Book Summary: Abundance - The Future Is Better Than You Think - By Peter Dimandis and Steven Kotler

Abraham Maslow defined the basic human hierarchy of needs as food, water and air and from there you move up to the top of the pyramid which is self-actualization. Image a world of clean abundant energy, clean abundant water, wellness instead of sick care, abundant food supply and medical treatment for all. Now imagine these things as self-sustaining systems and not charity.

Why is this important to me?

The major problems today are clean energy, clean water, health care, the environment and population growth which is why this book is important. Every year 11 million children around the world die from infectious diseases and other causes. Most of these could have been avoided with clean water. This statistic is horrible. The U.S. has spent over $1 Trillion dollars on wars to fight terrorism. The world water problem could have been solved for much less. People need to have a realistic perspective. Humans tend to think logically and linearly. Technological change happens exponentially. This is good news for us because all of these problems are solvable.

Abundance is an excellent book that not only defines the problems but highlights technology innovation that is happening right now that will solve these problems. This book is broken down into six major parts but for the sake of time, I will profile a few key points as well as focus on the What, Why and How.

1. The Facts - Fact One: Currently humanity uses 30% more of our planet's natural resources than we can replace. Fact Two: If everyone on this planet wanted to live with the lifestyle of the average European, we would need three planets' worth of resources to pull it off. Fact Three: If everyone on this planet wished to live like an average North American, then we'd need five planets to pull it off. Abundance shows that we can solve these problems. When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they're mainly inaccessible. Yet the threat of scarcity still dominates the world view. The reason for this is because humans think logically and linearly while technological progression is exponential.

2. The Goal - Imagine a world of 9 billion people with clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, personalized education, top-tier medical care, and nonpolluting, ubiquitous energy. Building this better world is humanity's grandest challenge.

Let's look at the how portion with examples from Abundance.

1. Energy Possibilities - Energy has many components that need work. One is the production of clean energy, two is the transmission of that energy and three is the storage of the energy. What this means is that solar energy produced in San Diego (95% sunny days) could be stored and transmitted to rainy areas like Seattle. Smart grid technologies are needed as well. We are making progress. Corn produces 18 gallons per acre per year and palm oil about 625 gallons per acre per year. Modified algae (pond scum) will produce 10,000 gallons per acre per year. The technical progress with modified algae is moving fast. If this goal is hit and Miles per gallon improve with the cars then we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil with 17% of the land mass of Nevada producing modified algae. Clean abundant energy is the source of fixing the rest of the problems outlined in this summary. These tasks create jobs which fuels economic growth. This is not a charitable problem. Charities may invest money but that is the way it needs to be looked at - as an investment not a gift.

2. Water Possibilities - Dean Kamen created Slingshot. This is a water purification system that runs with a sterling engine. This setup is so effective that it costs.002 cents per liter. The system running in India can run on cow dung to power the purifier. Today the cost per liter is.30 cents. Building the Slingshot commercially could reduce the price down to $2,500 each. The water problem is a big problem because 97% of the world's water is salt water. Basically fresh water consists of less than 1% of the total water supply. Another huge issue is 70% of the world's water is used in agriculture while 50% of the food is thrown away. There are enormous opportunities in clean water generation locally eliminating the need to transport it. Smart Grid technologies are in huge demand because it makes sense to simply use what is needed without the delivery waste.

Abundance is a great book that will get you thinking about solving these major problems we face as a species. Right now the world economy is sputtering and on the brink of a major shift. The ultimate goal of most humans is to have a job to sustain and better their lives. Jim Clifton wrote about this in his book the Coming Jobs War. These technologies and problems offer opportunities and business growth for people who have the foresight to take advantage of it.

I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is problems equal opportunity through the right lens. Viewing the world through the right lens is critical to our success. To hone this skill, focus on root cause problems and looking for solutions.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/ to receive free video book summaries. Our vision at Success Progress is to provide relevant & meaningful content to our user community. To view the video summary of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

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Summary of the book: hacking of the stupid rules of work-break for results of the wise men by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein

In the enterprise, infrastructure is equal to money. Internationally, need a flexible infrastructure to manage growth. That said, when the centralized infrastructure, the company turns into bureaucracy and slow response becomes sluggish. Piracy of work looks at these problems from the point of view of workers and describes things you can do for your work by work: get smart.

Why is this important to me?

I am not this summary to lose your time. It is my vision to provide concise steps you can take now to achieve your business goals. Most of the companies now trust their suppliers and customers more than their employees. It's a real problem because the brilliant results require teamwork and you can't have a team, if there is no confidence. Companies because the transparency and centralizing similar to command and control systems. This is not a bad thing, until it must be a man selling 2 hours to enter an order or if the company blocks Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. Stupid actions such as this results to kill.

The results are the name of the game. If you don't get results now, you are dead. The hub and spoke to the business model is not a bad model long rays of autonomy to offer customers and are not bound by the bureaucracy.

Piracy of work is divided into four sections. For the sake of time, I will highlight a point of each section.

1 Commitment team members - a paragraph summarizes the entire book and separates the large enterprises are crappy. Committed team members are four times more productive and more cost-effective than disengaged team members. This statistic if worn on can transform any business.

2 Infrastructure slave - I understand the need for procedures and infrastructure because you can not evolve without it. That said, I know that large companies with ridiculous rules and procedures that handcuffing employees kill creative mind in the end. Piracy of work is to work around these ridiculous rules and procedures. A simple example would be a computer file transfer access to another blocking. People today can have access to everything outside their work from their phone. Stupid policy in place to limit the freedom of creation for the illusion of safety is bad policy.

3 Three Types of Hackers-Black Hacks are those that steal, to cheat and create chaos. The people who have given a bad name of piracy. This book advocates not black hacks. Grey and white hacks Hacks are what are needed to do the job more effectively. These types of hacks are simply circumvent that save a tremendous amount of time and allow workers to use their freedom of creation for the loyalty of customers and profits.

4 Clarity - this is a big problem. Look at the stats: one, three of the top five losses of time all relate to communication. Two, the information in companies double all the days. Three, once every three minutes, the average inhabitant cube accept an interruption and shifts its focus, consuming 28% of the day. Creation of clarity and simple communication and information sharing networks can remedy this.

Piracy is that every business leader should read a good book. Personally, I think that if we could eliminate lost time on stupid procedures, we could create an additional economy the size of Texas.

I hope that you have found this useful summary. The key to any new idea is to work into your daily routine, until it becomes habit. Form of habits within 21 days. One thing, that you can draw from this book is "what is going to go major works". Ask this question or yourself and your team will begin to shine light on procedural crap that obstructs the creativity of all employees of the company.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/to receive summaries of the free video book. Our vision to progress to success is to provide content relevant to our community of users & significant. To see the video abstract of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

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Book Summary - That Used to Be Us - By Thomas L Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Thomas Friedman is a NY Times bestselling author. He wrote The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded which are excellent books. This book is a must read for anybody who cares about our country. It outlines the problems and discusses the methods for getting us back on track as a world leading innovative nation.

Why is this important to me? I ask this question as if I am sitting in your shoes. This book in my humble opinion is a must read. The lackadaisical nature of the masses along with the political gridlock is paralyzing the nation and that affects all of us. It makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth - that used to be us. President Obama - 11/3/2010 Thomas and Michael outline the significant problems and some of the positive energy that still existing in the U.S. For the sake of time, I will summarize each of the 5 parts. The big four challenges we face in the U.S. are: how to adapt to Globalization, how to adjust to the IT revolution, how to cope with huge budget deficits because of growing government and how to manage in a world of rising energy demands and climate change.

1. The Diagnosis - If you see something, say something. Humans have a unique way of adapting to the environment. Unfortunately, we adapt to bad things and start to accept them as normal. The authors profile a story where it has taken over 6 months to fix two escalators with 21 steps on each in the New York Subway station. The politics, red tape and bureaucracy have basically killed the project. Yet in China, they can build a world class convention center in 32 weeks. The scary part of all of this is that - "People have gotten used to it." Pretty soon we get numb to really stupid things and start accepting the red tape provided by people who get paid regardless. This is a very scary habit to fall into because the gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is widening and we are falling farther behind. The infrastructure of the country is falling apart. A personal example - our building is located in Southfield Michigan and we pay $50K a year in property taxes. The street in front of our building will destroy the front end of your car if you go faster than 20 miles per hour because the road is so screwed up.

2. The Education Challenge - This is no secret. We are funding education with investment dollars and it is not effective. We can fist fight all day on who is responsible but the point is that the family has to take a proactive approach to education or kids will die on the vine. The key learning requirements are critical thinking, collaboration and effective oral and written communication. There is another major problem in that kids need to be accountable and work ethic has to be established at a young age. The Chinese and Indians out work us in aggregate. They are pushed by their parents to succeed. Success in the U.S. has basically made the country lazy. This is similar to a championship boxer who is no longer hungry and does not work hard to stay champion. The authors point out a quote from a business man saying he is in the business of killing jobs. He is absolutely correct. Basically we have to innovate and automate routine tasks. This means that software and intellectual property will take the place of mundane work. This is continuing to happen and why critical thinking, problem solving and sharp skills are required from our education system. According to Wikipedia, the U.S. rank 17th in the world for education yet the budget is over $900 Billion annually. The execution and oversight to this spending is broken.

3. The War on Math and Science - Arithmetic is not an opinion - Italian Proverb. The war on Math is simple - nobody in Government can add. We are borrowing money from China to go to war with Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Our deficient spending is just that and the investment is non-existent. In the 1960's president Kennedy created a goal to be on the Moon in 10 years. What is the goal today? To provide for people and make sure they don't have to work but still get their checks? Also, how could we let our banks leverage our future with derivatives and nobody in management have an idea of what happened? Worse than that, these executive got paid hundreds of millions of dollars collectively while accepting bailouts. This is War on Math and common sense. Like we stated earlier, Americans have gotten Used to it. The war on physics has to do with climate change and energy. The growth of energy demand and our lack of real investment in alternatives need to change. Lobbyists and special interest groups prevent this.

4. Political Failure - I am not going to blame Democrats or Republicans. I will blame both for the grid lock and selfish nature of polls, money and re-election. Our government in the last three years has gone into special session to make sure that the "Economy" does not self-destruct. Think about this for a minute. President Obama had to raise the debt ceiling otherwise the effects on the economy would have been Catastrophic. Those are his words. Is anybody listening? I guess we are just "used to it."

5. Rediscovering America - The good news is that for every problem yields great opportunity to solve it. Embracing the problems and hitting them head on is the cornerstone of our history. The small business man who transforms the world from his garage - that all happens here. This needs to be nurtured and the problems need to be fixed from the bottom up. Waiting for big brother to fix our issues is the kiss of death. Don't let Dumb and Dumber dictate your future. This is how our political system is working and we are going to get run over by other nations if we don't take responsibility for ourselves. I will stop preaching. This is a good book and will open your eyes to the problems. Remember that news today is not news but opinion. Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh are paid for ratings. I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is the U.S needs leaders. This is still the greatest country in the world because we are free. This means we need to become leaders and lead from the bottom up. We need to take responsibility for continuous learning and innovation.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/ to receive free video book summaries. Our vision at Success Progress is to provide relevant & meaningful content to our user community. To view the video summary of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

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Book Summary: Better - A Surgeon's Notes on Performance - Written by Atul Gawande

Dr. Gawande is an excellent author. Anytime I can learn from a Harvard graduate then I will spend the time on it. "Better" talks about certain simplistic conclusions from complex problems. Being a positive deviant is how Dr. Gawande characterizes being successful and making progress in medicine or any endeavor.

Why is this important to me? Inevitably you will come across complex issues in your life. Taking a diligent approach to solving these issues will usually result in simple solutions. Better talks about how to do that. What does it take to be good at something in which failure is so easy, so effortless? Dr. Gawande tells a story of one of his patients that was admitted under his care when he was in medical school. The patient was stable and needed to be put under observation. She complained of insomnia and sweats the night before. The senior resident told him to keep a close eye on her and he agreed to see her mid-day. That one simple assumption almost cost the patient her life. The senior resident checked on her first and she had a fever and needed to be put into the ICU. She lived and was sent home fine a few days later. The point of this story is that a simple assumption to check on the patient in a couple hours could have cost her - her life. One simple thing to do separates life and death.

Better is broken down in three main parts which I will touch on briefly and then we will talk about Dr. Gawande's recommendations for becoming a positive deviant.

1. Diligence - Each year 2 million Americans acquire an infection in the hospital and 90,000 die from that infection. Infections are complex as you can get. Where did they come from? How did it happen? When did it start? What type is it? All of these questions are valid and are part of the complex puzzle. After much study, the proper solution is WASHING YOUR hands. Now there is a strict procedure that doctors should follow, key word here is "should" and most don't.

There are little improvements that make HUGE differences that are profiled in the book. Here is a simple example. The nurses in the operating room would routinely run out of supplies and have to go get more. Thus they leave the room and come back in. Simple solution, make sure the supplies are fully stocked so you do not have to leave. This simple solution of just-in-time supply system eliminated infections by 90% in hospital surgical rooms that employed it.

2. Measure - Another part of diligence is measurement. In the Vietnam War, when a soldier was wounded, their average time from field to the U.S was 45 days. Today it is 4 days. Gunshot mortality dropped from 16% in Vietnam to less than 5% today. The reason is not technology. It is in the process. Today there is FSU's (Forward Surgical Units). They follow the troop battalions. Now when a soldier is hurt they perform mini-incomplete surgeries to make sure they live and then the rest of the surgery is completed after. This seems counter intuitive but it works.

The key to understanding why Forward Surgical Units work is to measure things. It became known that the time from wound to care is in direct correlation to life and death. Minimize the time - Maximize Life. Knowing this allows them to minimize the time in several areas.

3. Simplistic Relentlessness - Ingenuity is bread from measurement and diligence. Once your eyes are opened then the solution appears. This is slight edge daily behavior that creates huge results. Using simplistic relentlessness on identified problems creates explosive returns. This is the 80/20 rule on steroids. Most people would not look at the little things but a simple check list can save lives.

A great quote from the book is: "What the best may have, above all, is a capacity to learn and change-and to do so faster than everyone else." To that end I want to talk about the five recommendations to becoming a positive deviant. This is the term for using your ingenuity to solve complex problems.

1. Ask unscripted questions 2. Don't complain 3. Count Something 4. Write something 5. Change - These 5 things are designed to leverage the "collective know how!"

I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days.

One thing you can take away from this book is count something. If you don't measure it then you can't manage it. This is a big deal. Spend time and measure things that are important especially if you need to solve a complex problem.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/ to receive free video book summaries. Our vision at Success Progress is to provide relevant & meaningful content to our user community. To view the video summary of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

(c) Copyright - Joe Mosed / Success Progress All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Book Summary: Boomerang - The Meltdown Tour - Written by Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis is a very popular author with writings including - The Big Short, Liars Poker and the Blind Side. Boomerang is a review of the sovereign debt crisis. This is a global problem that 90% of Americans are clueless about. This problem and the U.S. debt have the ability to be as fatal to our society as a third world war. Our government is trying to kick the can farther down the road so they don't have to deal with it. Boomerang will open your eyes to the issue from a few of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) perspective.

Why is this important to me? In this summary, I don't have to ask this question because the sovereign debt crisis affects everyone and it is everybody's problem. Unfortunately, herd mentality invites the slaughter. I recommend you get educated on this and start protecting yourself.

1. Doom / Gloom - I am not a doom and gloom world ending person but logic dictates that the debts accrued by the US and the European Union cannot be sustained. The question is - what happens when the defaults start. You really need to get educated and start protecting yourself

2. Savers are losers - Robert Kiyosaki from Rich Dad Poor Dad always states that savers are losers. He does not mean this as a derogatory statement. What he is referring to is that $1 dollar today is the equivalent to 4 cents in 1913. This means that the dollar has lost 96% of its value. So if you keep your savings in dollars then you are losing money due to inflation. In 2008, 100 year old institutions were sold in a weekend (Merrill Lynch). Money and currency are two different things and it makes sense to protect yourself so that you do not have counter party risk. What this means is that if your money is in the bank and there is a bank run then you have counter party risk. If you own real money like Gold or Silver then there is no counter party risk.

Michael Lewis travels the world and investigates the sovereign debt crisis by talking and seeing the effects first hand. The book is a good story; I only wish it was fiction.

Kyle Bass is the investor who shorted the big banks and predicted Fannie Mae would go bankrupt. He made millions of dollars by shorting the mortgage industry. When asked what the average person should do to protect themselves from the potential financial carnage, he says buy Guns and Gold. This is a scary prophecy from a guy who got it right once.

Look around and listen to the politicians. President Obama in August raised the debt ceiling right in the last hour to AVOID CATESTROPHIC consequences to our economy. Those words are powerful but I guess the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is more important. The U.S. masses are sleeping while this is going on. Remember that the first thing Hitler did with his population is take away the guns before WWII. The bankers and Wall Street are taking away the value of our currency and nothing is being done to fix it. There have been countless domino effects happening right in front of us and the only politician who remotely understands it is Ron Paul. Unfortunately he will not be elected, but if he was, he would fix it.

The fixes involved will be painful. Greece for example WILL DEFAULT because you cannot change a whole culture of people overnight. The GREEKS do not pay taxes. They are required too but it is culturally acceptable to not pay your taxes and there are no consequences if you don't. In America, we were paying an average sales person $32 million per year to trade garbage securities. Most of these traders would starve if they sold technology solutions yet they made millions of dollars while leveraging our future and country. The mortgage bubble and derivatives can be blamed on less than 100 people. A select few created these leveraged instruments and we are still caught in the middle of bailout talks.

Question - if you are drowning, does it make sense to throw more water on you? If not, then why is the only solution to our debt problem, more debt? This picture sums it up. What the U.S. proposes is to increase spending and hope the economy grows. The current solution looks like this - you make $43,000 per year and have $78,000 in credit card debt thus the logical answer is to open another credit card to pay for the credit card debt. We are borrowing money from China so we can fight in Afghanistan and Libya. - Unbelievable!!!

I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is to get educated. A lot of people are going to be hurt by this debt problem and I hope you are not one of them.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/ to receive free video book summaries. Our vision at Success Progress is to provide relevant & meaningful content to our user community. To view the video summary of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

(c) Copyright - Joe Mosed / Success Progress All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Book Summary: Difficult Conversations - How to Discuss What Matters Most - By Douglas Stone

I decided to profile this book because it is packed with relevant information on handling Difficult Conversations. Difficult Conversations happen in all areas of life - think about your relationships and work. This book is very relevant if you are responsible for other people. I recommend highly you read it if you are a leader and/or a manager of any group. What makes these conversations so hard to face is the fear of the consequences - whether we raise the issue or try to avoid it. These conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values. They are not about what is true; they are about what is important.

Why is this important to me?

Whether you are dealing with an underperforming employee, negotiating with a client or disagreeing with your spouse, we attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day.

The book is relevant in understanding why we avoid these conversations and give us insight into how to handle them correctly. Especially for the organizational leaders listening to this summary, the following is true: The ability to handle difficult conversations well is a prerequisite to organizational change and adaptation. Companies that nurture these communications skills as core competence for leaders will leave their competition in the dust.

Each difficult Conversation is actually three conversations:

1) The "What Happened?" Conversation - Most difficult conversations are about disagreements to what happened, who's right, who said what, who did what and who is to blame. We often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I am right, you are wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief.

2) The Feelings Conversation - Every difficult conversation involves feelings. Are my feelings valid, Should I acknowledge or deny them, put them on the table or check them at the door? What about the other person's feelings. What if they are angry or hurt?

3) The Identity Conversation - This is the internal conversation we have to ourselves about what this situation means to us. Are we competent or incompetent? Are we a good person or bad person? Are we lovable or unlovable?

The three conversations are important but for the sake of time we will dive in deeper on the "What happened?" conversation.

1. Stop arguing about who is right and explore each other's stories - As we do this, it is important to understand why we have different stories in the first place. 1. We have different information 2. We have different interpretations 3. Our conclusions reflect self-interest. If we move from certainty to curiosity then we will garner true understanding and move to a learning conversation which we will cover in the next section.

2. Don't assume they meant it - disentangle intent from impact. Intentions strongly influence our judgments of others: If someone intended to hurt us, we judge them more harshly than if they hurt us by mistake. Ask yourself three questions to clarify: 1. Actions: What did the other person actually say or do? 2. Impact: What was the impact of this on me? 3.) Assumption: Based on the impact, what assumption am I making about what the other person intended? Hold your assumptions as a hypothesis and share the impact on you and inquire about their intentions.

3. Abandon Blame: Map the contribution system - Focusing on blame is a bad idea because it inhibits our ability to learn what's really causing the problem and to do anything meaningful to correct it. Blame is about judging and contribution is about understanding. Understanding is the key to problem solving and resolving difficult conversations to a satisfactory outcome.

There are 6 areas of the learning conversation that are relevant but we will focus on the top three.

1. What's the purpose? When to Raise it and When to let go. Do we bring up the issue or let it go? This is an art form in itself. You need to know when to pick your battles. There is an old saying - It is not worth it to win the battle if you are going to lose the war. Before you raise the issue, work through the three conversations and put yourself in the other person's shoes. Also, is there another way to solve the problem without the conversation? Remember that action speaks louder than words so your actions could solve the problem without the conflict.

2. Begin from the Third story - Think like a mediator that has no emotional ties. Thinking objectively from the outside gives you a true picture of what is going on. If you think from the standpoint of having no stake in the outcome then you can be very objective in your thinking.

3. Learning - Listen from the inside out - This is really the most important aspect of the whole book in my humble opinion. Your ability to actively listen makes it much easier to have great relationships and solve problems. Active listening requires what I call "whole body listening". You need to be present and focused on the other person. This gives you the true ability to understand their point of view fully. Remember understanding does not necessarily mean agreeing with the other person. The learning that will happen through active listening will lead to positive outcomes most of the time.

I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing to work on is active listening. Make this a habit and you will be pleasantly surprised how it will improve your relationships. To do this, simply listen with your whole body. Example: If you are chatting with somebody, then stop typing on the computer or texting or fiddling with something else. Give them your undivided attention. Good luck and let me know how this works out for you.

Joe Mosed invites you to subscribe to http://www.successprogress.com/ to receive free video book summaries. Our vision at Success Progress is to provide relevant & meaningful content to our user community. To view the video summary of this article please visit http://www.youtube.com/successprogress

(c) Copyright - Joe Mosed / Success Progress All Rights Reserved Worldwide.