We recommend
Bernard Swanepoel
ANTI FRAGILE
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I thought I would find Anti-fragile a hard, but interesting read. Boy, was I right!
Just as Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan, Taleb takes you on a challenging journey, he takes things you know, or thought you knew, and turned your assumptions on its head with a compelling logic with is counter to what you thought until then.
I share his cynicism when it comes to the perceived robustness of big corporations and I especially like the underlying theme that anti-fragility is not robustness, but describes those unique entities that actually improve/strengthen when shocked.
But then I am a miner in an industry being 'shocked' to it's core and I need to believe we will come out stronger!
Tracey Swanepoel
TED TALK: THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY
by Brene Brown
In The Power of Vulnerability, Brene Brown examines and challenges our default template for living a happy and fulfilled life: i.e. be better/have more than anyone else!
Rather, she believes, we all need the courage to be authentic: to know and accept who we really are (warts and all!).
It does make us vulnerable, but ironically it’s only from that place that we can experience joy, creativity, belonging and love. And who is going to say no to that?
TED TALK: BRING ON THE LEARNING REVOLUTION
by Sir Ken Robinson
This talk, Bring on the Learning Revolution, is a follow up on Sir Ken’s previous TED talk, which is the most viewed TED talk in history (and also worth a watch).
In it he continues his plea that we identify a crisis of human resources as serious as that of climate change. Millions of people, rather than enjoy what they do, simply endure it.
Sir Ken puts forward that our education system (designed as it was for the industrial age) dislocates people from their real talents, and that we end up with a workforce of passionless people. No inspiration. No energy. No joy.
Having had many mentoring conversations around the “do what you love” vs. “do what my parents think is a stable career,” this really resonated with me. It’s enlightening, inspiring and actually extremely funny: Sir Ken could make it as a (British) stand-up comedian in another life!
Ferdi Dippenaar
ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT
by Michael Dobbs
This is about Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the brink of nuclear war. I was born in 1961 so did not fully understand what happened during October 1962. Amazing to find out how close the world came to a nuclear apocalypse. The Cuban crisis was a global event, the plot simple, two men, one in Washington and one in Moscow, struggling with the spectre of nuclear destruction they themselves unleashed. As the writer states, the issue was not whether Kennedy and Khrushchev wanted to control events, it was whether they could. I love the way this book emphasizes the importance of leadership and decisionnmaking.
Clinton Halsey
THE SECRET RACE: INSIDE THE HIDDEN WORLD OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE: DOPING, COVER-UPS AND WINNING AT ALL COSTS
by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
As one of the last believers in Lance this was a bitter pill to swallow. The scale and the depth of the 'cover-ups' and fraud perpetuated by the riders, their teams, sponsors and governing bodies is truly unbelievable.
FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS: THE HIDDEN ROLE OF CHANCE IN LIFE AND IN THE MARKETS
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This book will change the way you think about business and the world. A useful reality check, especially when you start believing your own bulls$%@.