Stormy's Corner

Book review: The Middle-Class Millionaire

I like studies that try to explain how societies work. I also like books that explain how we think about money and how our beliefs affect what we do with it. So I enjoyed reading the The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. It was an entertaining book to be taken with a grain of salt.

The authors compared a group of people with a net worth between $1 million and $10 million to a group of people that made between $50,000 and $80,000 a year with a net worth of under $1 million. They concluded that both groups considered themselves middle class. (Interestingly enough, the poorer group was more likely to consider themselves upper middle class than the richer group.) The two groups did vary on a couple of key points.

1. The millionaires were much more likely to work for themselves and to place a very high value on career and self-development. They were more likely to hire personal coaches and to own their own businesses.
2. They also work many more hours - 70 hours/week on average compared to 40 hours/week in the control group.
3. They were more likely to try again in the face of failure. While most of the "regular" middle class would try something different if their first venture ended in bankruptcy, the millionaire group said that they'd try again or you wouldn't benefit from what you learned.
4. While they both valued education highly, the millionaire group was much more likely to take their kids' failure in school as their own failure and much more likely to pick a house based on schools. The control group was more likely to pick a house near work than a house near good schools. (The millionaire group was also very likely to tear down an old house in a neighborhood they liked to build the house they wanted where they wanted it. The book theorized you can tell the best schools by looking at neighborhoods with the most tear downs!)
5. They are much more likely to refer specialists (doctors, accountants, lawyers, etc) to friends and much more likely to pick one based on referrals.

Both groups valued education, family, and high ethical standards.

However the point of the book wasn't to point out how different the groups were (although they did a lot of that) but rather to point out how the millionaire group often leads the way when it comes to lifestyle, shopping and habits. (And this group of people, according to the book's study, spend a lot of money!) Middle-class millionaires are the first to buy Tesla cars (cool electric cars) and eventually cheaper models will be developed. They are the first to have home generators, solar power, coaches, health care advocates, etc. The book recommended developing and marketing new products to this group.

The authors obviously considered themselves part of the regular middle class and aspire to be middle-class millionaires. The last chapter covers how to become a middle class millionaire. In short, work lots, start your own business, try and try again, network lots. And did I say work lots? Oh, and pick a profitable field.

Book Review: Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It

Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It is a great book.

I've always thought that traditional work would eventually transition to contract work where people get paid to produce certain results. The problem with that is not all work fits contract work. Cali and Jody have envisioned (and implemented!) a workplace with traditional employment instead of contract work where people are measured by results, not time. I think that's pretty amazing. They call it ROWE, Results-Only Work Environment and they've implemented it at Best Buy.

The problem with most work environments today is that they reward the amount of time we work, not the amount of work we get done. The authors suggest a couple of strategies:

• Stop making negative comments about time, "Sludge". So don't joke about how late someone got in, don't apologize for getting stuck in traffic, don't note what time email was sent. "Stop using the words early and late and antiquated terms like by the end of business today. Stop talking about how many hours you work or how hard you're working."
• Make sure you are results-orientated. Every employee should know what their goals are and be measured on their results, not hours worked or time in the office.

By doing this, you treat employees like adults, they'll be happier and they'll do more real work as opposed to more made up work to look like they are working. (Like arriving at 7:30am and reading the paper online for the first hour.)

While the authors had a lot of good advice and how to, I wish they'd spent less time talking about how great peoples' personal lives are in a ROWE environment (I buy it but I think their examples just made ROWE seem like a boondoggle.) and more time on how much more work gets done. Because in order to get companies to buy in to ROWE, they need to understand that much more work will get done. Or at least the same amount of work will get done and employees will save hours and hours of "being in the office" or attending unnecessary meetings.

I also think that open source embodies the results-only model. In open source people only see what is done. They don't care how many hours you spent sitting in front of your computer. They don't care how many meetings you attended or how many conferences you went to. You are measured by what you get done. (I also think they are pretty good at recognizing non-code type work, but that's for another blog post.)

FYI, I liked the book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke--the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific much better than I liked the authors' blog.

Books, kids and sex

It's wrong for books targeted at kids to be full of underage kids drinking to get drunk, sex between people that don't care for each other and kids using drugs. I don't have a problem with kids reading books that contain those things, but I think books targeted at kids have to take into account how influential they are and they have a social responsibility to use that influence for good.

I've been actively looking for book suggestions for a 12 year old that really liked Stephenie Meyer's books, so this weekend I was thinking about kids as I read Vampire Academy. While I enjoyed the book, I would not recommend the book to a 12 year old. And I was pretty upset that the book is targeted at kids. It's a book about teenagers and the reading level is marked "Young Adult". And it has drunken underage parties and sex for favors.

Now the vampire and werewolf genre is full of romance and sex, and although I don't always like that, it doesn't bother me because I can just choose not to read the ones I don't like - like Laurell Hamilton's books, good stories, too much random sex that doesn't further the plot. And I chose to leave them off of my list of recommendations for a 12 year old. And that's all ok.

But to find a book so clearly targeted at kids that contained so much inappropriate sex and alcohol use ... I felt like that was irresponsible on the part of the author. (Although I'd feel differently about that if you told me the author is a teenager.) Now I realize that "inappropriate" is highly subjective. I'm not a fan of the way we teach abstinence in schools and others think that is the only right thing. But sex for favors is pretty universally frowned on. And drinking to get drunk, while obviously not a social taboo (at least in the US), is probably not something most parents in today's society would encourage their kids to do.

I'm sure the book with its drink to get drunk parties and sex for favor scenes reflects a reality. But is it a reality the author really wants to encourage to kids? I could understand portraying the reality in a book targeted at parents, so they would know what's going on. And I understand that if the author doesn't portray real teenagers, she'll lose her audience - teenagers. However, I think she could have left out the drinking-to-get-drunk and having-sex-so-guys-will-do-you-a-favor scenes without losing her credibility, audience or story.

Perhaps Richelle Mead feels like she is doing the right thing by showing that the good character waits to have sex but I think she's more likely spreading the word that drinking to get drunk is a fun and cool thing to do.

(And in case you are wondering, I recommended Patricia Briggs, Anne McCaffrey, Susan Cooper, Orson Scott Card, Robert Jordan and Diane Duane.)

Putting Crucial Conversations to work

Since I recommended Crucial Conversations but didn't really talk much about what it taught, I thought I'd share how I'm trying to apply it in my life.

The authors of Crucial Conversations recommend practicing your new skills with your kids because they are always lots of opportunities. They were right!

Last night I practiced my new skills on my 8 year old and to my surprise it actually worked. (Some day he's going to read this blog and realize what I've put him through!)

I find it really frustrating that you can ask a kid how his day at school was and in spite of the fact that he just spent seven hours there, he'll say "good" and when you ask "what did you do?", you get "I don't remember."

So we usually play 20 questions. (Did you do math? How did that go? Did you read? What did you read? Did you go to art? What did you make? ...)

Yesterday on the way home from school (which is a 30 minute drive) I asked how his day went.  And predictably, it turned into 20 questions.

When he started yelling "GOOD!" back at me, I realized I'd hit a "Crucial Conversation". One of the three signs of a crucial conversation is when emotions get involved. So I started applying my new learnings.

1. What did I want from this conversation? I was trying to "hang out" with my eight year old. Find out about his day. Talk to him. Build our relationship. What I was not trying to do was get him trouble. This is key because usually when he acts like this, he's hiding something bad that happened and I usually drill him until I figure out what it is. But that's never my original intent, it just comes out. This time I decided I didn't really care unless he wanted to talk about it. Learning why he got in trouble was derailing me from my intent of building up my relationship with him.
2. Make it safe. When people's emotions run high they often don't feel safe. (And the signs are that they turn to "violence", perhaps yelling like my 8 year old, or they "withdraw".) So I told him that it looked like he was getting upset and asked him why. That didn't work - he got more upset. "NOTHING! MY DAY WAS GOOD!" So I backed up and told him I was just trying to talk to him, not get him trouble. (With a lot more words.)
3. Establish common goals. I told him I was just trying to "hang out" with him and talk to him. And I told him that if something I'd done upset him, I wanted to know what so that I didn't do it next time. Because I wanted to talk to him. (I don't think he was upset about something I did in this conversation but rather something I'd done in lots of previous conversations! Also, there was probably a good chance that he was upset because he'd done something wrong, but discovering that wasn't our goal in the conversation.)

And what do you know? It worked!

I got to hear all about his day. The friends he played with, the marbles that sounded like a machine gun, the general assembly where they learned that their school is going green, ...

Photo by T.SC.

The good, the bad and the ugly of busines books

Or perhaps this should be called the great, the good and the ugly.

The Great

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High is a great book. If you have ever had an argument that you've regretted, you'll appreciate what this book is trying to teach you.

The authors explain that when we get in an argument, adrenaline takes over and we don't end up arguing in our own best interests. We forget what we want or how to get it and we focus on winning.

They give lots of examples and tools to try to teach you how to "dialogue" better. Unfortunately, it sounds really hard, almost impossible. (Which the authors recognize and they give you a pep talk and some tips at the end.) I'm going to try to use a couple of their techniques and I'm keeping the book. However, don't expect any miracles here. (Although if I learn just one or two of their techniques I think it will be good for both my career and my personal life.)

The Good

Penelope Trunk is a good writer which makes Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success an easy read. The book was funny, entertaining and usually pretty accurate. Supposedly it's full of controversial career advice for Generation X and Yers but I thought most of it (but not all) was good advice. I'd recommend this book as a graduation present for a new college graduate. Penelope gives lots of practical insights like "What you like learning about is probably what you like to do" as well as advice on interview questions, when to use IM or email and what to do in the case of sexual harassment. If you've been in the work force a while, you might not find it super useful but it's an easy read and you might find a few nuggets.

The Ugly

In the case of The Science of Getting Rich, you'd be better off not listening to the writer's words but rather doing what he did. In this case he wrote 105 pages with 2 inch margins, and a catchy title. And in case you're short on words, he has lots of examples of fillers like "And further", "It is evident", and "The question arises here". And blank pages between each chapter. Then you sell your book on $7.99 on Amazon. For a weekend's worth of work, you might make a few dollars.

Note that other people feel differently. My used copy was heavily underlined and highlighted (until page 50) and the book is rated an average of 4 stars on Amazon by 105 people. What I should have paid attention to was the rating distribution. 15% of people, 16 people, rated it a 1 star.

I thought it was terrible and gave it 1 star as well.

So that's the great, the good and the ugly:

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High (great)
• Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success (good)
• The Science of Getting Rich (ugly)

Amazon adds e-books: reading your physical books online

If you buy a physical book on Amazon.com, you now have the option to pay (extra) for an electronic version to read on your computer. It's called Amazon Upgrade.

As far as I know they haven't done much advertising or publicity. I ran across the new read online option when looking at the Amazon page for a book I'd already bought:
 

It was only available for two books I had bought (and I've bought a lot of books.) One was priced at $1.89 and the other was $2.19. (This is in addition to what I originally paid for the books.)

I bought one just to see what it was like. You get to read the book in Amazon's Online Reader, which looks like the same software used for  their "search inside this book" option. There didn't seem to be any way to transfer it to my Kindle or to download it in any format. You could print a page at a time.

It looks like they scanned the actual book, as some of the pages are a bit crooked.

Having all the books I've read available to me online at any time is very intriguing. (That's why I found BKRPR, a program to help you make electronic copies of all your books intriguing, but I wasn't interested in investing all that time.)

And once again, I think it's a brilliant business move from Amazon for two reasons.

1. I'm much more likely to buy textbooks, nonfiction books and anything I think I might need as a reference from Amazon now, since I'll be able to easily look things up in the future - even if I no longer have the book. (And the ability to search is awesome, especially when it comes to things like textbooks!)
2. If I decide to reread a book, it's cheaper to pay $2 for an electronic copy from Amazon than it is to use one of my credits on Paperbackswap. (I paid postage on a book for that credit.)

Now if only they'd let me download these books to my Kindle, allow me to view my Kindle books online, and make copies in different formats ...

What do you think? Are you more likely to buy a book from Amazon knowing you can read it online? Do you think you'll buy online versions for any of the books you've bought from Amazon?

What do you remember reading first?

Books have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I remember my mom reading Charlotte's Web to us. I remember discovering the Littles in the library in second grade. (After that, I checked out every new house we moved into to see if the electric plates would move.)

But my earliest detailed memories of picking and choosing books is of the local Cedar Falls library when I was 10 and 11. If they haven't reorganized, I could still take you back to all my favorite books on the shelves. After working my way through the Bobbsey twins, boxcar children, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series (and after confessing I liked the Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew - they got into real scrapes while she never forgot her purse - I was told the same woman wrote them both), I then discovered Ruth Chew (I read one of these to Jacob recently), (someone who's name escapes me now), Diane Duane's So You Want to be a Wizard? Plus all the hard cover red American autobiography books and the Guide to the Moon and Guide to the Sea. (They were written like tourist guides - they covered what you should pack to visit the moon or to visit this undersea colony. I can't find them now. I did find this Tourist Guide to the Moon by Asimov in the New York Times.)

After Dad successfully lobbied for me to have an adult library card, I read all the James Harriet books and even found and checked out a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin but I never read it. (I just noticed I could now get it for my Kindle if I still want to read it.)

At the neighboring town's library (which was just huge!), I found a whole section of books in braille. I puzzled my way through a couple of sentences and loved paging through them, but never read one cover to cover. (I was a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. Dad's always been great at helping explore any interest that I have, so we went and saw every place she lived, including the school for the blind and deaf where her sister Mary ended up. For a long time I was going to be a teacher for the blind and deaf - bet you didn't know that about me.)

Which books do you remember discovering?

What are you reading? (A book meme)

I'm reading about how more and more people are living western lifestyles so unless we figure out how to use renewable energy sources that don't cause global warming, we're in big trouble. (The first part of the book also talks about how America is indirectly funding terrorism at the same time they are fighting it.) From Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman, the fifth sentence on page 56:

Tom Burke, co-founder of the group E3C - Third Generation Environmentalism, a non-profit green consultancy - likes to put it this way: think of America as a unit of energy.

Right now the world only uses a couple of units of energy (used by the US, Europe and a few others) but very quickly we will be using much much more and we are not prepared to do so in a sustainable way.

Your turn:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

(The nearest "book" was my Kindle which doesn't have page numbers, so I selected the book that was open on it, searched Amazon.com for the book and searched inside the book to find page 56.)

Book review: Personal Development for Smart People

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book because I agreed to write a review.]

I first ran across Steve Pavlina when I was researching how people make money blogging. He had a very informative article of how he made money blogging and in addition I found a lot of other interesting posts. While I don't agree with all his posts, I find much of his writing thought provoking. When I was learning about the law of attraction, Steve Pavlina had the only definition that I considered somewhat reasonable from an intellectual standpoint. (Others seemed to describe it as "wish for it and it will happen". Steve Pavlina's definition was closer to the one I decided on, "believe it's possible and you'll work hard and get it.") Recently I really enjoyed his 30 day raw food trial. (Not something I plan to try but I like how he tried and documented a diet for 30 days.)

Personal Development for Smart People is similar to Steve Pavlina's blog but most of the writing is new. The first half of the book discusses the core principles or values he thinks everyone should work on. They are slightly different than the traditional set you'd find in a personal development book with intelligence in the middle. Here are some of the ideas I captured to think more about later:

• What do your goals mean to you now? You live in the present (something I often forget) so all of your goals should be doing some thing positive for you now. You should enjoy working on them or enjoy the sense of accomplishment or the dream.
• Triage your projects not into important and urgent but into three categories: they'll fail no matter what you do, they'll succeed no matter what you do and they'll succeed only if you do something. (You can guess which ones you are supposed to work on.)
• He did an experiment with polyphasic sleep. Not for me, but once again it made me think about the value of 30 day trials.
• If you want something, ask for it. Nicely, politely, be ok with being turned down. If you are ok with being turned down, you'll be able to ask for anything.
• Habits are good and bad. I always seem to be working on getting rid of the bad habits and forgetting I have good ones.
• Beat bad habits like chess. In the early game, position yourself for success, in the middle game deploy your tactics and in the end game, go for your target.
• One of his blog posts that I really like was moochers versus contributors and he brought that concept up in his book. Some people make make money by creating things (creating things of value to society) and others make money by mooching (i.e. taking advantage of market changes). I don't think mooching is always as bad as it sounds but I think being conscious of whether you are mooching or contributing is important.
• Read books written by others whose perspective is different than yours, i.e. athletes, Buddhists, investors, etc. People with different perspectives than you.
• Instead of thinking about accumulating wealth, think of it more like cash flow. (He didn't say it like that but that's what I got out of it.)

My review really doesn't capture the tone of his book which I think really shows that I don't think about the world the same way he does. He talks a lot about love for others, trying different lenses on, oneness, etc.

If you are into personal development books, I recommend Personal Development for Smart People. If you aren't in the personal development mode or you are just looking to learn more about a topic, I wouldn't put this one at the top of your list just yet.

Book Review: The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens

I don't usually blog about books I don't like but I thought I could save people some time - don't bother with The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens. I was in the library looking at finance books (like the rest of the world) and I ran across it. As I had a two year old with me (hanging out in the library is an excellent thing to do with a two year old on a cold rainy Sunday) I couldn't really peruse it well, but it had 3.5 stars on Amazon. I figured that meant the writing style was hard to read but the content might still be ok.

I spent half an hour on the book this evening and it was terrible. The main point I got? "Taxes are way too high, start a bank in the Bahamas, sell yourself insurance and get deposits from your friends." Granted I didn't really read it but I read the first few pages and skimmed the rest and what I read was ... biased, wrong, and lacking any background explanation. You've been warned.

Now if anybody knows of a good book that explains international banking and finance ... I'm still looking.