Book Highlights - Running, Lean Startup, The Donut King, Letters From Rockefeller, Made In America

05 Aug, 2024

No. 3

This week I was traveling and ALWAYS have the debate with myself about how many books I take with me when I travel. Part of me wants to take ALL the books that i'm reading with the thought that i'll have MORE time to read... But the truth is, I often have less.

I went with a different strategy this time I brought two but only read ONE. "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" By Haruki Murakami. Honestly, because I couldn't put it down. I didn't even get around to The Tao Of Charlie Munger this week.

My travel nightstand "stack" (yes, it' a sleeping mask and it's amazing)

There are so many parallels between what Haruki is describing about running / writing and entrepreneurship that I fell in love with. His writing is so casual and conversational, fluid almost. It was like slicing through warm butter. Smooth and easy.

I'm still out of town as I write this, so in the next newsletter or two I'll put a video together diving deeper into this book, but this week I'll share some of my favorite highlights so far.

Books Of The Week

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running By Haruki Murakami

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

​The Donut King​ by Ted Ngoy

The 38 Letters From JD Rockefeller To His Son By JD Rockefeller

Made In America By Sam Walton --> 🎥 VIDEO: How Sam Walton thinks about money and taught his kids about finances​

1. No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.
2. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you're running and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can't take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself.
3. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day's work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow.
4. Writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible.

1. The decision to pivot requires a clear-eyed and objective mind-set. We've discussed the telltale signs of the need to pivot: the decreasing effectiveness of product experiments and the general feeling that product development should be more productive. Whenever you see those symptoms, consider a pivot.
2. I recommend that every startup have a regular "pivot or persevere" meeting. In my experience, less than a few weeks between meetings is too often and more than a few months is too infrequent.

1. When I graduated, I had to confront an uncomfortable truth: I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Unlike in the United States, where betterment and prosperity are usually the goals and young adults go to college before choosing their careers, Cambodia still operated under an unofficial caste system.

1. People who climb up in any industry are fully committed to what they are doing and are dedicated. Sincerely love the work you do; you will naturally succeed.
2. If you do not take action, even the world most practical, beautiful, and viable philosophy will not work.
3. there is no result without action, and there is nothing in the world that is obtained just from thinking. As long as people are alive, they must consider taking action.
4. There is no result without action, and there is nothing in the world that is obtained just from thinking. As long as people are alive, they must consider taking action.

1. No question about it, a lot of my attitude toward money stems from growing up during a pretty hardscrabble time in our country's history: the Great Depression.
2. My dad, Thomas Gibson Walton, was an awfully hard worker who got up early, put in long hours, and was honest.
3. Once he traded our farm in Kingfisher for another one, near Omega, Oklahoma. Another time, he traded his wristwatch for a hog, so we'd have meat on the table.
4. My dad had that unusual instinct to know how far he could go with someone-did it in a way that he and the guy always parted friends—
5. What little we had at the time, we put into a partnership with our kids, which was later incorporated into Walton Enterprises.
6. Over the years, our Wal-Mart stock has gone into that partnership. Then the board of Walton Enterprises, which is us, the family, makes decisions on a consensus basis. Sometimes we argue, and sometimes we don't. But we control the amount we pay out to each of us, and everybody gets the same. The kids got as much over the years as Helen and I did, except I got a salary, which my son, Jim, now draws as head of Walton Enterprises. That way, we accumulated funds in Enterprises rather than throwing it all over the place to live high
7. One of the real reasons I'm writing this book is so my grandchildren and great-grand-children will read it years from now and know this: If you start any of that foolishness, I'll come back and haunt you. So don't even think about it.

🎥 Link to video on how Sam Walton thinks about money​

​

Until next time...

Readers are leaders,