Max Mednik
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Readings and musings

Notes on Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute

5/7/2025

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It's not often that a book opens your eyes to a whole new way of seeing the world. The book Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute did exactly that for me, and I now understand why it's such a classic. I loved the story based on real people and all the specific details about how they learned their lessons and this framework for getting "out of the box" and seeing others as people and focusing on results. I also now more deeply understand some of Jerry Colonna's writing like in Reboot and some of his famous questions like, "how am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't desire?"

Making these changes and getting out of the box is hard work, but I now have some conception of what it takes and some of the ideas behind it so I can work towards that. Below are my main notes and takeaways. This one was short and sweet and likely worth another read sometime soon.


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Notes on Growing Up In Public by Devorah Heitner

4/30/2025

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A fellow parent recommended to me the book Growing Up In Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World by Devorah Heitner, which I recently finished. It was a good complement to The Anxious Generation, which I had read previously. Heitner's book went into a lot more depth about the dangers of social media and the pitfalls of tracking technology and classroom grading apps (which I didn't have experience with).

I liked its concrete suggestions of how to talk about these topics with kids and how to teach real-world skills so kids can thrive as adults. Below are my main notes and takeaways. This is a very helpful book for any parent of growing adolescents/tweens/teens.


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Notes on The JOLT Effect by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna

4/24/2025

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I recently finished reading ​The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna, and I really liked it and learned a lot. It explored a new topic for me -- customer indecision -- which is extremely relevant and which I have seen firsthand so many times and which I thought was uncontrollable and without mitigation.

I liked how this book did a scientific analysis of actual recorded sales interactions to find patterns of what behaviors better addressed this. The key takeaways of judging the indecision, offering your recommendation, limiting the exploration, and taking risk off the table are very logical and straightforward, and I have already seen the positive impact of trying them out.

Below are my main notes and takeaways. I highly recommend this to anyone involved in complex sales processes.


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