BOOK OF THE WEEK: "The Energy Bus" by Jon Gordon

Everything happens for a reason. 

This is what the bus driver, Joy, tells a dejected, down-and-out George when he is forced to take the bus after a flat tire renders him car-less for two weeks. It's on this journey, George finds a way to inspire his team at work, save his job and re-build a failing marriage. 

There are many takeaways from this book, but the one I want to focus on is "everything happens for a reason." When George found he had a flat tire he was visibly upset at the situation, and also at himself for not having a flat. Things didn't get much better for him when he found out he had to take the bus and the bus that pulled up, No. 11, the driver's name was Joy and she greeted him with a smile. 

It the midst of everything that's going on his life, he couldn't comprehend why he should be smiling, she clearly has no knowledge of what he was going through. This feeling is not uncommon. When everything seems to not be going our way, we have every right to be upset, but letting it manifest into all the other aspects does not help. This is easier said than done. 

I posted this story on my Facebook a month ago when I was at Johnson & Wales. It was the night of the conference first round women's volleyball match, the top-seeded Johnson & Wales knocked off eight-seed Lasell in three sets. For those of you who aren't aware, JWU is nationally-ranked in women's volleyball so they were expected to win. But the story isn't over. 

I watched the end of the women's soccer semifinal game - also against Lasell and also another win - before I start on writing the volleyball recap. The last 12 months probably haven't been the most ideal for me, a lot of ups and downs, lessons learned, but I just kept going. Still thinking about things, I finish my recap and start out and home. 

I go out to the parking out, open the door and step into my car. I put the key in the ignition and turn it, but the car won't start. I think to myself "great like I need more stress added to my plate." 

After attempt to call Triple A and unable to get through, I remembered I can call Subaru's road side assistance and call that number. After going through all the gyrations of "push this button," "say this," I finally get through and they will send somebody out. 

When the guy arrives, I tell him "I don't think it's truly the battery because the lights are on in the car. I think it's the starter." He grimaces, but says "let's give it a try anyway." He puts the jump starter on the car and begins the charge the battery. In that 20 minutes of time, we had a pleasant conversation - mind you in the Johnson & Wales parking lot.)

As soon as everything finishes, he disconnects the starter and cables and begins to pack up. I thank him for coming out and when I ask his name, he says "Sid." How weird is that?

The guy that comes out from Subaru is named "Sid!" What's another name for the athletic communications profession? Sports Information and what is the acronym for the title: "SID." Interesting! And yet very weird. 

The situation I faced was not that all that different than the one presented to George. But the thing to know is the game of life is an infinite game. Every day is something new and we have to live in the moment. 

But that's life. It's important to remember everyone is going through something. The game of life we're playing is an infinite game and it is important to listen to hall of fame hockey coach, Jerry York's 24-hour rule. "If something good or bad happens, you have 24 hours to reflect on it, but then you need to move on. 

This is why Coach York is in the Hockey Hall of Fame in the building category. His entire 45-year coaching career has been built around this motto and teaching his players about living in the moment. 

Justin Foley from "13 Reasons Why" is right, "life is all about making mistakes and cleaning up after them to make them right." 

How do you succeed in the infinite game of life? Just keep playing. 

Book of the Week: 'The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek

I mentioned earlier in the week there was too much good stuff from Simon Sinek's latest book to put in one post. The initial post highlighting the infinite game in business is very similar to the goal-oriented incremental model in policy making as well as mentioning how higher education is an infinite game.

Midway through the book Simon focused on the troublesome culture of the Castle Rock Police Department and how Jack Cauley revamped the department when he took over as chief. Not only did Chief Cauley turn around an officer who always felt as though he was being singled out for something, but by changing the culture he helped put CRPD in a better light with the public.

One of the examples was utilizing an unused bike track and a donation of free doughnut by a local shop to help the police department interact with the youth in an interpersonal environment. It reminded me what friend and former co-worker did with his central Florida police department.

Now, a detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Michael Bucciarelli, took a program he enjoyed as middle school student and brought it down to Florida. The goal of the program was simple to provide a safe and secure place for kids to go after school and "also a way to interact with law enforcement in a non-law enforcement setting." With a charismatic personality that everyone loves, I'm confident it wasn't hard for Michael to recruit students to the program. (See the full feature below.)

BOOK OF THE WEEK: "The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek - HIGHER EDUCATION: A THEORY

My second Simon Sinek book this year, what can I say I like the guy. It was actually one of Simon's Ted Talks on "Leaders Eat Last" which began my whole fascination with leadership and growth development.

According to Simon, there are two types of games: finite games and infinite games. Baseball, football, basketball are all examples of finite games here are rules that each team agrees to follow and a definitive winner and loser. However, infinite games are more abstract. There is no end, the game keeps going and teams drop out when they exhaust all the resources needed to compete.

Going deep in to the archives, into my public policy days, infinite games are very much like the goal-oriented incremental model of policy making. There is an idealistic goal - and often unattainable - at the far end, but along the way there are minor incremental goals to achieve. And those small goals are the victories.

With this being said, higher education follows the infinite game track. In the last three years, we have already seen a handful of college and universities shut their doors for good, and others in similar financial positions. We all get it. College is expensive seeing more and more high school students opting for public colleges and universities to lessen the financial burden with no guarantee of landing a job upon graduation. It is one of the factors colleges and universities are seeing a dip in their enrollments.

There still is a need for higher education. It is proven that those who have gone on to study at university, get better jobs and make more money. But the meaning of college has been lost today. Today, a majority of high school students  college is "as the next thing you do after graduating high school," but that's far from the case. The objective of college and university is not to teach you the technical skills to survive as an adult, it is to teach other, soft skills, liking working with others and to think critically.

Without critical thinking we fall into the mindless cycle of doing rout activities like we did in the industrial age. But we don't live in the industrial age anymore. Times have changed and are constantly evolving and with that our higher education system needs to evolve.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Instead of asking our admissions teams to hit arbitrary numbers for enrollment each year, we need to look deeper into the cause of these declining numbers and think of making some innovative and collaborative changes.

Higher education is an infinite game. It will continue well after the current leaders are gone so we need start behaving in a manor that it is one.


Stay tuned there will be a second post on this book. There's too much to say for just one post.

Book of the Week: "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

This is not a political post. No partisan politics. Former First Lady, Michelle Obama, is anything, but political. She left that to her husband as she mentions in her book. "Becoming" is about her and the struggles she faced along the way and the ones she continues to be confronted with. It's a continuous process.

When we hear the word affluent, we usually think of money. That's not a common thought, but I'm going to give you a different way to think about affluence. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Michelle didn't come from a family of means. Her father was a city worker, who eventually developed debilitating multiple sclerosis, while her mother stayed at home before eventually becoming a secretary. But, I argue, she was wealthy - just not in the money sense.

Michelle grew up with discipline, which her piano teacher, Robbie, helped instill, frowning upon Michelle jumping ahead in their lessons. Her parents never treated her and her older brother, Craig, like children, speaking to them like they were adults. This has shown to increase communication between parent and child. Additionally, education was a priority in the house. There was a set of encyclopedias on a book case, if either Craig or Michelle had question, they were directed to the book case.

All of these things together is a wealth - discipline, communication, education. It's why both Michelle and Craig end up at Princeton. They were well-educated in all aspects of the term. Not a lot of people have this. They were affluent, but in a different sense of the word.

However, despite being accepted into a pair of Ivy League institutions and the exponential success, she achieved, Michelle did not hold back. There were times in high school, at Princeton, and even on the campaign trail with Barack that she questioned herself. Numerous times in the book the thought "Am I Good Enough" crept into her head.

It was really eye-opening to read that sentence. On the outside, she presents her self as this strong, dominant woman, but on the inside she has these doubts. It's something that everyone struggles with at all levels and why she made that part of her mission to empower young girls.

All her life, Michelle has been in traditionally male-dominated professions, and continues to fight against the "old boys club" model that has been pervasive in politics for years. Trying not to make this too political, but she gives the example of a certain presidential candidate following another female candidate around the debate stage. Not only was this male candidate's large frame casting a mountainous shadow over the female candidate, but he showed no sign of backing down and showed he was going away. He was a bully. And from growing up on the south side, the only way she knew how to deal with bullies is to not stoop down to their level: "when they go low, we go high."

It really is an exceptional book, written by an exceptional woman. I highly recommend reading it, if you haven't already.

Book of the Week: "13 Reasons Why" by Jay Asher

For those people who thought the Netflix series of "13 Reasons Why" was bad, I would strongly recommend not reading the book. I'm not sure which was harder to get through, this book or "What Made Maddy Run." But I digress.

I, for one, really enjoy the Netflix series. It handles issues people deal with on a daily basis in real-life head on, which is what makes it difficult to watch and why many people don't like the show. Because I watched the show from the first season to season three, I wanted to finally read the book and make a comparison between the two.

Here's what I found out: the Netflix series did a better job focusing not just on Hannah Baker, but go in depth on the people on her tapes. The people, who in Hannah's mind, did her wrong.

We learned through the series that Justin Foley was more than just a jock. He was a person from a broken home with a drug addicted mother, who made poor choices in her romantic relationships thus allowing Justin be sexually assaulted at the age of five. It was why Justin cared deeply for Bryce Walker because in his words "Bryce was the only one who gave a shit about [him]." Bryce took care of him and had his back.

We learned in the series, the new kid, Alex Standall, fell victim to something that everyone feels in high school. He wanted to be included by the popular kids and desperately wanted them to like him so he would do anything - even if it meant ruining a friendship. And throughout the series, you saw how it affected him. Alex spiraled into a depression and all of his rage ended up boiling to the surface, resulting in him pushing a, physically and mentally, broken Bryce into the water. (SPOILER ALERT!)

The book made it seem that Tyler Down was just a creepy, weird kid who had a fetish with Hannah Baker, but deep down he was troubled and angry, only made worse by Montgomery de la Cruz. Which brings me to my next point: Monty.

The book never mentions Monty's character. Monty appeared to be a manufactured character by series, originally intended to a minor antagonist as Bryce's best friend and then later developed into the major bully in season three. But his character was needed. While he was a bully, targeting Tyler most of the time, Monty was also a human being. As we learned in in season three, his rage came from a father who beat the crap out of him as well as an unwillingness to accept his sexuality. Maybe if Winston Williams came along sooner he could've been saved too.

In the book and even in the first season, Zach Dempsey was kind of a dick to Hannah stealing her notes of encouragement in peer communications class. But in the later seasons we learned of his and Hannah's relationship as well as a bond between him and Bryce because of his mother. Zach was your typical star athlete and football captain, who masked his flaws. His anger was unleashed on Bryce after Bryce purposely injured him during the Homecoming fight. (Oops ... SPOILER ALERT!)

Clay Jensen was an all around nice guy and would never hurt anybody, but I as mentioned in a previous post, he was so mismatched which made it easy for the sheriff point at him. The series showed Jessica Davis attempting to overcome the physical and emotional pain Bryce caused her.

And finally, Bryce Walker himself. The writers of the series are sure talented, making Bryce appear like the victim - which he was in the end. Bryce may have done some horrible, horrible, horrible things, but it doesn't change the fact that he was still a human being. He had his friends' (Justin, Monty, Zach) backs. Kudos to the writers on that part.

Book of the Week: "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich

Finally had an opportunity to pick up the book "The Accidental Billionaires" - you know the book the movie The Social Network was based on.

The movie took a lot of liberty from the book that made Mark Zuckerberg seem really evil. He blogged his whole creation of Facemash and "stole" digitized images, but it wasn't over a girlfriend dumping him. Secondly, no Zuckerberg and his roommates did not write algorithms on windows. I'm pretty sure the University frowns upon it and really would you really expect that from Harvard students? I'm thinking that's something you'd see on an MIT dorm window just blocks down Mass Ave.

Lastly, one the final scenes in the movie was Eduardo confronting Mark telling him he was going to sue Mark and Facebook, by saying "lawyer up." Sure nice cinematic that makes for an intriguing movie, but it didn't happen.

(On a side note, despite the lawsuit, according to a 2012 article in Forbes Saverin says there are  no hard feelings between the two of them.)

We can take a lot from this book - how Zuckerberg is an exceptionally talented computer programmer, Eduardo made $3,000 dollars in a summer because of an interest in the weather, or the Winklevoss Twins being incredibly entitled. But no, despite all those being true, those are not the points I'm trying to make.

The main point we can take from this book is, it's about the people who you choose to side yourselves with. Sure, the Winklevoss Twins were already talking about the idea about creating an online social network, but neither one of them nor their friend, Divya Narenda, were programmers. That's why they approached Zuckerberg.

But Zuckerberg didn't want to work with the Winklevoss Twins. He liked the idea of an exclusive social networking site and approached his friend, Eduardo Saverin.

Unless he intentionally used the same code on HarvardConnection to create Facebook, Zuckerberg stole nothing. (I'm pretty sure a guy like Mark, who was admitted to Harvard, is smart enough to know that.) Mark wanted to work with his buddy, Eduardo, on the project.

It was mentioned in the first few pages, despite Eduardo's (who was Mezrich's main consultant) vastly different personality than Mark, there was something about him that Eduardo liked.

We all have our reasons for choosing our friends and who we want to surround ourselves with. Eduardo a choose Mark to be his friend and Mark choose Eduardo to start this business. There's nothing wrong that. Steve Jobs wanted to work with Wozniak and Bill Gates with Paul Allen.

We chose who we want to be around.