Hi there folks. Like I mentioned in my last post, I am collapsing both of my blogs into one. It can be found at dkhundley.com . Thank you for my time here! Looking forward to continuing along with you in this journey of life over at my unified blog.

My job. My wife and baby. My volunteering at the church. My management of two blogs. My graphic design. My personal development via books and online courses. My upkeep of stuff around the house. My sleep. My exercise routine. My eating habits. My "fun" life. My sanity. My life has gotten a little bit out of control lately, so I'm taking an intentional step back now to see what went "wrong" and re-orient where I'm going. My hope is that you can learn from my mistakes, so I'm segmenting this post around 4 central themes: fear, failure, willpower, and focus. Let's get into it.

"Keep your head down." That's probably the worst piece of advice you can possibly ever hear. When it comes to wanting a promotion at work, we have made impossible games for ourselves. Promotional systems that exist today generally have good intentions behind them: we like to create predictable growth. Predictable growth usually comes in the form of promoting certain behaviors, so companies seek to elevate those who exude certain competencies from people who helped pioneer that predictable growth. Seems smart, right? Wrong.

You can't deny that title caught your attention. I'm usually pretty leery about books that use seemingly gimmicky titles to grab attention, but there are definitely cases were those books turned out to be pretty good. The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss and I Will Teach You To Be Rich  by Ramit Sethi are great examples of this. Fortunately, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life  falls in that camp with Tim's and Ramit's books. It's excellent. The title is a little deceiving because it implies that, by the time you're done reading this book, you'll be well on the road to becoming this badass that doesn't care who says what. Internet trolls, nay saying friends? No problem. Nothing will get in your way, you're too good for that now! Well... not so much.

For as much as I love the show The Office , there was one aspect of it that would make me cringe any time I thought about it too much: what business those folks were in. This fictional company, Dunder Mifflin, sold companies paper and paper-related products on a recurring basis via a customer relations salesperson. Yup, this is what your favorite characters Jim and Dwight did every single day. Because when I think about a titillating career in selling something I'm passionate about, paper and paper-related products are the first thing I think about. ...I'm clearly dripping with sarcasm.

We all have been a victim of something at one or another point in our lives. Those situations can widely range in scale from an atrocity such as rape to being affected by a questionable change in the workplace. This post particularly addresses that latter piece and purposefully does not seek to put down great atrocities at all. (I hate having to begin posts that way because I hope you'd naturally trust me and assume that I have no ill intentions.)

We all know those folks. The people who persistently point out where a comma was misplaced, where a word was misspelled, and where something wasn't properly capitalized. Mistakes happen, and spelling / grammar is definitely important. But when a person takes it upon themselves to start correcting these minor mistakes, there is a much deeper problem going on.

A few posts back, I noted that we should focus on big things because we become preoccupied with the details of the goals we set for ourselves. So if you set the goal to lose 20 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality when if you set a goal to lost 100 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality. The time doesn't change, nor does the mentality. I'm currently reading through Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  and learned about a concept called Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law states the following: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Have you ever read something or been told something that hits you so hard that it virtually stops you in your tracks? Unable to write, speak, or even think? My mouthy self has spoken for eight months now on this blog, and not once has something hit me so hard as it did yesterday. The reason I'm able to continuously churn out content is because I believe wholeheartedly that, opinion pieces aside, what I have to say is true. And I've come across a lot of truth in things like books, podcasts, and videos. But there's something I've semi-unknowingly buried. And yesterday, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Back in the day, if you wanted to publish a book, you had to sign a deal with the book publisher. The book publisher would then work with bookstores, who would ultimately sell the book to the consumer. That book would get lost in a sea of other books, so the probability of somebody finding the book you wrote was really, really low. Even if they did discover your book, the bookstore and book publisher gets a cut of that revenue before you do. That's all different now.

I've gotten back into Ramit Sethi's work in a big way, and I've found a lot of his stuff has complemented previous posts on this blog quite nicely. I'm specifically referring to decision fatigue. As a very quick reminder, decision fatigue is the idea that we make poorer and poorer decisions as the day goes on because our brains just aren't wired that way. In an Art of Charm podcast featuring Ramit Sethi, host Jordan Harbinger questions Ramit on that balance between creativity and basically re-using concepts tested by other people. Ramit was all for re-using tested concepts. Why? Because he discerned that cognitive thinking should be reserved for times when creativity is needed, and creativity isn't needed in every aspect.

Education is a tricky thing. Many jobs require you to learn things prior to you getting on the job, but sometimes, that education is more valued in retrospect. What is and what isn't valuable gets especially lost in four year degrees that mandate something like 130 credit hours for graduation. A college isn't going to tell you, "These classes are important, and these classes... not so much." To be fair to colleges, value is a subjective thing. What I might have found valuable might be different to somebody else. This is especially true for a more general major like mine, Business Administration. I took courses in macroeconomics, marketing, communications, finance, accounting, HR management, and more. If you go ask my fellow graduates which courses they valued the most, I bet every one of them would give you different answers. Anyway, I was reflecting back on my own undergraduate education and thinking about the classes I wish I could go retake. It's not that I...

We have been lied to. We have been told that we are special just because we live and breathe. That all our actions provide equal and meaningful weight across all humanity. That nobody can tell us this or that because we are each discovering our own truths every day. This has manifested itself in a number of ways. Participation trophies and medals are at an all time high. College campuses have become houses of affirmation rather than places of learning. Children are being taught to "be yourself" and expect to be automatically accepted and loved by everybody. This is dangerous thinking. And it's dangerous because it's just... Not... True.

Ten years ago... Barack Obama was not a president yet. MySpace was the most popular social platform. Smartphones were just on the horizon, and tablets and smartwatches didn't exist. CDs were still the primary way you listened to music. Netflix's core business was shipping DVDs with VOD only in its very early infancy. That was all only ten years ago.

This is actually my third time reading through this book, and there's a reason why. They're all centered around the release of another of Bell's books, Love Wins . Prior to Love Wins , Rob Bell was the hottest thing in the Christian community since Welch's grape juice. Bell became best known for his very well produced video series, NOOMA, as well as his other endeavors like the Everything is Spiritual keynote and Sex God book. And also because of Velvet Elvis . Fast forward to 2011 when Bell launches Love Wins  and all hell breaks loose. For those familiar with the premise of Love Wins , you'll know I had a punnerific pun there when I said "all hell breaks loose". The premise of that book is that Bell believes all people will eventually turn to God, even post-death, meaning that hell will eventually become null and void at some point in the future. This didn't sit well with a lot of people, especially since many people interpreted the premi...

Spoiler alert: This post is probably going to come across as super pretentious, but I still write it because I believe every single word. I'm also not going to lie about the fact that fashion is super interesting to me. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Devil Wears Prada , and I'm such a regular at Express that I ought to be sponsored by them. If I had the money, I'd probably go shopping on a very regular basis. (My wife would tell you I already do more than enough shopping for the both of us!)

Ever since finishing Mindless Eating , I've been hyper-aware of the environments and situations in which I eat. One of the points in that book is that its not that we are unaware of the nutritional choices we make but more so that our emotional side kicks in and takes over regardless of hunger or health. Think about the Rider / Elephant metaphor from the Heath brothers' book, Switch . Our logical side (the Rider) is well aware a donut is not a healthy choice, and its easy to tell ourselves not to eat a donut when they're not around. But then, you have a coworker bring in a box of Krispy Kremes, and your emotional side (the Elephant) says it's game on. Despite the fact that we know the donut is bad for us, we don't care and scarf down five of them. (Okay, maybe five is an exaggeration for most people, but... well... that's not an exaggeration for me. 😌) That said, I thought I'd share my five biggest "danger zones" as a means for you to think ...

I love food. Deep dish pizza. Peanut butter M&Ms. DQ Oreo frappes. White chip macadamia nut cookies. Kettle cooked potato chips. Spaghetti made with Ragu's "Super Chunky Mushroom" sauce.  These are just to name a very select few of my favorite foods. Even after losing 100 pounds, it is a daily battle to keep off the weight. The weight may be gone, but the appetite certainly is not. That said, I'm constantly looking for ways to help keep my weight off. It is a deathly fear of mine, and I don't exaggerate when I say that I still weigh myself at least twice a day to ensure I'm not indulging too much into my favorite foods. I actually stumbled across Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think unintentionally. As I like to do, I was listening to a podcast where Tim Ferriss was interviewing I Will Teach You To Be Rich  entrepreneur Ramit Sethi, and like he normally does, Ferriss posed this question to Sethi: "What is the book you gift to people...

If you’ve read my very first post on this blog, you’ll know that I actually attempted to start blogging a couple times prior to establishing this blog (and my other blog) but ultimately shut them down because I viewed them as failures. Failures because they didn’t get the views I was hoping for. And that’s why they failed so quickly: I was in it for the views, not to promote some sort of cause or idea. What I didn’t explain in that post was why I chose a name that was not my own. Most people have blogs under their own name, and actually, my first two attempts were done under my name. I still own the URL rights to www.dkhundley.com because A) I never know if I’ll want to use it again in the future and B) It only costs me $12 a year to sit on it. If you try going there, all you’ll get is a simple, poorly maintained Wix-based site.

Steve Jobs is often cited as one of the greatest influencers in modern business, and rightfully so. He not only helped to establish one of the largest companies in the world but helped to resurrect that same company from almost certain death in the late 1990s. Time and time again, Jobs helped usher in a new idea via a new product that would ultimately revolutionize the industry again and again. Those familiar with the popular biography by Walter Isaacson will know that Jobs's sustained success had a lot to do with what people called a "reality distortion field". Under this "reality distortion field," Jobs had an almost magical influence to make people truly believe in anything Jobs had to say, regardless of how wacky it seemed at the time . Where some people looked at Jobs as insane because of this, history has proved in favor of Jobs with the success things like the original Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and even the Pixar Animated Studios. So, what was it ...

Fake news. Alternative facts. It's weird to think that these are now part of our regular vocabulary in 2017. You would have thought that the information age would have ushered in an era where everybody could keep up with the latest and greatest information. Turns out that is only partially true: we're getting the latest information, but it isn't always the greatest. It certainly makes sense why this is the case. News organizations have to make money, and with subscription models like newspaper falling to the wayside, that means these news organizations have to get your attention somehow, even if that means exaggerating or straight up lying. Ryan Holiday does a great job of explaining this in more detail in his well-written book, Trust Me, I'm Lying . The good news is that there is a silver lining. At least for folks like me.

I like to tell my friends that I lost the weight but not the appetite. And my appetite for pizza is never satiated. Thin crust, thick crust, it's all good to me. Well... not all of it. I honestly can't say Little Caesars is disgusting, but it is definitely not favorable. If I had to choose between Little Caesars and pretty much every burger place on the face of the earth, I would go for the burger, for sure. Clearly, I am not in Little Caesars' demographic. Still, I have to hand it to the company. They have changed their business model and marketing plan in a way that has made them once again a key player in this over-saturated industry. Let's take a look at how this sub-par pizza maintains relevance in today's modern society.

If you asked me last year if I was a creative person, I probably would have said no. The last time I took an art class was probably in eighth grade, and the reason I didn't continue in high school was because I was not particularly good at any of the art projects in grade school. Even with my musical ability, I was still told that I was not a creative person. Merely, I was just good at replicating what I could hear from something else or from reading sheet music. I believed it. For years.

Running was a big staple in helping me lose weight and remains important in helping me maintain that weight loss. I'll be honest: I don't necessarily find running fun like some people do, but I can't overlook the fact that it's certainly effective. I was never a runner before losing all my weight, and it still surprises me how far I've come in about two years. Where I couldn't run a full mile before, I'm now training for my first full marathon. That's insane to think about. If I can do it, you can certainly do it, too. Here are some tips to help you get started with running.

It should come as no surprise to you that I'm struggling to see how the church (or faith) as a whole can do a better job at connecting with our postmodern society. In an attempt to eliminate the word "can't" from my vocabulary, I am doing what I can to contribute to a new movement to help re-integrate or re-introduce faith to folks. To that end, I reached out to some people in the church about literature regarding this, and there sadly isn't much. However, there is still some. In particular, I was recommended to check out this series of books called FRAMES. This series of nine books analyzes different topics regarding modern society in short, concise books. Books that contain a lot of information portrayed in neat graphical forms.

Let's take a step back to 2007. Hard to believe it's been a decade ago now! The first iPhone was just being released to the public. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were still in their infancy. Tablets and smartwatches didn't exist. And MySpace was still a big thing. Today, pretty much the opposite is true of everything mentioned above. The Apple Watch has more than double the processing power of the first iPhone. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are going strong along with new folks like Instagram and Snapchat. And while MySpace still exists, it is only a mere shadow of its former self. Things change. The IT industry is easy to point out because of its rapid, tangible growth, but this isn't to say other things have changed. Music artists and book authors no longer need major publishing deals to share their work. Uber and Lyft have created a whole new industry out of ride sharing. And who else remembers when McDonald's used to only have one drive thru and breakfa...

I'm a tech enthusiast all the way. I frequently visit tech blogs, keep up to date with the latest stuff that I don't own myself, and adopt the latest stuff that my budget affords me. If I could afford it, I'd always own the top of the line computer, smartphone, tablet, and smartwatch. My friends and family look to me to help them troubleshoot through any issues, and I'm almost always consulted by those same folks when they're about to make a tech purchase. So you might find it weird that I've recently moved back to using paper for some things. Technology is great, but I've found that it's not appropriate for every scenario. That said, this post is definitely more geared toward my tech-savvy, younger crowd who are apt to use tech for everything. I hope the insights shared here give you a refreshed perspective on the ol' paper and pen.

The Office is easily one of my favorite shows. While I wasn't a fan of the last few seasons, I think the first couple are absolutely timeless. Steve Carell's Michael Scott character is fantastic. For those of you not familiar with the premise of The Office , its a sitcom with the main premise being a group of regular office workers coping with the childish antics of their boss, Michael Scott. Michael is, essentially, the boss from hell. He has very little self awareness and constantly makes tasteless jokes at the expense of his associates. Things like degrading an Indian woman by mocking her culture with poor stereotypes with an equally atrocious accent. As a viewer, you can't help but question how. How did Michael Scott end up landing this position? He clearly isn't suited for the job. Well, the show actually does lightly explain it at one point, and it's a sadly believable premise that occurs regularly in many organizations today.

When the iPhone first released the App Store as a part of iOS 2.0, they pushed hard for everybody to create native applications for their phone. It certainly made sense for them. If they could create a platform where people could engage with all sorts of content on a singular device, then they could sell a lot of that device. Certain companies jumped onboard and made quite a name for themselves utilizing this new platform. I'm thinking about social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. These fundamental apps showed the potential of what a company could do with a native app, and it didn't take long for everybody else to jump on the app bandwagon. But I personally think this was a poor mindset for many companies, this idea that "We need an app because everybody has an app!" Sure, it makes sense for companies like Mojang with their top selling Minecraft: Pocket Edition, but does it really makes sense for every company? I don't think...

A focus on keeping one's ego in check is super important to me. So important that I named the blog to reflect this idea. I talk about this concept all the time both to help you and to help myself. I am plagued daily by the temptation to think more of myself than I actually am. Ego is the Enemy  was recommended to me by a friend by coincidence. I don't necessarily know if this person is aware how important this topic to me is, so I jumped at the chance to read this book when it finally became available in my Overdrive app. It's the book that finally pulled me away from my Nintendo Switch long enough to get my personal development back on track. Allow me to reflect now on what I think about this book now that I've finished it.

I don't know what it is these days, but people have the tendency to beat around the bush before getting to a point. Maybe it's that they're unsure if what's on their mind is right or wrong. Maybe they don't want to offend somebody. Or maybe it's simply that the person doesn't want to come across as brash or cocky. This is an issue I've encountered a lot, both in the past and in the present. It's a huge time waste, and it can be detrimental to productivity. For example, when a group is asked to provide feedback on something that is quietly not well received, the room usually goes dead silent for a little while until somebody finally speaks up offering some vague compliment. The compliment, of course, serves as a means to remain respectful to the presenter, but the presenter usually takes it and runs with it. After all, they only heard "good things" about it! In reality, nobody liked the idea.

If you've been in the work world long enough, I'm sure you've come across SMART goals at one point or another. SMART is a conveniently created acronym to help a person build essentially "reasonable" goals. These criterion are defined as the following: Specific (simple, sensible significant) Measurable (meaningful, motivating) Achievable (agreed, attainable) Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based) Time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time-sensitive) At first blush, I think most anybody can agree that these are good things to hold to. I've seen them practiced in organizational performance development, and I know they were deeply espoused in my Master's degree. But I'm not sold on these criterion. When trying to recently use this formula for myself, I found myself frustrated by the limitations imposed by this method. Just like the title of this post says, I don't think SMART goals are all that smart. Let's ...

At the beginning of this year, you might recall a post where I shared this idea conveyed by Dilbert author Scott Adams in daily writing down your aspirations in hopes that they will eventually come true. (If you want a refresher, here is a link to that post .) Now that we're deep into March (which is insane to think about), I wanted to reflect on what I think about having practiced this weird pseudo-science for a few months.

This last week, my life has been consumed by a video game. My personal productivity time has fallen off a cliff, and both my blogs have suffered from lack of content as a result. I still haven't beaten the game quite yet, but I'm finally coming around to a point that I'm okay balancing my play time back with my personal productivity time. As much as I am sorry for not posting a lot of content this week, I am also not all that sorry either.

Think about the last family vacation you planned. It's exciting to think about what your family and friends might do and the places you'll travel. But there's quite a few factors that play a role in planning a vacation. Things like... Where are we going? Who all is going? How many days will we be gone? How much are we willing to spend? What form of travel will we be taking? And so on. You get the picture. This isn't a bad thing to do at all. Rarely will you find people that step out the door on a vacation with zero plan in mind. But how many people follow their very precise plans once the vacation takes place? Oftentimes, things change at the very last minute. Folks on a road trip might pass a billboard for something cool they had no idea existed. Many people will change those plans last minute and be happy they did so. Others will stick to their original plan and likely end up regretting doing so, always wondering what it would have been like to venture of...

The Nintendo Switch and new Zelda game launched this past Friday, and "addicted" doesn't even come close to how enthralled with this game I am. Between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I would wager to say that I have put a solid 20 hours into the game already. I don't normally get like this, but... dang. This game is so good! As you might know, I have a baby at home. She's just over two months old and is an absolute joy. Just because, here's a shameless photo of her being cute with my Nintendo Switch: The Switch's launch and her presence honestly made for a little bit of a quandary. As much as I love my baby, I just did not want to peel myself away from this game. What should I do? Maximize my play time or spend time with her?

I struggle to write this post because I don't want my words to be misunderstood. I don't want somebody to read this as a means to put down the church or ever give it a chance, as that's the last thing I want. I'm not willing to say that the institutional church as we know it today is a failure. But for as many drafts as I've written about this topic, I couldn't not publish it.

We've come a long way with technology; it's truly amazing. Things like teleconferencing, simultaneous document editing, and virtual whiteboarding have made cross-country business a reality. Companies have begun to recognize this and now regularly hire full time teleworkers. It's weird to think that I have worked with people for years that I may never meet in person. Here's the thing, though: I'm just not convinced teleworking is the future. Where I think people are experimenting in this space now, I don't think even think advances in technology will cause teleworking to be a mainstream thing. In fact, I think we're going to see more of a swing back to collocated teams over virtual teams. Let's explore the five reasons why I think the future does not lie in teleworking.

Nintendo's brand new console, the Nintendo Switch, is set to launch in a few days, and I am absolutely ecstatic about it. Heck, I'm even taking the day off work. I've been a fan of Nintendo for pretty much all my life, and when you pair a new console with a very highly anticipated game ( The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ), I am all in. Nintendo is definitely putting a lot of weight behind the release of this new console. They've been doing the typical things like setting up places across the country to preview the console, and they notably had a commercial during the Superbowl this year. But perhaps the most interesting thing they've been doing lately is something I have never seen emulated by any other company.

In a recent post about weight loss and emotions , I referenced a piece of information about the Rider and the Elephant that I gleaned from this book. The ironic part is that when I got to think about it, I realized I never finished the book! I'm a slow reader, so the library needed the book back before I could finish it. (And, side thought, with the Nintendo Switch releasing this coming Friday, is there not a more appropriate time to review this book??) The Rider and Elephant metaphor is introduced early on in the book, so I wanted to take a dive back into Switch. Why? The full title of the book is Switch: How to Change When Change Is Hard , and I was interested in seeing other principles of change the Heath brothers had to offer as potential fodder for future posts. So, now that I've made my way through the full book, did I garner a lot of new information, or was the Rider / Elephant metaphor the only good thing in here? Let's get into it.

A little while back, I wrote a post on weight loss on emotions where I shared that the most important thing when beginning a weight loss journey is managing your emotions. If you haven't read that post, please do as this post will largely build upon that and make much more sense. Diet is a huge deal when losing weight. People might think it's all about exercising, and while exercise is certainly a factor, I would say it has more like a 25% importance. That means that diet holds like a 75% importance. You can workout all day, but if you don't change your diet, I highly, highly doubt you will see much progress at all. Oh, and get rid of the idea of temporary diets. There's a reason I choose the words "dieting lifestyle change." If you truly want to shed the weight and keep it off, there's no going back. You're going to have to make conscious effort to constantly keep a healthy diet. Is it hard? Yes, but I think you'll find it's not too bad o...

Hey there folks. You know that I manage another blog, Engedi Artistry, and when I conceived this post, I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted it here or on that blog. I ended up putting it over there, but I still think it's a great post for the Adulting 101 series. Instead of duplicating the post over here, I'm doing something kind of lazy and just linking this post to that one. I know, I know, this is uncharacteristic of me, but I need a break! Hope you all have a great weekend. LINK: What's in My Work Backpack

"I can't wait to retire someday." That phrase has never sat well with me. Now, I'm not a numbers guy, but I think in this case, numbers make a big impact. The life expectancy of the average person is 80 years old. If we assume that the average person enters the full time workforce at age 22 (when people typically exit undergrad) and retires at age 62 (according to an online source), then that's precisely 40 years of full time work. Roughly half a person's life.

Last week, I challenged you all to meet with at least one new person a week to build your personal network. As somebody who attempts to practice what they preach, I have been undergoing this challenge myself, and I have setup several meetings within my place of work to learn more about the company as well as glean information for the team I'm working with. So far, it's gone pretty well. People have been very gracious and generous with their time and have been more than willing to meet with me. Everything was chugging along great until I got an undesired response... I was being deflected onto somebody else.

On the February 20, 2017 episode of The Adam Carolla Show , host Adam Carolla sat down with Scott Keneally to discuss his new documentary,  Rise of the Sufferfests , and one of the primary focuses of the documentary is the analysis of tough mudder competitions. I only recently heard about these things from a friend, so for those of you not aware, a tough mudder competition is a sort of obstacle course where people subject themselves to a long, arduous sort of trek through mud. Definitely doesn't sound like they're for the light of heart.

Think about all the things you pray for and all the ways in which you've been told to pray. Of course, there's the Lord's Prayer. There's also the ACTS acronym of Adoration-Confession-Thanksgiving-Supplication. And for you early 2000s church folk, how could we ever forget the prayer of Jabez?? Oh yeah, those nostalgia juices are flowing now! There's nothing inherently wrong with any of these prayers. In fact, I use the free Echo app to remind me every two hours to pray using the ACTS acronym. But as good as those prayer models are, there is something rarely called out. Something mentioned in the Bible over and over, yet we hardly ever make an explicit note of it.

In the afterword of Laszlo Bock's Work Rules! , Bock talks about the choice for Google's HR department to be called "People Operations" instead of the traditional "Human Resources". He explained that the choice was deliberate. The thought was that "Human Resources" had a very business-like feel about it, and people had a much fonder respect for teams with "Operations" in the title. I rolled my eyes when I read that, and for those of you paying attention , that subtle physical reaction got me thinking about this. Why is it that I instantly rolled my eyes when I thought about that? The answer came to me quickly: I am personally not a fan of flowery titles. Like when somebody calls themselves something bogus an "idea engineer". What's my issue with this?

If you've read the other book reviews on this blog, you know that I specifically focus on business-related books. I'm not particularly a big fan of fiction nor of nonfiction that isn't of that business field. I really don't know what made me check out Shoe Dog. I suppose it's because I saw its overwhelming popularity on Amazon. Even so, I had no idea it was an autobiography. No idea it was about Nike. And no idea how much I would love reading this book.

We all have people we look up to that influence our actions and behavior on a daily basis. We buy their books the second they hit store shelves. We regularly download their podcasts. We watch their YouTube videos as soon as they are uploaded. For me, those folks include Seth Godin, Ramit Sethi, Adam Carolla, and Tim Ferriss. Speaking of Ferriss, we all know he regularly interviews people at the top of the industry, and one of those interviews with none other than Sophia Amoruso. For those of you unfamiliar with Amoruso, she is the founder and creative genius behind the clothing company Nasty Gal. She's also the author of the New York Times bestseller #GIRLBOSS . (An excellent read, by the way.) One of the questions Ferriss posed to Amoruso was what Amoruso thinks about when she hears the word "successful". This was her response (taken from Ferriss' book  Tools of Titans ):

I was recently listening an interview with Larry McReynolds, former NASCAR crew chief, who talked about the shift in NASCAR sponsorship from Sprint/Nextel to Monster Energy. Call me what you will, but I couldn't help but chuckle to myself because I cannot think of a more appropriate sponsor than energy. Here is a crowd that gets a kick out of watching cars drive in a circle, and Monster only ratchets up that energy to an exponential level. If it sounds like I'm making fun of them, that's not really the case. In all actuality, I am not-so-secretly jealous of them. I wish I could get a thrill off these simple pleasures, but I don't. I wish I could understand and relate with the excitement over watching NASCAR. Moreover, I could say the same thing about any sport. I'm not into the NFL, NBA, NHL, Olympics, or any other sporting event. Actually... maybe having a low threshold for gratification doesn't sound so bad!

A friend was telling me recently about a time when he applied for a senior-level position within his current role. While I think he would have been a great fit for the role, he wasn't given an opportunity to even interview for the position. When asking why his consideration was denied, it was purported that somebody in upper management contended that nobody knew who he was. I'm not a fan of that philosophy because what that person was saying is "We're not going to evaluate the merits of this candidate because we don't personally know him." Isn't that the whole purpose of interviewing...? Anyway, it brings to light a reality that pretty much everybody faces within organization: the importance of networking and relationship building. Doing good work sometimes just isn't enough. Sometimes, it is indeed about who you know.

I was recently approached by a friend to consider my weaknesses, and my first gut reaction in my mind was "I have no weaknesses." Recognizing that that was a proud, not-so-humble thought, I've spent the past couple weeks thinking over areas where I could generally improve myself. And yes, there are indeed some areas I can improve, including... I still tend to consider myself a generally socially awkward individual, especially when meeting new people. When I'm the focal point of attention in conversation, I have the tendency to try to not leave dead air, which sometimes leads me down a path of saying something I probably shouldn't have said. I have the attention span of a squirrel. This list is something I am constantly working to improve upon. But there was one thing I mentally noted down that I still cannot decide is a strength or a weakness. Because of this indecision, I purposefully have not acted toward "fixing" it.

A few months back, I wrote a review of How Google Works  by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg. That book covered many generalized topics about, well, how Google works. My review of that book was lukewarm, and that was partially because it seemed as if some of the things Google does can't be replicated in other organizations. Enter Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead  by Laszlo Bock, now-former head of People Operations at Google. Where the formerly mentioned book had more of a general focus, Work Rules! focuses on the human resource side of Google, spanning topics ranging from recruiting to performance reviews. So, how does this book compare to How Google Works ? Does its narrower focus help or hinder its content? More importantly, does the content of this book hold weight in companies that aren't Google? Maybe even in your own company? We'll explore all these questions and more in the review below.