to let him know that he was there for him, that these things happen and that he shouldn’t let it hurt his confidence. Ferguson believed that the two words “well done” are the most powerful tools a coach has to help players reach their full potential.
All in all, this book teaches you about leadership through the simple yet compelling anecdotes of the Manchester United Team and the greatest coach a football club has ever had.
Notes:
Quotes from Sir Alex Ferguson:
“My Job was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible, and that’s the difference between leadership and management.”
“The work of a team should always embrace a great player but the great player must always work.”
“The credit to them, the better team won and there’s nothing we can do about that now.”
(On defeat at the hands of Barca, Champions League final, 2009)
“I’ve never played for a draw in my life.”
“Only true champions come out and show their worth after defeat- and I expect us to do that.”
Sir Alex on being the first one in:
“There is an interesting story about Jean-Claude Biver, who runs Hublot watches. As a young man, he went for an interview at Omega where the interview was set for 5am. After it was over, Biver asked, ‘Why an interview at five in the morning? The interviewer said, ‘Because I’m three hours ahead of everyone, and I’m working while you sleep.’ That’s an example of the way I did the job.”
According to Michael Moritz in the epilogue, he narrowed down two key traits of a great leader after observing Sir Alex: one, obsession with their own job, as they can’t do anything else with their own lives until they achieve their objectives. Two, how to deal with people, and how to gain understanding of the personality of the people they lead. Moritz concluded the book by describing how great leaders have the need to succeed and have a never-give-up attitude. They create an atmosphere of “us against the world,” and persist on shutting out distractions. The epilogue also contains an interesting comparison of Silicon Valley and Ferguson under Manchester United.
Hi folks!
From Part 1, we know that those with the fixed mindset tend to get complacent and blame those around them when something goes wrong whereas those with the fixed mindset take ownership and responsibility for their own mistakes and learn from them. Let’s explore how different people handled different situations based on their mindset.
Business
Examples of Fixed Mindset Leaders
Lee Iacocca
After basking in the role of CEO of Chrysler, Iacocca became obsessed with his public image and worried that lower employees might receive more praise than him. He brought out the same car models with superficial changes and surrounded himself with worshippers. Not surprisingly, Chrysler suffered. Refer to my previous book summary on Iacocca’s autobiography, which talks in detail about how he handled success and failure in his life.
Albert Dunlap
Albert Dunlap focused exclusively on business profits as a means to improve his self-image. He did not invest in long-term strategies and instead put his energy into short-term strategies to increase stock prices. As a result, Sunbeam collapsed and Dunlap was forced to resign.
Fixed-mindset leaders live in a world where some people are superior and some are inferior. They must repeatedly affirm that they are superior, and their firm should simply be a platform for this.
Examples of Growth Mindset Leaders
Jack Welch
As the CEO of General Electric, Welch increased the company’s value from $14 billion to $490 billion in 20 years. Welch focused on building a great team and stayed in constant contact with employees right down to the front-line factory workers. Welch learnt from his mistakes and was open to constant improvement. He acted as a supportive guide rather than a judge to his workers.
Lou Gerstner
As the CEO of IBM, Gerstner fostered a culture of teamwork by taking power away from upper-level management and preventing separate sales divisions from working against one another. Before Gerstner, IBM had become a company deaf to its customers’ needs. Gerstner restored quality customer service as the organization’s main focus.
Anne Mulcahy
Mulcahy learnt every aspect of business at Xerox, even though it was failing badly in 2000, just when she took over the reins. Because of her intimate knowledge of the company, its employees, and the employees’ concerns, she was able to bring the company back from the edge of ruin.
Sports
Fixed mindset
John McEnroe was a talented tennis player who was number one player for four years. But he did lose matches, which were lost because he had fever, he ate too close to the match or he was too cold. McEnroe lost the 1984 French Open final to Ivan Lendl after leading 2-0, because an NBC cameraman had taken off his headset and a noise started coming from a side of the court. Great talent albeit framed within the fixed mindset.
Growth mindset
In Wimbledon 2000, Pete Sampras faced Pat Rafter in the finals. If he won, that would be his 13th Grand Slam record victory. Sampras was down 1 set, and down 4-1 in the tie-breaker of the second set. He then went on to win his 13th title. Quoting Sampras:
“When you are sitting on the changeover bench, you think of past matches that you’ve lost the first set. Then you come back and won the next three. You reflect on your past experiences and are able to get through it.”
What Sampras showed was a growth mindset where he searched for a frame of reference that could carry him through.
Maintaining the Growth Mindset
Dr. Dweck recommends that individuals ask themselves four questions every day to keep the growth mindset at the center of their thoughts:
These questions will encourage development of the growth mindset in you and emphasize the transformative power of embracing constant challenge and growth.
That’s all, folks!
Notes:
Dark side of IQ tests
Bruce Lee on will power
Here are some of the books recommended by Dr. Dweck at the end of the book, which I plan to read in the next 5 years:
Hi folks!
This is one must-read book for, well, everyone! I myself have read it twice, and once more for taking notes. I’m talking about one of the most popular books in the field of psychology, written by Dr. Carol Dweck:
Mindset – The new psychology of success
How we can learn to fulfill our potential
Introduction
In this book, Dr. Dweck differentiates between fixed and growth mindsets in the world of parenting, business, school, and relationships. She differentiates between fixed and growth mindset leaders and how they deal with conflicts, failures, and challenges. She describes how individuals with the growth mindset have a better attitude toward learning than those with the fixed mindset.
To quote Alfred Binet, inventor of the IQ test:
“A few modern philosophers assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism. With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.”
We also see several examples in sports and examine the behaviour of not only players but their coaches as well. We look at how both positive praises and negative labels can affect those with fixed mindset in a bad way. However, those with the growth mindset see both positive and negative labels in a new light. Lastly, we learn that people in general have elements from both mindsets, it’s just that they know how to pick themselves up and live a happy, fulfilled life by maintaining the growth mindset as much as possible.
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
“The view you adopt for yourself, profoundly affects the way you lead your life.”
This, by personal experience, I can tell you is completely true. As Henry Ford said:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
In the fixed mindset, the person believes that his or her qualities are carved in stone, leading to a constant need for the person to prove their ability. In such a case, effort matters to them only if there is a 100% chance of success. On the other hand, a person with the growth mindset believes that their qualities can be developed through efforts and he or she can change and grow by making mistakes and learning from them. Failure is merely a stepping stone to improvement.
Anecdote
In 1995, at the age of 42, actor Christopher Reeves got completely paralysed below the neck owing to a riding accident. He fell off his horse and damaged his spinal cord. The doctors insisted that his efforts of getting his body to listen to his mind would be futile. Within just 5 years, Reeves was able to regain movement in his hands and legs. Though he wasn’t able to fully recover, he made several advancements that opened up whole new avenues for research in the field of medicine.
Growth mindset people thrive when they stretch themselves while fixed mindset people believe that ability will do the job on its own and make them successful. Beyond ability is potential. Potential in the fixed mindset is what you have now and how it will continue to help you in the future, whereas in the growth mindset, potential is the ability to develop skills by putting in effort over a period of time.
Character grows out of mindset
Given the same situation, let’s compare how those with fixed mindsets would interpret and take action versus those with growth mindsets:
| Fixed Mindset | Growth Mindset |
| Gives up | Tries harder |
| Concerned with being judged | Concerned with improving |
| Focuses on self-validation | Focuses on self-development |
| Interested only when feedback reflects ability | Interested in learning and makes it a priority |
| Fears challenges | Thrives on challenges |
| Believes that naturals shouldn’t need effort | Motivates self since it’s exciting to see oneself improve |
| Throws tantrums when things go against | Digs and finds the strength to fight back |
Relationships
In any relationship, there are three variables that can differ greatly depending on a person’s mindset about them:
A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after,” but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after.”
People who view relationships through a strict fixed mindset display a number of characteristics:
By contrast, people with the growth mindset see relationships as an opportunity for both individuals to encourage the growth and development of the other.
Depression
While both fixed and growth mindset individuals can suffer from depression during difficult times, growth mindset people take more action to better their lives and overcome their problems when they are depressed. Fixed mindset people tend to try less and less.
Risk-taking
Of the two mindsets, individuals with the growth mindset are better able to take risks, and they often seek out high-risk situations. Those with fixed mindsets typically fear risks and will go out of their way to avoid them, even when it hinders their personal development.
Attitude toward learning
Individuals with the growth mindset view learning as an opportunity for growth and future success. If they believe they will improve from the experience, they are not afraid to put themselves into situations in which they might fail. Fixed mindset individuals avoid learning experiences in which they may have to struggle; they prefer to take part in situations in which they feel competent and smart.
Labels
Praising a person’s ability is not always the best thing to do.
“Wow, you scored well. You must be smart at this”
“Wow, you got a good score. You must have worked really hard.”
Not all positive labels are good.
The group with the ‘you are so smart’ feedback refused to do a more challenging task as they wanted to maintain their smart quotient and not risk failure. In contrast, in the group that was praised for effort, 90% wanted to take on the new, more challenging task. Unfortunately, negative labels can be damaging to fixed mindset women in the fields of math and science.
Success messages need to be about praising effort, not talent. Failure messages like “So what if you failed, you are the best” end up protecting the child from failure and create a fixed mindset that there is no need to improve. The failure message needs to be a form of constructive criticism.
A growth mindset teacher says “I am going to teach you”, while a fixed mindset teacher says “I am going to judge your talent.” Growth mindset teachers help their students bridge their learning gaps.
Check out Part 2, where we look at examples of fixed vs growth mindset folks in the fields of business and sports.
I’d first come across the name Lee Iacocca when I’d watched the recent film in the theatre: Ford v. Ferrari. Though he wasn’t highlighted as the protagonist in the movie, as it was about Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, the audience was aware as to who he was. Another place I’d encountered the name Iacocca was in Dr. Carol Dweck’s Mindset (stay tuned for the upcoming summary on this excellent must-read book!), where she talked about him under the subsection labelled ‘CEO disease.’ She grouped him in the ‘fixed mindset’ category, similar to that of John McEnroe and a few others.
However, reading about Iacocca has made me realise that there are more than a few number of people who put him on the pedestal and thought very highly of him. It seemed that the general public had encouraged him to become the President of the United States at one point in time! In this article, let’s look at what Iacocca highlighted in his autobiography. Apart from the success story of Chrysler and Iacocca himself, in this book, he has also expressed his views on management styles, on what’s wrong with the American way of doing business, and how America can become stronger in world markets.
Introduction
In Part 1 of the book, Lido Anthony Iacocca talks about his Italian immigrant family and his experiences at school. Since he couldn’t join the army for World War II due to rheumatic fever as a child, he attended Lehigh University, where he completed his studies in 8 straight semesters. He then received a fellowship for graduate study at Princeton University, after which he joined Ford, where he worked as a novice salesman initially. He then rose through the ranks to become the head of the Ford Division in 1960, when he and his team developed the Mustang, one of the most popular cars of all time.
The Ford Story and its Aftermath
In Part 2, Iacocca narrates his triumph of the Mustang and his climb to power in the company. After becoming President of Ford, Henry Ford II, fearing that Iacocca would be after the CEO job next, fired Iacocca from the company on October 15, 1978, his 54th birthday. When Lee left Ford, he got a job in a warehouse, where he only stayed for few hours. In fact, these couple of hours forced him not to give up at any cost, and throw all the negative thoughts aside, picking up only the positive ones and moving ahead. It was the humiliation of being at an ordinary office right after serving as the president of a great company for so many years that he decided to fight back and reach at the top at Chrysler Motor Corporation. Quoting Lee verbatim,
“There are times in every one’s life when something constructive is born out of adversity. There are times when things seem so bad that you have got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it. I am convinced it was that morning at the warehouse that pushed me to take on the presidency of Chrysler only couple of weeks later”.
The Chrysler Story
In Part 3 of the book, Iacocca narrates how he saved Chrysler from bankruptcy. At first, Iacocca was made the president and later, he became the chairman CEO of Chrysler on January 1st, 1980. Unfortunately, the day he joined his office, the organization declared losses of about $160 million. The company was in serious trouble. It not only suffered from gross mismanagement, but also was on the brink of collapse due to the energy crisis and the economic recession that occurred at that time. Amidst several internal problems enlisted below, Chrysler also suffered from external issues such as the Iran Revolution and more (see Notes). He also tried approaching the government to ask for help, but to no avail. Even Volkswagen declined a merger request. Towards the end, Iacocca decided to sell Chrysler’s tank division to General Dynamics to keep the company from going bust. He also began a total reorganization of the company and laid off several employees. After pleading to the government for a while, the outgoing Chairman John Ricardo finally gave Iacocca a $1.2 billion loan guarantee. The stipulations included increasing fuel efficiency of Chrysler’s vehicles and restructuring the company to become profitable. Chrysler began to flourish from July 1983, once the loan was fully paid back.
The Final Part
The final portion of the book, titled “Straight Talk”, talks about making America great again. It was a bittersweet victory after Chrysler started producing a line of fantastic cars from K-Car, Le Baron, and Chrysler E Class to Dodge 600, Dodge Daytona, and Chrysler Laser. Iacocca modernized the Chrysler plants based on the latest technology, converted a fleet of cars to front wheel drive technology, became the leaders in fuel economy, and promised to maintain employment of its half a million workers.
Notes:
Global Motors:
Iacocca wanted to form a consortium of car companies which he would name as Global Motors, based in Europe, Japan and the US, in order to break GM’s monopoly. This project couldn’t take off due to American Antitrust Laws.
Problems at Chrysler:
Lack of discipline, functionality, cohesion, and inter-department interaction. There was also no management structure, no teamwork, bad morale, deteriorating factories, and security leaks.
Effects of extra-organizational stressors on Chrysler’s business:
1979 Iranian revolution resulting in the ousting of the Shah of Iran
Doubling of gas prices
Chrysler’s market share plunging to a mere 8%
Rumours of Chrysler’s demise
9 C’s of Leadership by Iacocca
#BlackLivesMatter
In commemorating Juneteenth (June 19) in 2020, the following book was recommended over work mail: “The Ballad of Blind Tom (1849-1908), Slave Pianist” by Deirdre O’Connell.
Though I haven’t read the book myself and hope to read it someday, I’ve captured the stories and scenarios mentioned in the book, garnered from various sources (mentioned below). This is a well-written account of a remarkable individual, Thomas Wiggins, who was abducted and exploited for decades after being emancipated. Wiggins was an American piano prodigy. During the 19th century, he was one of the best-known American pianists and one of the best-known African-American musicians. Although he lived and died before autism was described, he is now considered an autistic savant. He published myriad original compositions and had a successful career as a musician throughout the United States.
Tom was somewhere between the 12th and 21st child born to Charity Wiggins on a Georgia plantation in 1849. Although he was blind and his behaviour wildly erratic, his talent for memorizing and reproducing sounds was soon discovered by his owner’s family, and before long he had become the “eighth wonder of the plantation”. Being blind since birth, he could not perform the usual work done by slaves. Originally, his owners wanted to kill him since he added no economic value to them. Fortunately, he was left alone explore the plantation owned by General Bethune. From an early age itself, he showed an interest in the piano after hearing the instrument played by Bethune’s daughters.
By age four, he had acquired some piano skills by ear, and gained access to the piano. By age five, he had composed his first tune, The Rain Storm, after a torrential downpour on a tin roof. With his skills recognized by General Bethune, Tom was permitted to live in a room attached to the family house, equipped with a piano. Neighbor Otto Spahr, reminiscing about Tom in the Atlanta Constitution in 1908, observed: “Tom seemed to have but two motives in life: the gratification of his appetite and his passion for music. I don’t think I exaggerate when I state that he made the piano go for twelve hours out of twenty-four.”
Impeccable imitations
As a child, Tom would echo the sounds around him, accurately replicating the crow of a rooster or the singing of a bird. If left alone in his cabin, Tom would incessantly beat on pots and pans or drag chairs across the floor to make all sorts of sounds. Though Tom was unable to communicate his own needs and had to resort to grunts and gestures, he could repeat conversations of up to ten minutes. Tom was taken to a political rally in 1860 in support of Democratic presidential candidate Stephen Douglas. Even after several years, he was able to recreate the heckles and cheers of the crowd with remarkable precision.
Bethune hired out “Blind Tom” from the age of eight years to a concert promoter named Perry Oliver, who toured him extensively in the US. Tom performed as often as four times a day, earning Oliver and Bethune up to $100,000 a year, a hefty amount in those days. Oliver marketed Tom as a “Barnum-style freak,” advertising his transformation as “animal to artist”. Unfortunately, the media often compared Tom to a bear, baboon, or mastiff. Bethune hired professional musicians to play for Tom, who could faithfully reproduce their performances, often after a single listening.
Tom is said to have learnt 7,000 pieces of music that included hymns, classical repertoire, popular songs, and waltzes. He could play back complicated music he’d merely listened to once, and he could translate the external phenomena that transfixed him such as rainstorms, trains, and sewing machines into musical fantasies. His grandest piece was a re-creation of the Battle of Manassas, which he heard firsthand and translated into piano notes. The piece instigated the senses of audiences who heard Tom play it in the Confederate South.
Tom was the first ever African-American to perform at the White House. Both Mark Twain and Willa Cather testified to his talent as a musician. “Tom, as you can plainly see, is not only a great artist but distinctly non compos mentis,” his manager would tell the crowd. We’ll never know what Blind Tom really sounded like as he died in 1908, just as recording was beginning to emerge. In 1889, Tom was erroneously reported as a casualty of the Johnstown flood. When he was put in the ground 19 years later, there were those who argued the body was not his.
Though he was mimicked by numerous impersonators, he has since faded into obscurity. A footnote in The Encyclopedia of Aberrations equivocally remembers him as “moronic genius”. Tom’s is a story with immeasurable complexity, touching on slavery, race, sanity, and art. But ultimately, his life makes us think about what it means to be human.
Notes:
About the book: http://www.blindtom.org/
Kindle edition: https://www.amazon.com/Ballad-Blind-Tom-Slave-Pianist/dp/1590201434/
About Wiggins’ Compositions: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/centers/hitchcock/publications/amr/v40-2/moulton.php
Sources:
Who was Blind Tom?
America’s Lost Musical Genius (LA Times)
Wikipedia article on Tom Wiggins
Hi folks!
This post summarizes one of the books I read last year called ‘Year of Yes’ by Shonda Rhimes. At the time, I didn’t know who she was, but after reading the book, I felt like she was like any of us, a next-door neighbour if you will. Since Shonda was an introvert, she played out everything in her head – imaginative stories, pretend characters, and fictitious tales, woven together to bring inanimate household objects to life. Her creative mind is what led her to write scripts for the TV shows Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and more. Her workaholic lifestyle though, isolated her from the world and her three children, and this made her unhappy and dissatisfied. Over a Thanksgiving dinner in 2013, when her sister muttered under her breath “You never say yes to anything!”, that served as a wake up call for her. From then on, she decided she would say yes to new things and things that she was afraid of doing, for a whole year. This book explores Shonda’s life before and after the ‘Year of Yes’ and how she came to realize and empower her own, true self.
Let’s explore some of the key takeaways from this memoir.
Lesson 1: Sometimes the only way to get you going is to have others nudge you.
Sometimes you need other people to push you over the edge, even if you don’t want to step outside your comfort zone. In Shonda’s case, it was her publicist. She simply accepted on behalf of Shonda, a fancy dinner party invitation, to which even the President and his wife showed up. Shonda realized that if her publicist did not do so, she would’ve definitely declined the invitation and missed out on having an amazing night. This realization stopped her from letting life simply pass by. Ultimately, it’s better to wait and see what happens after agreeing to something against your wishes rather than get mad at the person who made the decision for you. You’d more often than not thank them for pushing you beyond what you thought you were capable of doing.
Lesson 2: No (wo)man is an island. Say yes without asking too many questions.
No one exists in a privileged state of total knowledge about what the outcomes of a given decision are going to be. In order to know what to focus on and what to quit, you first need to do a bunch of things. If you’re in the initial, figuring-out-what-to-do-phase, set a fixed amount of time in which you’ll say yes to anything that comes your way. Don’t ask questions, don’t complain, don’t deliberate. Endless deliberation simply impedes personal growth. Say yes, see what happens. Paradoxically, it is often impossible to know whether something will be enjoyable, or even doable, without first going through an extended process of trial and error. After that period is over, look back. What new passions have emerged? What will you keep on doing? What turned out to be as bad as you had imagined them to be? This ‘ saying yes’ experiment teaches you that you’re probably more social than you think, even if you’re an introvert.
Lesson 3: Accept compliments without playing it down.
One valuable lesson Shonda learned about loving herself is to just accept compliments, instead of trying to be too humble. Earlier, she believed that modesty was key to dealing with fame and fortune. In the year of yes, she realized that sometimes, it’s okay to take a bath in the sun. When Bill Clinton praised Shonda on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her assistant made a t-shirt for her saying “Bill Clinton loves ANYTHING I do.” This time around, Shonda decided to embrace the compliment by wearing the shirt all day long instead of shying away. The idea here is not to become a show-off and beat on old accomplishments over and over, but rather being able to accept compliments as an integral part of your strong self. It shows you that sometimes, you come first and that if others already love you, you should too! Take compliments in your stride and internalize them. The grateful acceptance of positive comments is crucial to developing a happy, stable identity.
Apart from the three lessons above, the book also discusses certain other ideas.
Idea 1: The FODs and the Bad-Asses
Shonda Rhimes thinks herself to be an FOD, i.e. “first, only different.” How so? “Not male, not white, and yet highly successful”. Did luck have anything to do with her success? “I am not lucky,” she defies. “You know what I am? I am smart, talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way, and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.”
Idea 2: Unhappiness May Be the Price for Success
Most people know that happiness and success are intricately related and that happiness follows success. Even if this means you can’t be happy if you are not successful, does it mean you can consider yourself successful if you are not happy? Shonda found out during her “Year of Yes” that you can’t. Unfortunately, the very success you were chasing to become happy may be the obstacle on your road to happiness, because you may have to sacrifice several things to become successful. During this process, you may forget that you wanted to be successful only so that you can enjoy those exact same things.
Idea 3: The One Rule of Happiness
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy writes, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Shonda Rhimes thinks that if there are so many things in life that influence our happiness, and if each of us is different, then the only way to happiness is your own way. The one rule is that there are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. It comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Don’t apologize, don’t explain, don’t ever feel less than. Normalize your life. Be your own narrator and write your own ‘happily ever after’.
Shonda has pretty straightforward advice:
“They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and don’t stop dreaming until your dream comes true. I think that’s crap. I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? They are busy doing.”
“If I don’t poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell.”
“Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one ‘no’ at a time.”
Shonda Rhimes concludes her book by arguing that it is important, above all, to love oneself. By saying “yes,” individuals can gain certain extroverted traits necessary that help form self-love. Also, to each their own. Thus, while the “Year of Yes” worked for Rhimes to come to terms with herself, she suggests that every individual devise a unique solution for themselves in order to accomplish the same goals.
Notes:
Interesting TED talk by Shonda Rhimes on ‘Finding the Hum’
Sources:
Shonda Rhimes’ quotes
Hi folks!
This post is all about the book summary of “Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back” by innovation consultant Andrew Zolli and journalist Ann Marie Healy. The main question it answers is “Why is it that some individuals, institutions, systems, and cultures tend to bounce back from disruptive change better than others?”
Let’s start by defining the word resilience. Merriam-Webster defines resilience in the following two ways:
Quoting the authors:
“We must look to redesign our institutions, embolden our communities, encourage innovation and experimentation, and support our people in ways that will help them be prepared to cope with surprises and disruptions, even as we work to fend them off.”
Diving right into one of the examples provided in the book, let’s consider online child safety. Rather than choose an unproductive albeit proactive approach of “legislate and regulate”, parents must learn to adopt a resilient approach of “educate and empower.” The term Netiquette comes into picture here. You can find some guidelines for Internet etiquette listed under Notes below. Another way to educate children is by making them aware about Digital Citizenship. Refer the Notes section for a comprehensive, technical guide to this topic. “Think before you click!” is a good first lesson of employing resiliency in action.
Zooming out to a broader topic, the book talks about resilient systems as a whole – their characteristics, their significance, and the risk adaptation mindset, as opposed to the risk mitigation mindset, that institutions can adopt to effectively bounce back in the face of a crisis. The more cooperation there exists within the system, the better the collective resilience of its members. The authors highlight “adhocracy” as a characteristic of a resilient system, wherein a social structure allows constant changes and flexibility within an informal organization. While complex systems are robust-yet-fragile, resilient systems use “tight feedback mechanisms” to tell when a sudden change is imminent. Quoting from the book:
“If we cannot control the volatile tides of change, we can at least learn to build better boats.”
As an individual, one can practice becoming resilient through the process of meditation. Everyone can learn the habits of the mind which can help better prepare oneself for unanticipated changes. This process would lead to the individual becoming happier, safer, and more prosperous in life.
In this VUCA world, individuals as well as institutions need to learn the art of “preserving adaptive capacity”, an absolutely essential skill to maintain in an age of unforeseeable turmoil. As many cultures have learned to thrive in changing times by adapting, cooperating, connecting, and being agile and diverse, so must we continually commit to refreshing ourselves and being open to experimentation.
A couple of other topics mentioned in this book are risk compensation and the secrets of success of translational leaders. To summarize, risk compensation, a term coined by John Adams in 1981, explains how people in general handle risk. If a person’s risk drops in one area of his or her life, that person will compensate, knowingly or unknowingly, by increasing risk in other areas. Kids wearing helmets while playing take risks that kids with no helmets do not take. This is done to achieve a state of balance, called ‘risk homeostasis.’
Regarding translational leaders, the authors describe how the right leadership is essential in developing resilient organizations. These leaders neither steer from the top like visionary CEOs or presidents nor guide from the grassroots. What they do instead is use “middle-out” leadership, which involves interaction with each level in the hierarchy of the institution. They connect with stakeholders, bridge the ones in power with the ones who may be going unheard, and always stay knowledgeable about the working of their system.
In conclusion, here’s a one-liner from the book to sum up the concept of resilience:
“Resilience must continually be refreshed and recommitted to. Every effort at resilience buys us not certainty, but another day, another chance.”
That’s all, folks!
P.S. the word “resilience” comes under the list of my favourite words. Visit my other blog to know more!
Notes:
Sources:
Hi folks!
This post attempts to summarize yet another partial preview of a book, outlining notes from its first section. The book chosen is “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. This book is also on my reading wishlist (along with The Artist’s Way, summarized in my previous post), and, while I bet it’s a more rewarding experience to read the actual book, where you’ll get to appreciate the author’s style of writing and enjoy the way she has written it, the purpose of this summary is to entice you to go read that, which I hope to do too, soon enough!
TL;DR
Summary
The author attributes the title of her book to something her father had told her brother thirty years ago. When her ten-year-old brother was trying to get a report on birds written that he had had three months to write and was due the very next day, their father sat next to him and solaced him, saying “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” Anne Lamott was inspired by this and wrote a step-by-step guide on how to write and how to manage a writer’s life. She discusses not just first drafts, character, and plot, but also about writer’s block and about getting your first book published, which for her was the thrill of “seeing oneself in print” and served as the highest form of existential validation.
Talking about perfectionism, she describes it as a mean, frozen form of idealism, whereas messes, according to her, are the artist’s true friend. Being a faithful perfectionist will disallow you from even starting to jot down the first word. It stifles you, while also giving you an excuse to not start writing. Perfectionism can be a good thing, but if it keeps you from achieving your goals, it’s a problem. Some people measure themselves against yardsticks they’ve set for themselves. They concoct notions of what perfection means to them. But instead of this arbitrary comparison, they can choose to raise their self-awareness and focus on what they’re good at and enjoy doing. Quoting Lamott:
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”
I agree with the author when she asserts with candour and conviction that the act of writing turns out to be its own reward. Writing teaches you so much; you stumble upon several pleasant surprises, and you discover yourself like never before. When you go searching for a creative or an aesthetic way to see the world and its elements and organise them all in your head, you learn to pay attention. You learn to communicate what is going on around you. Writing gives you an excuse to explore various places and motivates you to look closely at life, through binoculars, to help present your viewpoint, your own perspective, with clarity. When you get to know who you yourself are in a compassionate manner, only then can you recognize others and see them for who they really are. That’s when you can capture your line of vision to your audience, the readers. Quoting Annie Dillard, the author of The Writing Life, on what she believes about writing providing the writer with a deeper kind of reward:
“At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then — and only then — it is handed to you.”
In conclusion, good writing is about telling the truth. We belong in a world where each one of us needs to and wants to understand who we are. It’s not only about writing a great deal but also about caring. We need not preach complex philosophies to others. All we could strive to achieve is to comprehend life and its ways and pass on the lessons we’ve learnt. In writing, we don’t look for something selfish but an act of warm generosity. We look not for personal gratification. We look for that which boosts us to wake up each morning, determined to put our best into our work, which we wish to share with the world. Quoting George Eliot:
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”
That’s all folks!
Sources:
Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
Stories and photos from Scotland
Mindful Musings 