Category Archives: Kits Book Review Archive

Kit’s Book Review for August, 2009

Off the Beaten Path Nevada: The Essential Guide to Extraordinary Travel, by Heidi Knapp Rinella, 6th Edition, 2007.

One of my favorite mini get-aways on a hot summer afternoon is to cruise the book stacks at Barnes & Noble. I dropped in last week, and this time I was looking for “what to do during the summer” ideas.

As a native Nevadan I always check out the Nevada section and this time I found Off the Beaten Path Nevada – a very unusual travel guide. Although my husband, Wally, and I have explored a lot of Nevada, this book describes many unique, unusual and little known destinations that even locals may not know about.

It even includes Nevada trivia and some details on our illustrious history – check out the Mafia roots in Las Vegas!

So, take a break, put up a Gone Fishin’ sign, and grab a day to go exploring — you’re guaranteed to come back with a few great stories.

My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley, Ben Casnocha, 2007.

The CEO in question is, indeed, very young. In fact, Ben Casnocha was an adolescent when he started this first company and just entered his 20’s this year. He’s been described as a whiz kid, but he’s more, and when I heard him speak at a recent WIN breakfast, I realized that here’s a young man we can all pick up a few points from.

The New York Times review of his book gives us a quick synopsis of his entrepreneurism: “Publishing a book in his teens actually ranks as one of his [Ben Casnocha’s] more modest accomplishments. At 12, he started his first company. At 14, he founded a software company called Comcate Inc. At 17, Inc. Magazine named him “entrepreneur of the year.”

Those accomplishments were followed by others, including national media coverage.Reading Casnocha’s book is like tuning in to the young mind, one that is exceptionally entrepreneurial and insightful. His youthful energy takes the form of tips on maximizing luck and turning entrepreneurial dreams into business realities.

His book is a summer read that just might revitalize us all and give us a few new ideas along the way, too.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, 1999

In this motivating book, the Gallup Organization sets the scene by presenting the findings of a 25-year study of 80,000 managers across a wide spectrum of business environments.

Their question was simple: “How do the world’s greatest managers find, focus and keep talented employees?”

Moving away from conventional wisdom which dictates a “treat everyone the same” approach, the authors urge us toward a highly customized approach, which is exciting but also challenging.

In this economic crunch, I had to ask, “How do we as leaders have time for an individualized management style?” Through revisiting this book, I came to ask a far better question, and that is: “How can we NOT make the time for customizing our management approach, especially when we know it works?”

This book is a classic and very timely. Enjoy!

Jeremy and Mom: A ZITS Retrospective, by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman, 2008.Pick up any of these Zits books (excerpts from popular Zits comic strip) and you’ll find yourself laughing out loud among the book stacks at Barnes & Noble. Whichever book you pick, and there are several of them, you will recognize yourself in the throes of life.My favorite is this one on the relationship of Mom and her newly behind-the-wheel teenage son, Jeremy. “That’s me and Davis!” I shriek to anyone who will listen.

I keep it next to the computer and when I need a quick shot of laughter, I flip it open to revisit those wonderful, chaotic days of raising a teenager.

Davis moves so fast in one short year (Beirut, Lebanon; Vanderbilt University and now to West Point) that I feel that I’m just trailing behind him like Jeremy’s Mom, asking, “Now what are you doing?” — “Where are you going?” and most importantly, “And what is this going to cost me?”

To keep my sense of humor and perspective, I’m clutching the Zits book.

Find your special comic. And keep it close. You need it, your staff needs it, and we all need a good belly laugh to get us through.

Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way (Revised Edition), 2003, Richard D. Carson.

This is a powerful book that challenges you to think deeply about your own Gremlins. Carson defines your Gremlin as the narrator in your head. It is the source of all self-defeating behaviors and beliefs.

The Gremlin is constantly there with messages cautioning you with old worries and fears.

The result is that the “natural you” steps aside and lets the messages of “I can’t, I shouldn’t, I wouldn’t” take over. The self-doubts stop you and undermine your confidence and sense of self-worth.

Carson gives excellent suggestions on how to reduce the power of the Gremlin’s influence so that you can step forth into your own power and strength.

In these times, when there are so many defeatist messages in the business arena that we have to deal with, Carson’s message is needed more than ever: keep your core power strong; wrestle those Gremlins down.