The World's Best Book Summaries
How do you get the right employees on board? How do you keep them around for the long haul? Part of long-term business success is assembling a winning team. In his discussion of how to hire the right people and keep them, Patrick Bet-David argues that you shouldn’t rely on your gut feelings and that you must provide attractive offers with follow-through. Keep reading for more on Bet-David’s hiring and retention strategies.
When you encounter a problem in your business, what do you do? Do you have a process to solve it? Entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David argues that effective business problem-solving must be part of your strategy for long-term success. He outlines three steps to get to a solution: take ownership of the problem, identify the core problem, and solve the problem with cost-benefit analysis. Keep reading to get a handle on these three steps.
How well do you know yourself? If you understood yourself better, how would your long-term success be affected? In his book Your Next Five Moves, Patrick Bet-David outlines five steps toward enduring success. He believes that the first step of your strategic plan is to understand yourself. Bet-David identifies three steps in this self-discovery process: understand who you are now, understand who you want to be in the future, and understand how to get there. His principles can easily be applied to life in general. Continue for details on how to know yourself better.
What is price-fixing? Can it be successful? What companies have engaged in it? Price-fixing happens when companies collude to increase their profits by agreeing on a price instead of competing for contracts. Despite the clearly stated laws prohibiting price-fixing, in 1961, 29 companies in the electrical manufacturing industry—most notably General Electric (GE)—were found guilty of repeatedly engaging in the practice for years. Continue reading to learn more about price-fixing and this historic case.
What’s Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life about? What is the key message to take away from the book? In 12 Rules for Life, Peterson argues that there’s a right and wrong way to conduct your life. He rejects the ambiguity of moral relativism—the idea that good and evil are subjective opinions and that every belief has its own truth. Moral relativism tolerates all ideas to avoid being “judgmental” and prevents adults from telling young people how to live. It also rejects thousands of years of development of virtue and how to live properly. Keep reading for the key tenets
Do you wish that people valued and respected you more? What can you do to make that happen? Jordan Peterson argues that others will treat you with more respect if you simply stand up straight. There’s a deeply-ingrained biological reason for this. Understanding the science behind it and leveraging it to your advantage can cause you to behave differently. As a result, people will treat you differently. Read more to learn how to gain respect.
What’s the story of Xerox’s innovative efforts? Where did they go wrong? People can spend years working hard to achieve success, then relax once they get there. John Brooks explains how this complacency can make you blind to threats and weaknesses. He describes how Xerox’s commitment to innovation led to its success—and how its subsequent neglect of innovation led to its decline. Continue reading to learn what happened to Xerox.
What are the dangers of poor parenting? Do the children really outgrow the effects of poor parenting when they become adults and learn to think for themselves? Most parents mean well, but their parenting practices don’t always align with those well-meaning intentions. According to Jordan Peterson, the effects of poor parenting are wide-ranging and can last throughout a child’s lifetime. Continue reading to better understand Peterson’s argument.
Where can panic on Wall Street lead? What’s a “flash crash”? In his essays on Wall Street, John Brooks discusses how letting gut reactions override logical thinking can lead to dire results. He uses the 1962 stock market crash as an example. Continue reading to learn about this incident and what it teaches us about economics and human behavior.
Why do we lie? What’s really behind our efforts to conceal the truth? How does lying compromise your personal integrity? We may lie to get what we want or to make a certain impression. However, lying may not be the best strategy to achieve either of those things. According to Jordan Peterson, when we lie to others, we also lie to ourselves. In his book, 12 Rules for Life, he says“Tell the truth—or at least don’t lie” for lying obscures your personal truth. Here’s why we lie, according to Peterson.