Discipline is Destiny (Ryan Holiday)

 

I read another of his books called The Obstacle Is the Way and I said that was one of the best books I've read. So is this one!! This kind of thing is totally my jam. I love the inspiring stories. This is the kind of book you could read a chapter of every day all year long to make your life better. It's also one that would be great for finding inspiring stories to share when you have to speak to a crowd. 

I got it from the library but I plan to buy it. 

Goodreads says:

In his New York Times bestselling book Courage is Calling, author Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a bold and brave life. In this much-anticipated second book of his Stoic Virtue series, Holiday celebrates the awesome power of self-discipline and those who have seized it.

To master anything, one must first master themselves–one’s emotions, one’s thoughts, one’s actions. Eisenhower famously said that freedom is really the opportunity to practice self-discipline. Cicero called the virtue of temperance the polish of life. Without boundaries and restraint, we risk not only failing to meet our full potential and jeopardizing what we have achieved, but we ensure misery and shame. In a world of temptation and excess, this ancient idea is more urgent than ever.

In Discipline is Destiny, Holiday draws on the stories of historical figures we can emulate as pillars of self-discipline, including Lou Gehrig, Queen Elizabeth II, boxer Floyd Patterson, Marcus Aurelius and writer Toni Morrison, as well as the cautionary tales of Napoleon, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Babe Ruth. Through these engaging examples, Holiday teaches readers the power of self-discipline and balance, and cautions against the perils of extravagance and hedonism.

At the heart of Stoicism are four simple virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Everything else, the Stoics believed, flows from them. Discipline is Destiny will guide readers down the path to self-mastery, upon which all the other virtues depend. Discipline is predictive. You cannot succeed without it. And if you lose it, you cannot help but bring yourself failure and unhappiness.

Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow)

 

This story is one I've heard a lot about but never really knew in great detail. It was shocking to read about how people knew and ignored the rape of so many women by Harvey Weinstein....as well as others in Hollywood and big business. It made my heart rate to read about the crimes and the people who tried super hard to stop Ronan Farrow from telling the story. Stunning! As I was reading this, my husband came home to tell me a story about people he knows that have done pretty much the same thing: let men who have money get away with crimes done to other people. Un-freaking-believable.  

I sometimes had a hard time following the story because there were so many names and most of them I was unfamiliar with. Maybe people who are better at knowing actors names and others involved in the movie industry could keep track of it all. 

Goodreads says:

In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.

All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond.

This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.

Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture.

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.

Attack From Within (Barbara McQuade)

 

This book was very American based, but many of the suggestions apply to Canada too. The problem definitely isn't unique to the USA. Since I live in Alberta where the current provincial politicians in charge seem to want to align themselves with the direction the current Republican government is moving and that is something I really don't want. Elbows up!

• Create laws that require social media platforms to disallow false claims.
• Fund local news coverage.
• Extend the equal time rule to all news outlets...all candidates get equal time. Prevent broadcast media from showing one campaign over another.
• The Fairness Doctrine has been removed from American media. Restore this law.
• To reclaim audiences lost to social media, networks should focus on analysis rather than reporting.
• Voluntary code of ethics for social media - remove false claims, remove bots, etc. This could be done with good algorithms!
• Reduce disinformation from the demand side....this could be a big part of public education. Train students to recognize fake news and online conspiracy. Media literacy is becoming more and more important. Verify news stories from multiple news providers. Teach them to fact check School children and adults need this.
• Public service campaigns to persuade people to use diligence when amplifying messages. This reminded me of The Dignity Index that has been created.
• Increase face to face discussions in real public squares. Seclusion makes matters worse.
• Vote and be an informed voter.
  
• Install rank choice voting....this prevents two popular candidates from splitting the vote and having a less popular candidate come up through the middle.
• Prosecute people who threaten and harass public servants.
• Hate crime laws must be enforced vigorously. 
• Speak up when people post threats.
• Combat corruption. No one is above the law. 

Goodreads (as well as the Amazon website since it was clear Goodreads was missing some of the summary) says:

An urgent, comprehensive explanation of the ways disinformation is impacting democracy, and practical solutions that can be pursued to strengthen the public, media, and truth-based politics. The book includes:

• The authoritarian playbook: a brief history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump, chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power.
• Disinformation tactics—like demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts; stoking violence—and reasons why they work.
• An explanation of why America is particularly vulnerable to disinformation and how it exploits our First Amendment Freedoms, sparks threats and violence, and destabilizes social structures.
• Real, accessible solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law such as making domestic terrorism a federal crime, increasing media literacy in schools, criminalizing doxxing, and much more.

American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.

In Attack from Within, legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. 


Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country’s hard-won democracy.

When We Were Shadows (Janet Wees)

 

I know Janet and know how hard she worked on this book. She used to sub at my school and would talk about it a lot. I love WWII stories. I had trouble with the voice in this story though. It's told from the perspective of a little boy and sometimes he does sound like a little boy and sometimes, not at all.

Goodreads says:

The true story of Walter and his Jewish family, who were hidden from capture in the Netherlands throughout the Second World War. The story spans Walter's life from six to fourteen years of age and is accented by Walter's letters, first as a child to his grandparents and later, looking back, to his grandson.

We learn of the strangers who shelter Walter and his family, the members of the Resistance who risked their lives to see them to safety again and again, and of the Hidden Village, a community in the forests of Holland that hid more than 100 people. Throughout, we see the courage and resilience of a boy faced with unimaginable hatred and terror.

Sideways Stories From Wayside School (Louis Sacher)

 

I picked this as a book for our Grade Three book club. My thinking was that it is the beginning of a series and if the super fast readers finish it they could continue on to the other books in the series. It's an older book (published in 1978) and there are a lot of things you just wouldn't see in books these days. The word stupid is used a lot, as well as fat and more. A lot of it is in the name of humor. It will be interesting to see if my students think it was funny or if they felt as uncomfortable with it as I did.

Goodreads says:

There was a terrible mistake - Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that's why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor.

Dogtown (Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko)

I loved this story. It is told from a dog named Chance's perspective. It's funny (lots of poop jokes) and lots of matter of fact things that I believe dogs really do think! In particular there is this one moment that Chance writes in kibble…

“I nid to b petd.”

The heartache of dogs in a shelter!

It would be a good opportunity to teach about responsible pet care, have a reading to pets program or something like that. 

I was taken back by Chance's story of how he lost his leg and how irresponsible his dog-sitters were.

It is also a great story representing inclusion:  autistic child, abandoned and disabled dog, multi-lingual mouse....all without being didactic or preachy about it all. It is just the way the story is. 

I thought the robot dog was kind of weird but maybe it was a good way to address the them versus us problems in our world and also to bring in the idea of AI

I should read this aloud to my class...or perhaps get some kids to read it and see what they think. 

Best of all, it has a happy ending.

Goodreads says:

Dogtown is a shelter for stray dogs, misbehaving dogs, and discarded robot dogs, whose owners have outgrown them.

Chance, a real dog, has been in Dogtown since her owners unwittingly left her with irresponsible dog-sitters who skipped town.

Metal Head is a robot dog who dreams of being back in a real home.

And Mouse is a mouse who has the run of Dogtown, pilfering kibble, and performing clever feats to protect the dogs he loves.

When Chance and Metal Head embark on an adventure to find their forever homes, there is danger, cheese sandwiches, a charging station, and some unexpected kindnesses along the way.

Give and Take (Adam Grant)

There are some great concepts in this book. The idea that it is better to be a giver than a taker is an eternal truth, if you ask me.  His ideas about how to uncover whether someone is a take or a giver (ie big pictures in annual reports) was fascinating. 

High Expectations are Key

p. 98 ....In eighteen different classrooms, students from Kindergarten through fifth grade took a Harvard cognitive ability test. The test objectively measured students verbal and reasoning skills, which are known to be critical to learning and problem solving. Rosenthal and Jacobson shared the test results with the teachers: approximately 20 percent of the students had shown the potential for intellectual blooming, or spurting. Although they might not look different today, their test results suggested that these bloomers would show "unusual intellectual gains" over the source of the school year.

The Harvard test was discerning: when the students took the cognitive ability test a year later, the bloomers improved more than the rest of the students. The bloomers gained an average of twelve IQ points, compared with average gains of only eight points for their classmates. The bloomers outgained their peers by roughly fifteen IQ points in first grade and ten IQ points in second grade. Two years later, the bloomers were still outgaining their classmates. The intelligence test was successful in identifying high-potential students: the bloomers got smarter - and at a faster rate - than their classmates.

Based on these results, intelligence seems like a strong contender as the key differentiating factor for the high-potential students. But it wasn't - at least not in the beginning. Why not?

The students labeled as bloomers didn't actually score higher on the Harvard intelligence test. Rosenthal chose them at random.

The study was designed to find out what happened to students when teachers believed they had high potential. Rosenthal randomly selected 20 percent of the students in each classroom to be labeled as bloomers, and the other 80 percent were a control group. The bloomers weren't any smarter than their peers - the difference "was in the mind of the teacher."

Yet the bloomers became smarter than their peers, in both verbal and reasoning ability. Some students who were randomly labeled as bloomers achieved more than 50 percent intelligence gains in a single year. The ability advantage to the bloomers held up when the students had their intelligence tested at the end of the year by separate examiners who weren't aware that the experiment had occurred, let alone which students were identified as bloomers. And the students labeled as bloomers continued to show gains after two years, even when they were being taught by entirely different teachers who didn't know which students had been labeled as bloomers. Why?

Teachers' beliefs created self-fulfilling prophecies. When teachers believed their students were bloomers, they set high expectations for their success. As a result, the teachers engaged in more supportive behaviors that boosted the students' confidence and enhanced their learning and development. Teachers communicated more warmly to the bloomers, gave them more challenging assignments, called on them more often, and provided them with more feedback. Many experiments have replicated these effects, showing that teacher expectations are especially important for improving the grades and intelligence test scores of low-achieving students and members of stigmatized minority groups. In a comprehensive review of the evidence, psychologists Lee Jussim and Kent Harber concluded, "Self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom are real."

Goodreads says:

Give and Take highlights what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common.

For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return.

Using his own pioneering research as Wharton's youngest tenured professor, Grant shows that these styles have a surprising impact on success. Although some givers get exploited and burn out, the rest achieve extraordinary results across a wide range of industries. Combining cutting-edge evidence with captivating stories, this landmark book shows how one of America's best networkers developed his connections, why the creative genius behind one of the most popular shows in television history toiled for years in anonymity, how a basketball executive responsible for multiple draft busts transformed his franchise into a winner, and how we could have anticipated Enron's demise four years before the company collapsed - without ever looking at a single number.

Praised by bestselling authors such as Dan Pink, Tony Hsieh, Dan Ariely, Susan Cain, Dan Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, Bob Sutton, David Allen, Robert Cialdini, and Seth Godin-as well as senior leaders from Google, McKinsey, Merck, Estee Lauder, Nike, and NASA - Give and Take highlights what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common. This landmark book opens up an approach to success that has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organizations and communities.