Alexia Dominique Reyes
I read the book before I even cared to know when it was published, and it was published many years before I was born. However, I learned a lot lot lot from this, and there are specific systems and documents I want to create for Sociopoliticool that I think will help, as they will provide a good foundation for the plans I'll implement in the future. I have a business plan, but I realized how incomplete it is. Good thing, I have a one-month break from graduate school, so there's a great amount of energy to get those done properly.
That's all I want to say (but I have a lot to do). Here are some highlights:
- "The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss."
- "The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of what-if and if-when."
- "As long as The Technician is working, he is happy, but only on one thing at a time. He knows that two things can't get done simultaneously; only a fool would try. So he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the workflow. As a result, The Technician mistrusts those he works for, because they are always trying to get more work done than is either possible or necessary."
- "Don't you see? If your business depends on you, you don't own a business. You have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! And, besides, that's not the purpose of going into business. The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people."
- "Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so."
- "Innovation is often thought of as creativity. But as Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt points out, the difference between creativity and innovation is the difference between thinking about getting things done in the world and getting things done. Says Professor Levitt, 'Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things.' "
- "If you want it done, you're going to have to create an environment in which 'doing it' is more important to your people than not doing it. Where 'doing it' well becomes a way of life for them."
- "There is no such thing as undesirable work. There are only people who see certain kinds of work as undesirable."
- "People suffer in isolation from one another. In a world without purpose, without meaningful values, what have we to share but our emptiness, the needy fragments of our superficial selves?"
- "What I know to be true from my own life experience is that you will not truly rediscover your 'spirit' in the past but will discover it is waiting for you in the future on the path you have now chosen. Your spirit isn't behind you. It is way ahead of you; it has already made its choice! All that needed to happen was for you to make yours, and you were together again!"
I just remembered that the most important thing I learned is how to disconnect from my business. I shouldn't work depending on my mood but instead ask myself every single morning, "What does Sociopoliticool need from me today?" And then give it what it needs, regardless of what I feel.
I read the book before I even cared to know when it was published, and it was published many years before I was born. However, I learned a lot lot lot from this, and there are specific systems and documents I want to create for Sociopoliticool that I think will help, as they will provide a good foundation for the plans I'll implement in the future. I have a business plan, but I realized how incomplete it is. Good thing, I have a one-month break from graduate school, so there's a great amount of energy to get those done properly.
That's all I want to say (but I have a lot to do). Here are some highlights:
- "The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss."
- "The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of what-if and if-when."
- "As long as The Technician is working, he is happy, but only on one thing at a time. He knows that two things can't get done simultaneously; only a fool would try. So he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the workflow. As a result, The Technician mistrusts those he works for, because they are always trying to get more work done than is either possible or necessary."
- "Don't you see? If your business depends on you, you don't own a business. You have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! And, besides, that's not the purpose of going into business. The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people."
- "Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so."
- "Innovation is often thought of as creativity. But as Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt points out, the difference between creativity and innovation is the difference between thinking about getting things done in the world and getting things done. Says Professor Levitt, 'Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things.' "
- "If you want it done, you're going to have to create an environment in which 'doing it' is more important to your people than not doing it. Where 'doing it' well becomes a way of life for them."
- "There is no such thing as undesirable work. There are only people who see certain kinds of work as undesirable."
- "People suffer in isolation from one another. In a world without purpose, without meaningful values, what have we to share but our emptiness, the needy fragments of our superficial selves?"
- "What I know to be true from my own life experience is that you will not truly rediscover your 'spirit' in the past but will discover it is waiting for you in the future on the path you have now chosen. Your spirit isn't behind you. It is way ahead of you; it has already made its choice! All that needed to happen was for you to make yours, and you were together again!"
I just remembered that the most important thing I learned is how to disconnect from my business. I shouldn't work depending on my mood but instead ask myself every single morning, "What does Sociopoliticool need from me today?" And then give it what it needs, regardless of what I feel.