Surely you are joking Mr Feynmann - Review

Mr Feynmann is a nobel-prize winning physicist. He has written a book about his experiences in life called Surely you are joking Mr.Feynmann. Even though there is one single narrative through all those stories, the book is a absolute page turner. He talks about his childhood experiences, his student experiences, his experiences as a teacher. Each story is witty and you just want to completely read it. 


He is an absolutely versatile person and apart from being a full time physicist, he was a samba player, tumba drums player, lock picker, language learner and an accomplished painter. His life in an example of what you can achieve if you play with whatever you are passionate about. 


The book also contains learning moments about how to understand science, how to stand for your word and how to be passionate and witty. 


I am very very impressed with the stories that I completed them in one straight reading. It is a really amazing book which will surely increase your interest in science. If you are not interested, you will surely be left laughing. You will not be disappointed with this book at all. Happy reading.

Book Summary - The Switch - Part 4

This is the fourth in the book summary series of Switch. For more read part 1, part 2, part 3

We have seen two important methods of creating change - direct the rider and motivate the elephant. The next part of the puzzle is Shape the Path or changing the environment so that it is easy for us to create change.
First we can Tweak the environment to make change easier. There might be simple ways by tweaking the environment, we can create the change. The authors give an example where a manager who was termed as unapproachable change that impression by just making the chairs behind her so that when they came, they can face each other and not face the computer. That way, she will be responsive to the people. I have used it successfully by installing the 'StayFocused' extension so that I will not be distracted easily by wanting to look at twitter or news sites during work hours. Actually this can create a change very easily sometimes. If we want to eat healthy, just throw all the junk food outside. If you want to wake up at  6, try putting the alarm far from you, so that you have to wake up and walk to switch it off.
Next thing is to Build Habits,  encouraging the change. We can create some action triggers, like when I come here, first I will do this. Like when I wake up first thing, I will open my planner and plan the day or go and hit the gym. This will also help very much in creating change. Or just creating some checklists will also go a long way in helping create change.
Next is to Rally The Herd. Actually the authors write about a research finding where we are unconsciously influenced by our peers. When we are alone, we generally do what we feel is right, but when we are with others we tend to first see what the group is doing. This way we become the data for others whom we take as data. So we have to make sure we should make our behavior the acceptable behavior. So we have to highlight the data which is useful for us. Also if we don't have it, we have to apply social pressure so that they do what change we want to create. The authors give good examples of speeding up peer reviews by putting the review times up for everyone to see.

Related articles

• Book review: "Switch" by Chip and Dan Heath (venturebeat.com)
• Switch by Chip and Dan Heath (bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com)

Book Summary - Switch - Part 3

In the part 2 of this book we have seen that the rider should be directed by looking at the bright spots, reducing ambiguity by scripting the critical moves and pointing to the destination.
 But before even the rider can be directed, the elephant has to be motivated to move. So how to motivate the elephant?Elephant is a feeler, so you have to

Find the feeling : Let the people who have to change experience the consequences of not changing or the advantages of successfully doing the change. This brings in emotion to change. This may give a initial motivating boost which you get while reading a personal development book which quickly wanes, so what should be done is we should
Shrink the change: We have so make the big thing into small chunks so that the elephant will get a feeling of do-ability so that they don't get discouraged and altogether stop working. This can be done by identifying what exactly are your small victories so that you can celebrate it and get the high of getting it done, which in a virtuous cycle will bring in more celebrations.
Another helpful thing which can be done is to
Grow your people: The authors say that we make decisions in two ways - one is analytically, which appeals to the rider and other way is by identity which appeals to the elephant. When we cannot approach the problem analytically, we can do it by growing the identity for that in the people. What would a good citizen do in this situation - etc, by this identity questions, lot of change can be successfully enabled. 
There are two types of mentalities of people. One with fixed mindset and other called growth mindset - Fixed mindset people think that their talents and abilities are fixed and hence they cannot be cultivated. Whereas growth mindset people can think of everything as a learning and grow from it.
IDEO has a graph showing the project mood which has hope - > Insights -> Confidence in the order. When they fail they gather insights from that, so they are positively taking failure which is useful for growth.

In the next part, we will see what can be done to improve the environment, i.e shaping the path. Stay tuned.

Book Review - The War of Art

Type:  Non-Fiction

Category: Self-Help

Author: Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield is the author of bestsellers 'The legend of Bagger Vance'. 

This is his non-fiction book on why we don't do the things we want to do and can't do and how to overcome them. It is a small book and a fast read. He rightly identifies what is that is stopping from doing what we want as resistance. He says the resistance is not due to anyone outside of us but the resistance is within us and it always tries to make sure we dont do what we want to do. This takes up the first part of the book. He  shows us the various manifestations of resistance in our lives so that we can identify when we see it. Then in the second part he gives the solution to this problem. He says that the solution to this is turing pro. He sets out to explain how turning pro can cure us of resistance. It contains various practical tips on how to get going. The third and final part of the book deals with the question of where does the inspiration to do this stuff come from and how to tap into it. He takes examples of Mozart, Homer and many other professional artisans to prove that there is some divine force which is helping us achieve that and how to tap into those. Overall a very good read and a very useful one for getting us to get to action.

Rating : Must read.

Hyderabad - Book Review

This is one of the books I read recently. Here is my review of it on my other blog.

With the issue of Telanganaboiling in Andhra Pradesh, I just chanced upon a book called Hyderabad, a biography of Hyderabad written byNarendra Luther.

It is an account of Hyderabad from its beginnings till now. It starts with the building of Golconda fort till the debacle of the IT chief minister of the state ChandraBabu naidu.

I learnt a lot of interesting things about Hyderabad from that book.

> Md. Quli was the person who built Hyderabad. There was just a small settlement at the banks of river Musi before that. He built it exactly where he saw and married Bhagmati, his lover.

> There were two dynasties who ruled Hyderabad. The Qutb-Shahi and the Asaf-Jahi dynasty.

> Quli's city was one of the best in the world. There were lot of garden's in and around the city. All the Baghs in Hyderabad were all gardens from his time.

> Most of the modern development in Hyderabad happened in the prime ministership of Salar Jung.

> Hyderabad was a very beautiful city even till independence. It was after independence that city expanded rapidly.

You can read some of the poetry written by the Nawabs of the time. It was a breeze to read through the book and its like a whirlwind view of that society. But I was saddened to see the the last Nizam actually didn't do much and was sidelined by the Razakars and how the last Nizam was very stingy that he offered biscuits himself that to one by one and put in them in the locker!!!

Not a must read, but you can pick it up if you want to know about Hyderabad or particularly interested about history of Golconda, Charminar.