 I just finished reading Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell. It was recommended to me a while ago by many people I worked with before.
I had previously enjoyed and gotten a lot out of Chris Fussell's book One Mission, which I guess is sort of a sequel to Team of Teams. Even though I read them "out of order," both books still made a lot of sense. I actually enjoyed One Mission more because I found it to be more tactical and down to earth; Team of Teams seemed to be very heavy on theory and background, which I suppose makes sense since it came first. In Team of Teams, I enjoyed learning more about the history of Scientific Management and Taylor, and it was interesting to learn a lot of the details around how the special ops teams transitioned to a more decentralized and transparent system of management as well as how they set up their physical spaces (SAR, O&I room, etc.). My notes and main takeaways from the book are below.
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 A while ago I had heard of the "poker book" Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts by Annie Duke, and I just recently finished reading it. It isn't really a book about poker; it's a book about decision science and how to make good/better decisions under uncertainty (i.e., pretty much all the time).
It was a nice summary of big lessons from a lot of other books like Thinking Fast and Slow that talk about the various types of cognitive mistakes we are susceptible to. I actually wished it had more juicy poker "guts" in it; while it had various stories and anecdotes, I wished there were more lessons drawn specifically from techniques or concepts poker players use or have developed. I would've gotten more out of this book compared to others like it if it had more of those "inner secrets" from poker; even without those, it was still an enjoyable and useful book. My major notes and takeaways from the book are below.  A fellow Xoogler recommended to me the book Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy by Mo Gawdat. I just finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it. While the last chapter on "intelligent design" may seem the most controversial, the rest of the book is grounded on (much less controversial) science and simple practical tools for happiness. The book covers mental biases, getting over fears, using meditation, and presents many other techniques and ideas that can help bring peace and happiness to everyday life.
I identified a lot with the author as he is an engineer and Xoogler. The story of the loss of his son and the many associated anecdotes related to that were gut-wrenching; it's amazing that someone who has lived through that can write a book to help others be happy. There are so many good lessons in this book, and I highly recommend it. My main notes and takeaways are below. |
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