Category: Book Summaries

Lessons from the Men Who Went to the Moon

It's a great thing for a man to walk on the moon. But it's a greater thing for God to walk on the earth. - Neil Armstrong

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s famous “small step for a man, giant leap for mankind,” I picked up Basil Hero’s The Mission of a Lifetime: Lessons from the Men Who Went to the Moon.  Hero is an award-winning former investigative reporter with NBC News. From childhood, and throughout his career as a media entrepreneur and nonprofit executive, he has maintained a lifetime fascination with space exploration and the men who went to the moon.

Hero points out, “Space is making a comeback.  In 2017, 18,300 people applied to NASA for fourteen available astronaut slots… all of them hopeful that they might, one day, run their gloved fingers over the surface of another world.”

The men who went to the moon remain history’s most elite fraternity. Their extraterrestrial view of Earth from the moon changed them and the world.  They remind us that courage, quiet patriotism, and conquering fear—the real right stuff—all emanate from deeper sources: a commitment to the common good, and belief in something greater than oneself.

Their wish for all of us is to keep pushing the boundaries (as they did) and always, always live life with fierce optimism and faith that, like the moon shot, any goal—no matter the odds—is as achievable as your resolve to see it through.

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Happy Simplicity Day

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. - Henry David Thoreau

Simplicity Day is celebrated every year on July 12. This unofficial holiday commemorates the life, times and work of American philosopher and proponent of simple living, Henry David Thoreau.

In honor of the day, I’m reminded of Jason Fried’s latest book It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work.  For many, “It’s crazy at work” has become their normal. But why so crazy? There are two primary reasons: (1) The workday is being sliced into tiny, fleeting work moments by an onslaught of physical and virtual distractions. And (2) an unhealthy obsession with growth at any cost sets towering, unrealistic expectations that stress people out.

People are working more but getting less done. It doesn’t add up—until you account for the majority of time being wasted on things that don’t matter.  The answer isn’t more hours, it’s less waste. And far fewer distractions, less always-on anxiety, and avoiding stress.

Stress is passed from organization to employee, from employee to employee, and then from employee to customer. Stress never stops at the border of work, either. It bleeds into life. It infects your relationships with your friends, your family, your kids.

Click here for my summary of Fried’s It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work