Tag Archives: Non Fiction

In My Hands Today…

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In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom – Yeonmi Park and Maryanne Vollers

Human rights activist Park, who fled North Korea with her mother in 2007 at age 13 and eventually made it to South Korea two years later after a harrowing ordeal, recognized that in order to be “completely free,” she had to confront the truth of her past.

It is an ugly, shameful story of being sold with her mother into slave marriages by Chinese brokers, and although she at first tried to hide the painful details when blending into South Korean society, she realized how her survival story could inspire others.

Moreover, her sister had also escaped earlier and had vanished into China for years, prompting the author to go public with her story in the hope of finding her sister.

In My Hands Today…

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Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism – Fumio Sasaki, translated by Eriko Sugita

Fumio Sasaki is not an enlightened minimalism expert or organizing guru like Marie Kondo—he’s just a regular guy who was stressed out and constantly comparing himself to others, until one day he decided to change his life by saying goodbye to everything he didn’t absolutely need.

The effects were remarkable: Sasaki gained true freedom, new focus, and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him.

In Goodbye, Things Sasaki modestly shares his personal minimalist experience, offering specific tips on the minimizing process and revealing how the new minimalist movement can not only transform your space but truly enrich your life. The benefits of a minimalist life can be realized by anyone, and Sasaki’s humble vision of true happiness will open your eyes to minimalism’s potential.

In My Hands Today…

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Measure What Matters – John E. Doerr

Measure What Matters is about using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business.

In 1999, legendary venture capitalist John Doerr invested nearly $12 million in a startup that had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. Doerr introduced the founders to OKRs and with them at the foundation of their management, the startup grew from forty employees to more than 70,000 with a market cap exceeding $600 billion. The startup was Google.

Since then Doerr has introduced OKRs to more than fifty companies, helping tech giants and charities exceed all expectations. In the OKR model objectives define what we seek to achieve and key results are how those top­ priority goals will be attained. OKRs focus effort, foster coordination and enhance workplace satisfaction. They surface an organization’s most important work as everyone’s goals from entry-level to CEO are transparent to the entire institution.

In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations.

This book will show you how to collect timely, relevant data to track progress – to measure what matters. It will help any organization or team aim high, move fast, and excel.

In My Hands Today…

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Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win – Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.

Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.

A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

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The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn’t, and Get Stuff Done – Kendra Adachi

Being a Lazy Genius isn’t about doing more or doing less. It’s about doing what matters to you.

The chorus of “shoulds” is loud. You should enjoy the moment, dream big, have it all, get up before the sun, track your water consumption, go on date nights, and be the best. Or maybe you should ignore what people think, live on dry shampoo, be a negligent PTA mom, have a dirty house, and claim your hot mess like a badge of honor.

It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the mixed messages of what it means to live well.

Kendra Adachi, the creator of the Lazy Genius movement, invites you to live well by your own definition and equips you to be a genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t. Everything from your morning routine to napping without guilt falls into place with Kendra’s thirteen Lazy Genius principles, including:

  • Decide once
  • Start small
  • Ask the Magic Question
  • Go in the right order
  • Schedule rest

Discover a better way to approach your relationships, work, and piles of mail. Be who you are without the complication of everyone else’s “shoulds.” Do what matters, skip the rest, and be a person again.