413 :: Q2 APB: One Recommended Article, Podcast, Book to Power Your Next 90 Days

In episode 413, host Bradley Hartmann shares the best content he’s come across the last 90 days in three different mediums: an article, a podcast episode, and a book. Each is very much worth your time and attention and will help to turbocharge your next 90 days on the job.

 

1. Article: Jerry Seinfeld: The Scholar of Comedy 
Jerry Seinfeld’s thoughts on craft and the pursuit of mastery are instructive. Near the end there is a insightful surprise on negotiation.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-scholar-of-comedy

Key Quote:
Jerry Seinfeld: The only thing in life that's really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They're good. I like them. But having a skill is the most important thing . . . Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life. You will feel good. I know a lot of rich people and they don't feel good as you think they would. They don't. They're miserable. So I work because if you don't in standup comedy—if you don't do it a lot—you stink.

 

2. Podcast: Invest Like The Best: Frank Blake of Home Depot

Frank Blake is an attorney educated at the knee of Jack Welch at General Electric. Blake become chairman and CEO of Home Depot. Early in this episode, Blake shares the following insight about the fallacy of “cascading” communication in an organization. I have not been able to stop thinking about it since.

https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/frank-blake-leading-by-example/id1154105909?i=1000658584388

Key Quote:
Frank Blake: I'm always amused when I hear leaders talk about messages cascading down through an organization as if gravity were your friend. And gravity is not your friend. Your team, for the most part through the organization, they're not waiting with bated breath to hear from you. They actually, for the most part, really don't care what you have to say . . . I walk to a store and I go up to a store manager and I say, “How'severything going?” There is only one right answer to that in any organization. The answer is: “Everything is going great. You are wonderful. Please leave.”

And you need to understand—leaders need to understand this fundamental fact that they have to work hard to get their message and get their direction through an organization.

 

3. Book: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
This book by Carlo Cipolla gives the topic of stupidity some of the intellectual attention it deserves, given all the havoc it wreaks on humanity.

https://a.co/d/e95K83Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGr8bMTSD4s

Key Quote:
The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.

 

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