Bob's Books

Why this Book:This book has been recommended to me for many years by friends and acquaintances.  It has also been number two (behind Killer Angels) on the survey of recommended books by active and retired 4-star military officers, published as the Leader’s Bookshelf by Adm Jim Stavridis, My friend Dittie Dittmar has been insisting for several years that I ]read it.  Then my friend Jay Hennessey brought it up, which resulted in a group of our friends committing to reading it.

Summary in 3 Sentences: It’s a novel about one man’s journey in the Army through most of the first half of the 20th century – to include WW1, the interwar years, WW2, and the beginning of the Vietnam War.  We learn a lot about Army culture, marriage and family life in the Army, the experience of the ground soldier in brutal combat, and the challenges of leadership in battle.  It is mostly a character study of how a number of people deal with those stresses, but most prominently, the tensions between a rather selfless combat leader who loves his men, and a self-centered and gifted staff officer who is a great manipulator of the system for his own benefit.

My Impressions: Quite an Epic! Covers five decades of the 20th century and so much territory, to include the horrors of battle in two world wars and the beginning of our Vietnam War experience,  the challenges of leadership in combat as well as in less dramatic contexts, and how different types of people deal with a variety of different types of adversity and stress. It’s about honor and ambition, about love and friendship, marriage and family, camaraderie and responsibility, a little bit of hate, and lots of killing in the contexts of war.  It deserves it’s reputation as a great epic of the 20th century. It will have more (or different) meaning to readers who have a close connection to the military, but I spoke to a good friend with no close contact to the military who loved it.

But more importantly,  Once an Eagle is about issues of character – focussing on one main character, but with a rich cast of supporting characters whose stories and behavior add depth to the character discussion.   And it is about values, compromise, struggles with conflicting values and loyalty.   There is much to discuss and think about in this book.  It is not a quick read – the copy pictured above is close to 1300 pages, but it is a fascinating read – not hard to pick up, and often hard to put down. It took me a couple of months, but in that window, I read 3 other books in parallel. I’m really glad my friends Dittie and Jay nudged me to finally pick it up.

Anton Myrer was student at Harvard when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He immediately enlisted in the Marines and served in the Pacific, participating in the battle of Guam, where he was injured, was discharged in 1946 and returned to Harvard where he graduated Magna cum Laude in 1947.  He wrote Once an Eagle in the early/mid sixties and so we are looking at the world and how his characters  meet their challenges through the eyes of veteran of WWII from that era.

The main character is Sam Damon, who was born at the very end of the 19th century,  grew up with classic American midwestern values in a small town in Nebraska (where my parents grew up and where I was born.)   Once an Eagle  begins when Sam decides to leave home and enlist in the army to fight in Europe, then we follow him to becoming a hero in WW1, awarded the Medal of Honor and eventually a field promotion to be an officer in World War I. We then follow his courtship and marriage at the end of the war and the inter-war years with Sam learning to be an officer in peacetime, as well as a husband and father.   Over the next 20 years, he and his environment evolve and change, until the outbreak of WWII, and his eventual promotion to General Officer to lead troops in several critical engagements in the South Pacific.

Courtney Massengale. The other primary character in Once an Eagle is a contemporary of Sam Damon’s, Courtney Massengale, a West Point graduate, full of charm, ambition and a talent for winning the trust and confidence of his superiors in rank and very comfortable in the salons and offices of power. He is uncanny at landing  plumb assignments, avoiding combat and the less glamorous jobs, and getting promoted.  Massengale is the anti-hero in the book, and his and Damon’s lives intersect at various key interludes.  The differences between Damon and Massengale is one of Myrer’s main themes, and they represent two fairly extreme ends of the spectrum of military officers one encounters.  Most of officers I know and have met  – and I’ll include myself in this group – are somewhere in the middle between these two. The moral and personality clashes between Damon and Massengale, and their different approaches to their roles and responsibilities in the Army form the backbone of the book.

Tommy Damon. A third primary character in the book is Sam’s wife Tommy, which allows the story to explore the challenges of marriage and family life within the military (or any high stress, demanding profession for that matter.)  Tommy is independent and headstrong and rebels against the army’s expectation that wives be docile and submissive.  Once an Eagle explores the challenges that Tommy and Sam have – two very different, very intelligent and  stubborn people – raising a family and making a marriage work within the military.   The arguments and tensions between Sam and Tommy were familiar to me – having grown up hearing many very similar arguments between my career Navy father and my mother during the 50s and 60s, and I’ve felt similar tensions between the demands of my Navy career and my very independent and sometimes rebellious spouse.  Through Tommy’s and Sam’s friends and fellow officers in the Army, we see other marriages, with both different and similar issues and struggles, and painfully, we also see the impact of the constant threat and reality of loss on military families.

The book concludes in 1962, at the beginning of the Vietnam War, when the Chief of Staff of the US Army asks Sam to come out of retirement and go to Vietnam to look around, evaluate what he sees, and report back – to provide the Chief of Staff with a fresh perspective from an old soldier.   Given that the book was published in 1968, Myrer, through Sam Damon, provides a blistering criticism of how the US mis-interpreted what was happening on the ground in Vietnam, and  our decision to get involved as we did. Of course, Courtney Massengale appears again in this final section of the book, with his very personal agenda, tuned to which way he sensed the wind to be blowing.

As much as Myrer clearly admired the Army and many (most?) of the people in it, Once an Eagle is very critical of much of Army culture, and he admitted that it is very much an anti-war book.  But the paradox that we see in this book is that as much as war brings about so much needless suffering and death, it can also inspires great courage and strength of character.  In  Once an Eagle we see the horrors of war, the weakness of men, as well as examples of men and women at their best.

In spite of some of the weaknesses critics have pointed out, I think it is a must read for anyone who wants to understand 20th century America, and the issues that drove and defined who we were.

Those are my general comments – Below are my thoughts on different aspects of this impressive book that interested me.

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Masquerade: At one point while Sam was in China, Tommy attended a military masquerade ball, and the metaphor was non-too-subtle about how everyone there, overtly pretending to be someone else, was in fact ALWAYS in their work, hiding who they really were, because that is what the Army expected.   The metaphor of the masquerade party was brilliant. It’s interesting to me that Myrer included this scene when Sam could not attend.

Guerilla Warfare – China and Vietnam.  In the mid 1930s, Sam was detailed to be an observer of the Chinese peasant rebellion against the Nationalist Chinese forces – what would eventually become the Chinese communist revolution.  Sam agreed to spend nearly 2 years “embedded” with a Chinese guerrilla group, and at the end had had many close calls, but also gained many important lessons learned.  He was awed by their focus, physical and mental toughness and their complete and selfless dedication to their cause.  These lessons formed the basis of his assessment of the Vietnam War nearly three decades later.  Also, typically,  when Sam completed his assignment in China and returned, the senior officer whose vision had sent him on this “errand” was no longer there, and his successor was indifferent to China and to Sam’s insights.

We relive part of Sam’s experience in China when he is able to visit and engage with a guerrilla leader during his visit to Vietnam.  It’s clear that Sam has far more respect and admiration for both the Chinese and the Vietnamese revolutionaries than for many with whom he was serving at the time.   The guerrillas were fighting for something that they passionately believed in, and they and their troops were willing and able to suffer much more than Americans.

Also, Sam’s experience in China had another side – his family.  He had been asked to go – he was not directed – to spend nearly an entire tour of duty in China away from his family.   The great challenge, the opportunity to learn and experience something truly novel appealed to him professionally and appealed to the adventurer in him and he agreed.  At that time Tommy was not happy with her life; they had two children at home, and she was struggling.  His leaving her alone for that amount of time put a great hardship on her and their family.  He chose his professional challenge and opportunities over her and the needs of his family.  This had long standing consequences.

The Army and The Family –Once and Eagle takes place in an era in which it was frequently said, only partly in jest, that if the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.  In the case of Tommy – she went into her marriage already soured on the Army;  she was a high spirited and independent woman who had grown up in an Army family (her father was Sam’s primary mentor) and she had fought the yoke of military social propriety growing up.  She saw many of the “rules” and expectations she was expected to conform to as having been made by small-minded people with little imagination and a craving for control. She resisted them at every turn. The Army demands conformity to Army rules and codes of behavior, not only in the ranks, but also socially, from the wives and from its soldiers in their private life. This is not so strict today as it was then, but it still exists. It’s part of the sacrifice of being in the service.

Tommy – the voice of cynicism. Tommy expresses her and I believe the author’s cynicism about the patriotism and flag waiving of the Army.   “You know something Sam? It’s all a pretty little fraud. band playing, spit-and-polish system you’re wound up in. It is simply insane.  The system says you’re all noble knights in modern armor, holding the wall against the shaggy barbarian invaders…The system says Batchelder is a fine, upstanding old soldier and Peavey is a brilliant tactician and Votaw is a wizard with weapons, and that they’re all officers and consummate gentlemen.  The fact – the truth which nobody can mention inside this myth-laden booby hatch – is that Votaw is a pompous ass, and Peavey is a power-drunk sadist, and dear old Batchelder is a miserable, wretched, skirt-chasing rummy!” p. 507-08

Through her we experienced the wives clubs, the experience and sisterhood of those left behind when their husbands went to war, and their petty jealousies and social ambitions. These were all familiar to me as I heard so much about it from my mother growing up. My own wife stayed clear of much of that – much easier for today’s military spouses to do than it was in Tommy’s or my mother’s day.

Starting a few years into their marriage, Tommy became a bit ambivalent and even disenchanted with Sam. While she clearly admired and loved him, she could not accept his willingness to quietly accept and abide by the orders of the Army. She clearly started to see him as something of a chump, used and exploited by cleverer men (like Massengale), taking the shit jobs that the clever ones could avoid.

And she never fully forgave him for accepting the challenge to go to China, and leave her for 2 years alone in the Philippines with their two small children.  She saw him as more selfishly interested in pursuing his own self-interest and professional development through military adventures, than he was in supporting her and their family.  This is also a legitimate charge against many SEALs I know, and my wife would probably include me in that group.

What kind of a leader was Sam There is much more room for discussion of this topic than I feel like giving it – Sam is an admirable character on so many levels.  The closest approximation of which I’m aware is Hal Moore, the battalion commander immortalized in his and Joe Galloway’s superb memoir We were Soldiers, Once and Young, and played by Mel Gibson in the movie.

Apart from his competence and love for his troops, I was struck by his constant effort to learn and improve himself, always reading, and learning, and preparing himself to better serve and succeed at whatever came his way, whatever his duty was.  He taught himself French to better serve in WW1. He taught himself Chinese in order to better work with the Chinese guerillas.    Though he never had a college education,  he could quote the classics and discuss literature with the best of them.  Languages and knowing literature were the signs of an educated officer in his day – back when officers and “class” were meant to be synonymous.

I also was struck by his calm in battle – as were his men.   He epitomized and lived by the dictate to “never let ‘em see you sweat.”  This was in part an affectation that came naturally to him, to display confidence and not show fear in order to serve his men and inspire them to better perform their duty.   He was always leading by example – that included remaining calm.  Also his calmness was a result of his focus – being completely preoccupied with his duty and his men, and having no fear for himself.  However, Myrer does show us that he was human, and how he nearly broke down from stress that would kill almost any normal man.

Death and Dying- There was a lot of killing and death in this book – much of it takes place in war.  But Myrer gets inside the heads of several characters who we get to know and then we experience with them, their own deaths.  He describes that final experience, powerfully, and believably in a way that made an impression on me. Death and dying become more real and more personal, as we got to know these characters, are with them in battle, and we are in their heads with them as they meet their end.   Sam notes separately, “Death is not an individual matter. We like to think it is, but it isn’t.” Then Myrer adds:   All the dead were alike: all emptied, putrescent flesh was one.  It was life that gave individuality, a bright sacredness….

War is a Racket. I suspect that Myrer had read Marine Maj Gen, and two time Medal off Honor recipient Smedley Butler’s monograph War is a Racket, (more about that here) published in 1935.  We see its themes throughout Once an Eagle.  After WW2, Sam’s speech at the dedication of the war memorial in his home town (p 1166) could almost have been given by General Butler himself.  The theme of Sam’s speech:   There are many politicians and business leaders who advocate for war out of patriotism, but who themselves don’t go to war, but then profit immensely from it. The costs are dire for the men who fight and die, and for the country as a whole.  To  his dumb-founded audience of people he’d grown up with, he doesn’t give a rousing patriotic speech, congratulating America for winning the war. Rather he tells them about the brutality of war, the horrors of battle, that there is no glory in so much pointless death and suffering, and it should be avoided at all costs.  And once again, he is seen as a renegade in the Army.

War is inevitable – this theme comes out frequently in the book.  Sam’s mentor Major General Caldwell states it to keep Sam in the Army after WW1. Then Sam believes it and states it again between the wars.  Then after WW2 we hear it again.  And we see the generations of Sam’s family – all warriors- his grandfather in the civil war, his uncle in the Spanish American War, then Sam, and Sam’s son in WW2, and then Ben Kisler’s (Sam’s best freiend) son in WW2 and Vietnam.

Sources of Sam’s and Massengale’s characters.  The contrast between Sam and Massengale is probably the major theme of the book.  How did they become so different?  When we look at their backgrounds, where and how they grew up and matured, these differences are not so surprising.   This perspective may perhaps allow us a bit more sympathy and even a touch of admiration for what Massengale achieved.

Sam’s moral challenge:  At a key point in the book – what I would call the book’s moral fulcrum – Sam faces the challenge of having two primary principles – two North Stars – in conflict.  The first principle was to be honest and true to himself and his principles, and to have the courage to call a spade a spade, no matter the consequences, to not be afraid to say or do what needs to be said or done. This had made him something of a renegade within the Army – he stood up for his men, against the establishment, at the expense of his career.   The second principle was his complete devotion to his men and their welfare.

These are both admirable guiding lights, but when they came into conflict, Sam had to choose, and whichever principle he chose to follow, would be at the expense of the other.

He was committed to the Army and to being the good soldier, AND he loved and was  committed to his men – men who were in the Army to give all of themselves for each other and their nation.   Sam struggled with knowing that the men he loved were readily used and exploited by others in the Army whose motives were not so noble, and who had no such love for them. And he realized that to follow his conscience and confront those exploiters would in all likelihood, hurt the men who trusted him to do all he could to take care of them.

David Whyte writes in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea: “To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work. That knows how to live outside the law as well as within it…”  Sam struggled with living inside the law and outside it, with being a “good soldier” and competent Army officer, and a renegade who marched to his own drummer.  He could not commit entirely to either one.

Sam experienced what in moral philosophy is commonly referred to as “dirty hands” – which argues that senior leaders making tough decisions when the stakes are high, cannot be morally pure.  At a certain level of leadership, no matter what choice the leader makes, innocents will almost always suffer.  For my money, Sam made the right choice for the right reasons,  and the pain of his dirty hands was the cost.  It bespoke his moral character that he suffered, as he should have.  As every leader does after making tough calls, when primary values are in conflict.  Almost a Sophie’s choice horrible dilemma.  It is part of the burden of being a leader of character.

I never admired Harry Truman for saying he never lost any sleep over dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, which intentionally killed tens of thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with going to war against the United States. Arguably the right call, (extreme emergency) but not one that should leave the leader chipper and with no regrets.

Criticisms of Once an Eagle;   There are many critics.   Just type the title into google and a number will show up. Most criticize it’s length, lack of imagination,  wooden or lack of fully developed characters, that it doesn’t deserve its reputation among military leaders.  That said, I and most of my friends who’ve spent a good part of their lives in the military, and many who haven’t, found Once an Eagle a compelling and very worthwhile read.

There is a short article by Major General Scales that claims that Once an Eagle has done damage to the Army by overly glorifying Sam as the archetype of the soldier’s ideal fighting leader,  and making the staff officer, represented by Massengale, the villain.   Scales notes that the Army needs great staff officers, and though he doesn’t admire Massengale’s character, his skills and abilities as a staff officer are clear.  Gen Scales notes that some officers are by nature best suited to be great troop leaders,  others to be great staff officers.  The Army needs both.  When our most talented staff officers are put in line officer leadership positions, and our best line officers are forced into positions that demand excellent staffing skills, the Army and everyone in it suffers.  No one will admire Massengale’s ego-centricism or self-serving arrogance, but I admired and envied his social abilities and charm – talents that are clearly valuable in many contexts within the military, and which those who know me know that I don’t have.   I agree with Gen Scales, but Army and military culture in general are about War Fighting – and to remain focused on War Fighting, the War Fighters should get the glory they deserve. Perhaps the Army and other services could find a way to give greater recognition and status to great staff officers, who also show selflessness and integrity.

A few quotes that struck me, which I’d like to share:

p. 299 Sam: I’ve never liked him myself, I’ve never approved of certain things he does.  But he’s good in combat. He’s utterly fearless…” Col Caldwell:  “That’s just it. He has no fear. None at all. I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale.” (quote from Moby Dick.)

p. 480 Sam:  “Massengale will never make an enemy, and he’ll never have a friend.”

p. 930 This was the focal point of what Washington was pleased to call The War Effort.  The private in his concealed outpost, soaked to the very marrow of his bones, hungry, shaking with malaria, a jungle ulcer suppurating on his neck, his guts griping and burning with dysentery spasms, straining to hear, alone with his fear of the shadow darker-than-dark, the near flurry of movement, the knife, the cataclysmic flash of the grenade: held together by loyalty to his squad mates, pride in his company, grinding hatred of the enemy who had killed and mangled the bodies of his friends, fugitive dreams of the hometown whose inhabitants now worried about B-cards and points for roast beef and shoes and liquor,  who cursed the ration boards and cheered and clapped at the newsreels between the fear films….

p. 1003 Sam thinking of Massengale:  And one more thought at this late, dark, heavy hour: if I despise him and am afraid of him, how much of a man am I?

p. 1084 Good girls. They were good girls.  They had done what they could, had skimped and saved during the lean years, helped one another out with food and dishes on the evenings they entertained the CO and his wife, and maybe even flirted with one another’s husbands after a post party; and here they were, at the grand climax of the greatest war in history, their sons at the Point or in service, their daughters married or off to school, their husbands away in foreign lands running the big show – and all it meant for them now was separation and dogged cheerfulness and incessant strain.

p. 1121 Sam thinking to himself: For the good of the service. Was he turning into a circumspect subaltern, loyal to the point of subservience, drowning moral principle in the common good, a perfect tool for the arrogant and conniving – was he becoming the kind of soldier he’d always hated and despised? Ben – Ben would tell M to go and fornicate with himself, Ben would already have beaten him to jelly with one arm…1121

p. 1119 Massengale’s sin – there was none greater – was that he had decided neither grace nor nobility nor love existed in this world.

p. 1123  At the doorway he paused, and extended Murasse’s sword; the jeweled hilt glittered in the soft light. “You’re quite sure you won’t accept it?”  “Quite sure, General. As you say, it’s a barbaric weapon. I want you to keep it.”

p. 1133 All men had feet of clay, as Court Massengale once said; it was only necessary to discover the particular weakness and play upon it artfully..

p. 1127 You’ve all been stabbed to death by the twelfth century. You don’t see how things operate. Every war has to be a gleaming crusade, with a hovering Grail of Joseph of Arimathea for only the holiest eyes to behold.  When the plain fact of the matter is that war resembles nothing so much as a big corporation going full blast, with it’s board of directors meetings and reporters and prospectuses, its graphs and charts and shipping sections, layout and advertising – right down to the final product.

Why this book: My wife read it twice and was really impressed. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner. My reading group was looking for a shorter book after we had finished a much longer one.

Summary in 3 sentences: It is the story of a father and son – but not about their relationship, but about specific periods in each of their lives.  The son we get to know as he is dying; the father we get to know as a boy and a young man, many decades earlier.  It is beautifully written exploration of character, of life, death in the context of rural New England 100 or so years ago.

My impressions: Very interesting and powerful book – about life, death, our connection to our parents, and to nature. I’ve never read anything quite like it.  It’s short – just shy of 190 pages.  The story isn’t linear – the story bounces back and forth between the lives of its two primary characters,  several decades apart.  The story begins with  the son George, dying at home in his 80s, at the end of a good life.  Then we get to know George’s father Howard, long since dead, but who continues to pop up in the somewhat hallucinatory and somewhat random and confused thoughts of George, in his delirium in his death bed.   Then the narrative switches to Howard’s – the father’s –  life, growing up in rural Maine in the late 19th early 20th century.  The author describes the world as they experienced it – it is very much internal – about the thoughts and reactions to their experiences of two very introverted men.

Through George, we get a sense for what it is like to have one’s health failing and life ebbing away, as one lies at home supported by family.

Though the book begins and ends with George lying at home knowing that he is dying – we actually learn a lot more about the life of Howard, his childhood and young adulthood in rural New England among poor, working class country folks, with few urban comforts, taking care of each other, struggling to get by.   As we get to know Howard as a young boy, and the difficult time he had growing up, we also get glimpses of the Howard’s father, a minister in rural Maine, who was having a psychological breakdown, and the impact that had on Howard.

Then later we get to know Howard as an adult – a Tinker – driving a wagon around the country selling household goods to farms and very rural people for whom getting to town to buy pots, pans, tools, etc is very difficult.  George is Howard’s oldest child at home, but the story is mostly about Howard.  Howard has a special relationship to nature, beginning as a young boy, continuing into his adult life as he spends so much of his life driving his horse-drawn wagon through the woods and down country roads.  This special relationship to nature comes out in the poetic descriptions of how he experiences nature and life.

We also experience the quiet desperation of Howard’s wife, stoically raising children alone, with few resources, while her husband is out selling in the countryside.  There are only a few characters in this book but they are well developed and I felt a connection to and empathy for each of them – they are all very quiet and self-contained; thru the author we get to know their internal life.

The book is beautifully written in an almost poetic style, especially his descriptions of nature.  Charles also grows up to become a modern day tinkerer; he repairs – tinkers with – clocks and watches,  and the author plays with the metaphors of time and the intricacies of clock mechanisms to the world we live in.

This little gem is a meditation on life, and the lives and struggles of ordinary people, and death is treated as a part of life – by looking clear-eyed at what it’s like to die.  And in the process we also experience the connection between fathers going back 3 generations

There are a lot of interesting pieces to this little book – my wife Mary Anne chose to re-read it after she had finished it, and I can understand why.  Knowing the outlines and end of the story made it easier for her to appreciate and savor the beautiful writing, and notice nuances in the rich descriptions of the key characters in the book.  Not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but for those who appreciate beautiful writing and are willing to experience a different type of literature, again, this is a gem.

When she couldn’t attend our reading group to discuss Tinkers which she had recommended to us, Mary Anne wrote the following review:

Tinkers was a book that I bought at the Coronado Book shop, and I had it in my possession for about three years.  I finally picked it up to read on a plane ride from San Diego to Florida and I was immediately taken with the author’s use of language to describe very minute and fleeting moments in our lives.  Who would have imagined that a small grass woven basket for a tiny bird could be so described for several pages.  It highlighted for me that moments are all we have….not grandiose, or important…..just moments when we can become still and see the beauty in these seemingly unimportant evolutions.

It’s not a happy book, but it is a real book, about ordinary people (in New England) during the early 1900 to the present day.  I loved that it was the interior thoughts that were emphasized throughout the book.  No grandiose happenings, just life, day by day, in a particularly hard environment.  

None of the characters were heroic, or did anything that might draw accolades.  It is the majority of us! And there are flaws galore with each of the characters…..whether it be physical, like epilepsy or emotional, like Howard’s wife, holding resentment against her lot in life.

The use of time and the work on clocks indicates the fleeting nature of our existence here and we need to be aware of that. 

Love the story of the tinker selling soap in a newfangled box and how the women didn’t understand why the box needed to be updated….
Or the deathbed scene in the beginning when the roof caves in and the cellar swallows the bed .

Or, when George thinks about how he will be remembered by his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren….page 65 (too long to copy!)

To me, there is so much in this quiet book that speaks of the mysteries of our existence.  I’ll keep this book on my shelf to read again!

Why this book:  While travelling in New Zealand, this book was recommended by a salesman at a bookstore and one of my NOLS colleagues with whom I was hiking.

Summary in 4 sentences: This is short novelized version of an old Maori tale, transposed onto a Maori village in modern times (1980s),  focussing on a young girl born as granddaughter to the Maori chief of that village. The village and the Maori tribe are at a key crossroads in their history, and the grandfather chieftain is upset that the young girl isn’t the grandson whom he had hoped to groom to help lead the village and tribe into the future.  A strong connection to whales had been integral to the history and mythology of this tribe and the chieftain believed that preserving this connection to whales would be key to the village’s future survival.    The granddaughter eventually is able to help rebuild the village’s positive relationship to whales, and thereby serve as a catalyst to positive change in the culture and values of the community.

My impressions:  The Whale Rider is a short enjoyable read that tells a tale about how the Maori village of Whangara on the North Island of New Zealand struggles to hold on to its values and traditions in the late 20th century.  It nicely complements Come Ashore and We will Kill You and Eat You All   as background and insights into Maori culture and values in the 20th century.

The Whale Rider is something of a modern fairy tale, with many references to Maori legends and mythology associated with  the origins of the Maoris as well as the origins of the village of Wharanga, where most of the novel takes place.  The short passages from Maori mythology help to illuminate how the elders and the grandfather chieftain perceive themselves and their place in the world.  The Whale Rider is written in the first person from the perspective of Rawiri, a young Maori man who is nephew to Kora Apurana, the village elder and chieftain of this tribe of Maori.  The young man represents the youth and values of modern New Zealand while Kora Apurana seeks to preserve Maori traditions and values as the world around them changes.

The central character in the story is the young girl Kahu, Rawiri’s neice and Kora Apurana’s granddaughter.  When Kahu was born, Kora Apurana was very disappointed she was not the grandson he had hoped for, since one of the Maori traditions he insists on preserving is that women have no place in performing the sacred and most important duties of the tribe.  Throughout the story, Kora Apurana is bickering constantly with his outspoken wife, Nanny Flowers, a strong woman who holds the family together in a more traditional matriarchal manner, but who is not cowed by her husband’s position or authority. Nanny Flowers insists that beyond their traditional roles, women should also play key roles in deciding important issues of the community.   Kora Apurana ignores her,  ignores his granddaughter Kahu, and focuses on preparing the young men for the challenges that the village and tribe face in modern New Zealand. But as she grows older, Kahu’s special gifts and talents become apparent to everyone in the village,  and she is a constant presence in the story.  But Kora Apurana insists that as a girl, she cannot help  address the difficult issues the village is dealing with.

The story digresses a bit when Rawiri, our young protagonist, leaves Wharanga to work in the big city of Sydney Australia, where he connects with other Moari as well as with  men and women from other parts of the world, and we get perspectives on how young adults from small Maori villages respond to the temptations and distractions of the big city.  When later he accepts work as a ranch hand for a British farmer in Papua New Guinea, he comes face to face with subtle and not-so-subtle racial prejudice and  discrimination.  Maori culture is very much built around home, family, and community, and experiencing racial prejudice inspires Rawiri to return to his roots and the simple pleasures of being with his boyhood pals, Nanny Flowers, Kora Apurana, Kahu and others in the village of Wharanga.

After he returns home, a mass whale beaching occurs and the villagers are reminded of their long ignored connection to whales.  At this point a bit of magical realism creeps into the story,  as the worlds of the mythological and mystical become enmeshed with our world of objective, consensual reality.  Almost as expected, but perhaps in an unexpected manner, Kahu, with her heightened sensitivity to people, animals and the environment helps her village reconnect to whales and the world of their ancestors, and helps to tie present Maori realities to their mythological past in a rather fantastic final dramatic scene.

The author, himself a Maori, concludes The Whale Rider with a fascinating several page essay about his own past and how it influenced him to write this book, how it got published, and what has happened since it’s first edition.

The Whale Rider is a very well known book in New Zealand, and since it was made into a movie in 2002, it has become widely read internationally.  There are a lot of Maori words and phrases in the story – the meanings to some of which are self-evident, and for others, there is a glossary in the back of the book. The Maori language and the Maori names might be a bit distracting to some,  but I felt they enhanced my experience reading this book as a medium to help me better appreciate and understand Maori culture.

Why this book:  I was at the beginning of my trip to New Zealand and this book was recommended to me as a well-written and enjoyable introduction to Maori culture and how it interfaces with Western culture in New Zealand.

Summary in 3 sentences:  This is a memoir of a well-educated American woman who, travelling in New Zealand after college became involved in the Maori culture, married a Maori man and how they made a life together, always tied to his roots in New Zealand.  She regularly interrupts their  story with digressions that tell the story of the Maori people in New Zealand, beginning with the first Polynesians inhabiting New Zealand,  the early European visits to New Zealand beginning with Abel Tasman in 1642, the period of colonization beginning nearly 200 years later, tribal warfare among Maori tribes, and tensions and conflict between Maori and English colonists (she uses the Maori word “Pakeha”).  Her stories and digressions address myths and realities surrounding the Maori culture, and are always tied to helping her explain the friction points between the western and Maori  cultures and values, as reflected in her own family’s experience.  

My impressions:  I really liked this book – it is a fascinating and enjoyable read about New Zealand and the life of a very interesting woman, and how over a life-time, she and her American-Maori family come to understand the cultural forces that made them who they are.  At the conclusion, I felt I had a good background on the fundamentals of the history and friction between the Maoris and white colonials which created the New Zealand we know today.  After marrying into the Maori culture, the author goes back and forth between her family’s personal story and how New Zealand’s history with the Maori’s have served as a backdrop to help her better understand her and her family’s experiences.

The unusual title is a quote from how the Maori’s greeted James Cook when he visited and claimed New Zealand for the British crown in the 1760s.  Christina Thompson is a great story teller – she can write – she’s the editor of the Harvard Review.  She (almost) seamlessly weaves her story of her family’s evolution and frequent moves into her description of Maori culture and why the Maori’s were like they were, and are like they are.

She met her Maori husband Seven while essentially back-packing around New Zealand after college, when, needing a place to stay, he invited her to stay with his family in a small Maori town on the North Island of New Zealand.  She was intrigued by Seven and his family – they were so very different from her and her own background. She and Seven came from two very different cultures and world views, but as opposites often do attract, they connected and eventually married.  She was the product of a progressive western education, eventually earning a PhD and working as an academic and researcher, while Seven had a primary education and none of the ambition and concern for achievement and status that we westerners admire and foster.

Seven was solidly focused on what was in front of him, didn’t worry about personal slights or things he couldn’t control, and worried little about the future -the future would take care of itself.  His relaxed imperturbability was a daily embodiment of Maori cultural values in her life.  She describes him as almost Buddha-like in his detachment from the hurly-burly worries that consume most of us – and how his equanimity balanced her own anxieties and typical western concerns.  That said, she was the primary bread winner in the family, while Seven calmly supported her, working in a variety of jobs that played to his practical strengths, as they raised three children often under financial stress, and frequently moving as she sought work, in Australia, Hawaii, and eventually, Boston.

As she shares with us her journey of discovery in getting to know the culture she was now a part of, the author devotes nearly entire chapters to explaining  Maori customs and practices of the past.   She explains and describes the practice of tattooing,  of cannibalism – eating their enemies, how such peaceful people also had such a warlike culture, and she describes events that led to warfare among the Maori tribes during the early years of the colonial period.  She includes a chapter on the “smoked heads” – the unusual ancient Maori culture of taking the heads of their enemies and preserving them, and how she and her husband requested and got a special viewing of specimens locked in the basement of a Boston museum.   We learn about the Polynesian origins of Maori culture, how colonials exploited Maori innocence in the world of business – purchasing hundreds and thousands of acres of land for a few iron implements, western cloth and weapons.   There are many analogies to how Americans similarly exploited native Americans – but she does not describe any whole-sale genocidal killing, as happened in the US.

In describing the differences between her own family history and background, and Seven’s family history and background, Christina Thompson explores differences in how Americans and Maori culture view family, belonging, individual and community responsibility, achievement, competition – and she addresses issues of race and prejudice  that continue to exist in New Zealand.   Within New Zealand,  there is ambivalence toward “integration” of the Maoris, since that usually means absorption into white culture and abandoning the good that comes from the more communitarian and family Maori values.

Here is a telling quote from the book (p 192 in paperback edition):

Maori values are tribal values: what is good for the group is good for the individual, whereas the reverse does not necessarily hold true.  In the ideal Maori community, there is a sharing of both resources and obligations.  Sacrifice is often demanded; loyalty is highly prized.  Competitiveness – unless in sports – is generally discouraged, while greed and selfishness are openly despised.   The result is a  society in which everyone is cared for, but also one in which individual achievement is the exception rather than the norm.  One consequent of this is that from the Pakeha (white) point of view, Maoris often look unambitious, while Pakehas, seen from the Maori perspective, look ruthless, isolated and cold.

Christina Thompson not only writes a fascinating story of her own efforts to understand the culture she married into, but also how she and Seven raised their sons to understand, appreciate, and feel comfortable in both Maori and Western culture.   Part of why I liked this book so much was that I liked the woman who comes through in the writing.  Christina Thompson tells her story and shares her insights and research into the Maori culture from the perspective of a wise, humble and insightful woman.

I highly recommend Come on Shore… to anyone who would like to read and learn about New Zealand and Maori culture from the perspective of a modern woman of great wisdom who writes compassionately about a fascinating and very current subject.

Why this book:The publisher’s agent asked me if I’d read and review the book and I agreed. I’m glad I did.  They sent me a copy and here is the my review!

Summary in 3 sentences: The author Cathy Heller hosts a well subscribed and highly regarded podcast of the same title as this book, and the book is a compilation of much of the wisdom from her own life and from her interviews with her many guests on how to create a profession out of a hobby or extracurricular passion.   She encourages her readers to balance risk and reward and then go for it – to take responsibility, jump into the market place and make a dent.  She offers a lot of advice about how to do that well, manage risk, and develop momentum that over the long run, with hard work, good judgment,  patience, and a little bit of luck, will lead to success.

My impressions:  Fun read, full of great insights and advice.  Indeed, I not only really enjoyed the book, I learned a lot as well – since I also regularly get asked for advice from  people transitioning careers – mostly out of the Navy into the civilian sector. I will be recommending that they read this book, if they are interested in becoming an entrepreneur or solopreneur.  Cathy Heller infuses her book with enthusiasm and wise counsel, borne of her own experience and that of many of her clients and wide network,  to help someone new to the world of entrepreneurship and solopreneurship to take the initiatives necessary to build a hobby, a passion, an avocation into a business.

Her approach to tackling the challenge of making a hobby into a career is also a philosophy of living and being happy.  She basically tells the reader – it’s on you.  Decide and act, and learn, and keep at it.  Act, learn, get inspired, and keep taking action.  One of my favorite quotes in the book is  “Failure and success are the same road, the exact same road.  Success is just further along that road.”  Which reinforces and says in a different way a famous quote from Winston Churchill:  “Success consists of going from failure to failure without  loss of enthusiasm.”

She has chapters on “Learning to Restore,” “Your Mess is your Message,” “Build the Runway” which provide invaluable insights and guidance – nothing really new, but a compilation of the wisdom she has accumulated from her own experience and that which she’s gotten from the many successful people she has interviewed on her podcast.   I particularly enjoyed her chapters “Grow your Tribe, “and “Expand your influence.” 

The chapter “Learning to Restore” offers up many of the same skills that we teach Navy SEALs to help them deal with the stress of preparing for and going to war – to include breathing exercises, dealing with fear and visualization practice.

Her chapter on “How to Teach and Podcast” is excellent.  It includes some of the technical questions that would concern many of us, but mostly she encourages us to overcome the self-doubt surrounding the question: “Why would anyone want to listen to me?”  She talks about overcoming “the imposter syndrome”  which holds many talented people back.  I listen to a lot of podcasts, and her advice is wise and insightful.  She offers advice on how to bring out the best in interviewees, which she points out is also great advice for teachers to help them bring out the best in their students.  Make the other feel fascinating.   “One of your biggest tasks as a teacher is to keep showing your students the potential you see in them so that they start to see it in themselves.”  In fact, that is what she is doing in this book, inspiring her readers, her students to see the potential in themselves.

Toward the end of the book her chapter “Align with Abundance” is meant to help beginners accept that it’s OK to make money and thrive doing what you love to do anyway.   She notes how a lot of people – especially artists – feel guilty about making money doing something they love. She offers perspectives that are wise and practical.

I’ll recommend this book to anyone who is not happy in their job or career or who may be looking for a “job” that will engage their passions.  Perhaps as important as liking her message, I like the person who comes through in her book – Cathy Heller.   I love her honesty and enthusiasm.  She is a woman I would like to meet and I recommend that we trust her advice.

I highlighted a lot in this book.  I enjoyed going back through the book and recording a number of the quotes I liked – for my own personal review.  Here they are for you, should you desire to get a sense for Don’t Keep Your Day Job.  (Page numbers refer to the 2019 Hardback edition.)

p.1 The opposite of depression is not happiness.  The opposite of depression is purpose.

p.3 The phrase “day job”” is a synonym for the system that’s told us to stay in line.  Most people spend their lives building someone else’s dream.

p. 9 One belief that I say over and over again on my podcast is how often we think it’s a lack of resources that stands in our way. We feel deflated when we don’t have the money, the right contacts or the right zipcode. I have found that our greatest resource is our own resourcefulness.

p.14 In any industry, successful people are not looking for opportunities. They’re looking to solve a problem for someone else.

p.19  The happier you are, the more you give others permission to do whatever makes them happy too.  Because ultimately, we’re here to serve.  The more you have, the more generous you can be.

p.20 David Sacks: Make your life into art.  Ask yourself every morning, “How can I serv.e the world? How can I make a difference for another person?”

p.23  Danielle Laporte: Choose the path you are most enthusiastic about.  Enthusiasm is a heightened state of consciousness.  Enthusiasm actually vibrates at a higher level than happiness or contentment.

p. 23 Clarity (and inspiration) will follow action.

p. 38 Angela Duckworth: You don’t discover your passion. You develop your passion.

p. 39 Angela Duckworth: Knowing your reasons for things is going to help you keep recommitting to how hard it is, because you know the reason you want it.

P 43 Marsha Beck introduced me to the concept of the essential self versus the social self. It completely changed how I perceive my internal states.

p. 44 How can you tell if your essential self and your social self are aligned? There are tell-tale signs when they are at odds.

p. 44 The rules we think everyone wants us to follow are far less than we assume.

p. 51 Martha Beck: Joy is enough of an excuse for being.  That’s really why we’re here.

p. 51 Instead of wondering what our calling is, what if we allowed ourselves to become curious about what excites us?

p. 59 The main thing holding everyone back is this overwhelming need to do something perfectly or not at all….Successful people recognize that it is all beta. There is no arrival. We’re here to make the best of the next iteration.

p. 60 Amber Rae: We are in control and we can negotiate with our perfectionist. We can negotiate with our anxiety as long as we have a conversation with it and understand it like a person we are disagreeing with.

p. 65 Alexander den Heijer: When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

p. 79 When Chris Guillebeau author of The Art of Non-conformity and host of the daily podcast “Side Hustle School” talked about the four roles you can take to turn your passion into a career: The Creator, The Teacher, The Curator, The Investigator.

p. 84 Kyler England: The biggest things that have happened in my music career were not the things that I was aiming for directly…Be open to what comes.

p. 84 You don’t need to know how you’ll get to your goal. No one ever does. Just take the next step and keep following your curiosity. Your joy will lead you smack dab where you’re meant to serve the world the most.

p.92  We are living in an opportune moment. The majority of the human race is a click away. For the first time, individuals can go directly to their audience to sell, share stories, and ask questions.

p. 94 Tami Gonzalez mastered the runway stage. By keeping her day job, she was able to test her market, validate her idea, build an audience and start generating income… Everyone’s runway is different….

p. 97 The five steps to building a runway are: Experiment, Educate, Evaluate, Envision, and Execute.

p. 98 You don’t get to Eden on a bullet train.

p. 102 The best sign you’re on the right track is excitement.

p. 104 My philosophy is always get better for next week’s game.

p. 105 Creation, evaluation, re-creation is a cycle that should be repeated over and over again.

p. 106 Chris Guillebeau advocates building a “side hustle” that contributes to your financial and creative freedom.

p. 107 You must get accustomed to people paying for your service, product, or content if you’re ever going to make it a real business.

p.112  Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the arrogance of belonging in Big Magic.  It means you believe you have a right to be here and a right to share your gift. People go with their plan B because there’s a lot of shame around admitting you want your plan A.

p.116 If you take only one strategy from this book, let it be the importance of building your tribe… Find your tribe, then serve them.

p. 117 The difference between a business and a hobby is that the former is about someone other than you.

p. 119 Go in search of your tribe on-line and in person… The first day of your business is the same day you need to start providing value and anticipating needs.

p. 122 As you build your email list, the first step is to give, and give, and give, and give.

p. 123 Vulnerability is a strength… it takes courage to be vulnerable and authentic.

p. 125 Laura Belgray: What draws people to you is taking about flaws and struggles…. We buy from people we know, like, and trust. The way to get people to know, like, and trust you is to be you and show yourself.

p.125 The best way to build an audience is to have fun.

p. 130 My experience, and that of so many other experts, shows that followers only want to pay once they’ve accessed your free but very valuable material. Followers who convert into paying customers often become your greatest ambassadors.

p. 131 Kristy Vail: Although I don’t do it for the karma, I’ve been amazed to find that generous energy is always returned to me in the form of a testimonial, new client, or random act of kindness.  (echoes Adam Grant’s Give and Take)

p. 132 The more you invest in your community, the less you rely on a specific product or service.

p.143  As you’re building out your product or service, it’s very important to keep two groups of people in mind: End Buyers and Target Buyers.

p. 143 The End Buyer is the individual who will enjoy your product and service in their daily life… The Target Buyer is someone who will buy your product or service to make it available to the end buyer. (you have to target and influence both)

p.147 Become impressive – there is more than one kind of charisma.

p.148  Vanessa van Edwards:  I realized that maybe being impressive was not about impressing other people.  It’s actually about giving them the opportunity to impress you….it’s about celebrating what makes somebody feel special.

p.148 (This approach to being “impressive”) totally takes the pressure off me and allows me to just honor other people’s accomplishments. And it’s the best way to combat anxiety.

p. 149 Jordan Harbinger: The most important concept of productive networking is reaching out long before you’ll ever ask for something in return.

p.151  I have relied on polite persistence my entire career. Polite persistence has a way of working out, if done well.  (But) There is a fine line between persistence and harassment.

p.153 Susie Moore:  Failure and success are the same road, the exact same road.  Success is just further along that road.

p. 154 Networking is about creating relationships.

p.162 Generosity without asking for anything in return costs nothing, but it positions you well to receive unexpectedly in the future.

p.167 Kate Northrup:  In her book (Do Less) she nots “the way we work in our culture is as though we’re in a perpetual harvest.  But anyone who’s grown anything in the earth knows that this is impossible.

p. 169 Susan Kaiser Greenland: Creating some space between our thoughts and our reactions allows us to reassess the validity of our perceived threats. You become the watcher of your thoughts, which gives you the god-like ability to focus only on those that are the most positive and empowered.

p. 170 Susan Greenland: Feelings are like visitors. They’re going to keep knocking on your door louder and louder. When you sit with them for a while, they’re going to leave; just like that houseguest is going to leave.

p.174  The consistent practice of breathing and clearing out the mind has been a game changer for me on a personal and professional level.

p. 194 One of the first lessons that really stuck home for me was the importance of giving away tons of valuable free content. The more value you create, the more excited people are to listen.

p. 200 Amy Porterfield: Here’s the deal. I always say that the energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list. When you want to build a community, you want people to pay attention to your free stuff….You need to create an enery around your business so that people want to hear from you.

p.202  There’s no point in creating a business if you’re not excited about the work.

p.210 Creative people in particular hold on to biases around money.  I’ve seen it time and time again. Artists tend to think that making money takes away from the importance of their art.

p.212  Seth Godin explained how his story about money changed as he transitioned from being a freelancer to an entrepreneur.  “Entrepreneurs use money to grow, and freelancers use effort to grow.”

p.213  Take responsibility for your self-defeating beliefs and work diligently to reconcile yourself with the truth that abundance is your birthright and will provide you the freedom and resources to make an incredible impact on the world.

p. 231 Jessica Huie: Just consider the possibility that the biggest obstacle between where you are now and where you want to get to is your opinion of how possible that is for you.

p.232 We have to do the things that scare us; that’s how we prove to ourselves that we are stronger and more powerful and braver than we thought.

p.234 There is one critical element to their success that I think gets overlooked: Patience. Patience is underrated. I’m obsessed with the climb.  I’m obsessed with the challenge.  I crave that feeling of fulfillment.  But all those fiery emotions would produce nothing if I didn’t have the patience to persevere and see my hard work come to fruition.

Why this book: I am making my first trip to New Zealand in a couple of weeks and a friend recommended this book to help me  get my head into New Zealand. It is a Pegasus Prize winner and a winner of the Booker Prize.

Summary in 4 sentences: Three good but psychologically wounded people try with the best of intentions to build a relationship that will serve each of them.   Kerewin a single woman and a loner, and Joe a  widower, both grew up in Maori households and are living lives of “quiet desperation.”  The third member of this trio is Simon, a child of about 7 or 8 years old, clearly with “issues,” whose parents are unknown and who Joe is trying to raise.   Just as things appear to be moving in the right direction, a misunderstanding leads to a dramatic incident that drives all three apart, and the remainder of the book is about how each finds a more positive path.

My Impressions: A powerful book – not an easy read – and not one I will lightly recommend to most of my friends, who prefer more uplifting literature, but I’m glad I read it. It was well written, in a creative style and approach, with a very different theme.   It is a story of love and acceptance, overcoming personal challenges to find connections, a story of forgiveness and redemption.  The author’s message and the story she tells to reinforce it, are powerful and impactful and it is a book I’ll not soon forget.   It’s a commitment to get through it, though.

The author takes the reader down a difficult path with the three primary characters in the book, and I was drawn in, trying to better understand and appreciate each of them.  We get to know the three main characters as they struggle to trust each other and connect in a world where none of them fits.  Each was a somewhat broken soul, trying to find their way, but struggling and often making decisions that were NOT helpful in their efforts to connect and find peace — and that was painful to read.  As I got into the heads and motivations and struggles of each the three characters, I came to like and root for each of them.

The story takes place on the South Island of New Zealand apparently in the 1970s or 1980s, since the book was published in 1984.  The three characters are carrying a lot of baggage – at first we don’t know what that baggage is – though we see its manifestations in their behavior and decisions.   The primary protagonist is a woman in her early to mid 30s, who it’s easy to assume is the author’s alter-ego –  the author Keri Hulme writing in the voice of  Kerewin Holmes.  The author’s preface to the first edition sounds almost as if it’s in the voice of the protagonist.

Kerewin Holmes is an artist and a loner, not at all interested in men (or women for that matter,)  preferring to live by herself, practice her art alone, very much on the outside of society.   She is friendly, polite, but distant to the people she meets.  The other adult character is Joe, a laborer and widower who is struggling to raise a boy for whom he assumed sponsorship after the boy was the sole survivor of a boat accident during a storm.  Joe is a lonely, probably early 30s, living alone with the boy – having lost his wife and child to a disease a few years earlier, and he finds what company he can in bars.    Both Kerewin and Joe drink a lot to psychologically self-medicate and deal with their loneliness – Kerewin often drinking alone, Joe in the bars.  The third character Simon, the  damaged but clearly precocious child, with no known history before he washed up on the beach.  He is mute  and can’t or won’t share any memories from his life before.  He is clearly very intelligent, and swings between needy curiosity, and bouts of uncontrolled anger.   Though he can communicate in writing and with simple sign language, he doesn’t share much.

The setting is a small town on the East Coast of New Zealand’s South Island and both Kerewin and Joe are mixed blood European and Maori heritage, and both grew up with significant Maori culture in their childhood – both speak Maori,  and when they communicate with each other, they often inject brief phrases from the Maori language – for which there is a glossary at the end of the book. For some, this could be distracting, but I found that it reinforced the mixture of European and Maori culture not only in the protagonists but also in much of New Zealand.  .

These three lonely and somewhat dysfunctional people come together and seek to find a modus operandi in which each can support each other in a way which gives each the space they need to deal with their own demons.   The first two thirds of the book is character development – we get to know our three main characters as they get to know each other.  And it was unclear to me where the story was going.  Then something dramatic and unexpected happens which tears asunder the partnership that had been developing between the three characters.  The remainder of the book is about how the three deal with their new situation, and the author goes deeper into the characters of each of the three.  Eventually the three re-assimilates into a partnership much stronger than before.  There were many surprises in the last portion of the book, and we learn more about Maori culture, mysticism, and metaphysics and how these bump up against the predominant Western-British culture of New Zealand.

Ultimately the book is about isolation and the need for community, home and family, about anger and forgiveness, redemption and renewal,  love and connection,  life and death. What for most of the book was not an uplifting story ends on a positive note in a surprising manner.  The final lines, in Maori are: The End, or the Beginning.

If you’re up for an interesting award winning read that is not a so-called page turner, that offers insights not only into New Zealand but how good people can inadvertently hurt each other and eventually find redemption, then you would probably like this book.

Why this book:  Strongly recommended by my friend Jay Hennessey and selected as a reading for the Cleveland Indians.

Summary in 3 sentences:  Provides Myles Downey’s philosophy of coaching after several decades of work with a variety of clients. The coach’s goal is to create a connection and environment that helps the coachee –  who he calls the “player” – better understand his/her situation and make and commit to better decisions. He uses such terms as “following interest” with the player, non-directive coaching, and reducing “interference” from “self one” in helping the player to relax and perform at their best

My Impressions:    This is one of the best, if not the best of the few books I’ve read on coaching.   I liked that it included some technique, but also a general philosophy of what a coach’s role is, and how the coach best serves the coachee – who the author calls “the player” – finding the word coachee awkward and uncomfortable.  The author’s approach is personal and easy to follow – almost as if he were talking to you and a group of others interested in being better coaches. Though the book focuses on developing executive and leader coaches, it also makes clear that some aspects of coaching are key skills for every leader and manager – to the degree that they want to help develop get the best out of their people.  A well done book.

“Non-directive coaching.” The baseline approach Downey espouses is “non-directive” coaching and “following interest” of the player.  That is, the coach opens the door for the player to explore what the player believes their issues to be, how they view their situation, whether they think it can improve, and help them find their own solutions.  The coach does this by “following interest” – the areas of interest and passion of the player, not the coach.  This is the art of coaching – at least of Effective Modern Coaching.    The coach gives the responsibility for understanding the problem, looking at and deciding on possible solutions to the player – the coach is a facilitator – not a teacher, not a boss or parent, not a problem solver, but a facilitator to help the player to learn, find their own way, and develop their potential.

Flow. But the book is about more than coaching specifically.  He opens the door to discussions of “flow” – and how that relates too coaching.   “Flow” is a state when one is focused but not trying – when what one is doing feels natural.   The coach should strive to be in a flow state in his/her coaching, and the coach’s job is to get the player to move toward being in a flow state in their work, or whatever the activity is for which they are being coached.  What does that mean? Focus and performance without the “interference” of the self-critic, or of applying too much effort to achieve an expected or desired result.   This effort and measuring of one’s efforts, and constant self-critique is called “interference.”  One is in a state of flow when one is performing to one’s full potential at that time.   He uses the equation: potential, minus interference = performance.   Whenever we are not performing to our potential, it is due to interference of some kind – most often self-imposed.

Coaching, Management, and Leadership. Also valuable in the book is his discussion of the role of coaching in management and leadership. He argues that managers and leaders must ALSO be coaches, even though the coaching role is often very different from that of managing or leading, and sometimes the imperatives of coaching may conflict with the imperatives of management or leadership.  In the world I came from, the Commanding Officer is primarily a leader, the Executive Officer and Executive Director are primarily managers.  The Navy does not have someone who is primarily a coach – except perhaps the role of Chief helping an officer, or CMC developing subordinate chiefs.   But as managers and leaders fulfill their specific roles, they should also be striving to do what coaches do – facilitate helping their employees perform at the peak of their potential.  Coaching therefore is also an important part of their roles. When managers and leaders are overly directive in their relationship to subordinates, they take away responsibility, initiative, creativity and job satisfaction from their (best) employees.

Feedback. He has a great section on feedback, and notes that coaches, leaders, managers need to be careful how they give feedback. Coaches should ask if the player wants the feedback. And all feedback should be data and facts – without judgment or personal opinion thrown in, unless it is asked for. Feedback:  This is what happened. This is what I saw.  This is how I reacted.

Coaching Teams There is a valuable chapter on coaching teams and some techniques for how a coach can bring a team into flow.  He describes characteristics of teams that clearly operate in a flow state, and characteristics of teams that clearly don’t.  Most of these characteristics are based on relationships between players on the team, trust, and communications.

Effective Modern Coaching has a lot of content and covers a lot of ground. And he says that if a coach’s heart is in the right place, s/he can’t screw it up. He argues against the coach trying too hard to do what he says and therefore creating interference in his/her performance as a coach.  When the coach is trying, their attention is on what they are trying to do, rather than with the player. The coaches key focus should be on listening intently to the player and seeking to understand – not on trying to follow a formula for being a good coach.  The key ideas is for the coach to understand the player to facilitate unlocking the creative genius and full potential of the player -assuming that the player desires to improve and become better.  He does note that anyone can be coached – who is willing to be coached and is open to learning.

This is not only an excellent book for coaches, it is an excellent book for anyone who considers him/herself a people-oriented leader, committed to developing their subordinates.  Effective Modern Coaching offers not only valuable techniques but also very useful approach and philosophy for how to help others to develop themselves.

Below are my extensive notes to help me review Effective Modern Coaching for future reference.  I offer these notes to you as well. 

p12 Why settle for competence when genius is possible?… Tightening the process will not deliver (creativity and imagination). In fact, it disables genius.

p. 24 The player does the thinking, not the coach.  The coach’s job is to create an environment where the player can do their very best thinking.

p. 29 Gallwey called thoughts like these “interference”  Interference is usually rooted in fear and doubt. I would argue that nothing gets in the way of peak performance more than doubt. So the model becomes: Potential (minus)  interference = performance. 

p. 35 The more I concentrated, the less I noticed the other people, and I kind of forgot that I couldn’t catch the ball.

p. 36  The coach’s responsibility therefore, is not to teach but to facilitate learning.

p. 39 Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning, and development of another….Development is about personal growth and greater self-awarness.

p 40  The role of the coach is to enable the player to explore: to gain a better understanding , to become more aware, and from that place to make a better decision than he or she would have made previously.

p. 40 If as a coach you get stuck in doing it by the book – you are truly stuck, for your attention is simply with the ‘right’ way of doing it, and not with the player.

p. 42  Frequently, teaching has little to do with learning.

p. 43  Effective coaching in the workplace delivers achievement, fulfillment, and joy… one other factor implicitly behind them all: Responsibility.  Without responsibility and a sense of ownership, organizations quickly become ineffective.

p. 44  When the player defines his own goals, solves a problem for himself, or develops his own plan, the result is that responsibility stays with the player.

p. 44 A wholly directive approach reduces the opportunity for the player to think or be creative, limits the possibility of their taking responsibility, and takes any satisfaction or joy out of what limited achievement there might be.

p. 45 Listening is key, but there is a way of asking questions that I call ‘following interest’ — the player’s, not the coach’s – that is at the absolute heart of effective coaching.

p. 51 In effective coaching, I am suggesting that “following interest” is the core skill set.

p. 57 The coach’s primary job is to help the player get into the right mindset – relaxed concentration, or flow.

p. 58 The role of the coach is to reduce the interference,  thus releasing more of the potential of the player.

p. 61 SELF ONE: the internalized voice of our parents, teachers, and those in authority.  Self one seeks to control self two and does not trust it. Self one is characterized by tension, fear, doubt, and trying too hard.

p. 61  SELF TWO: is the whole human being, with all its potential and capacitie4s including the hard-wired capacity to learn.  It is characterized by relaxed concentration, enjoyment, and trust.

p. 61  As a coach, your intention must be to operate from self two.. when you are coaching, the intent is also to help players get into- and stay in – self two.

p. 66  A key part of becoming aware is the act – or is it the art? – of noticing. Noticing is without judgment, and is untainted by fear, doubt, aspiration or wish.  Noticing is the ‘not trying’ of thinking.

p. 68 If a coaching conversation is stuck, look for the interference.

p. 69 What is interesting in this is that you cannot make yourself enjoy something; awareness is curative, and in this case it transformed my performance…. I will frequently ask “what is your level of enjoyment?”  I will then notice a slightly anxious face relax into a smile.

p. 70 and 71  Flow.

p. 73  To be effective when coaching, you need to manage yourself, and the structure and process of the session.  The GROW model after selecting the Topic for the coaching session:  Goal for the session; Reality – who/what/where/how much; Options – what’s possible – Wrap up – Clarity/commitment, support.

• p. 76 In the GOAL stage, the coach’s intention is to identify and are on a clear and achievable outcome of the session.
• p. 77 (in the REALITY stage, the coach encourages the player to discuss and become more aware of all aspects of the topic.  The primary function of the coach is to understand; not solve, fix, heal, make better or be wise, but to understand.
• p. 79  OPTIONS – the intention here is to draw out a list of all that is possible without judgement or evaluations.
• p. 79-80 WRAP UP. The coach’s intention is to gain commitment to action.

p. 81 The role of the coach is to encourage players to think, but not to think for them.. to stay on their agenda and to follow their interest.

p.  81-81  The Model T – suggests that you expand the conversation first, then focus on the detail.

p. 83  It’s far better to follow what the player is interested in, where there is less danger of judgment. Interest allows room for intuition and feelings, among other things, and will almost always generate a richer conversation.

p. 89 The primary function of the coach is to understand.  Not to solve, fix, heal, make better, or be wise; to understand.  … In this way, coaching is profoundly simple, and simply profound.  But most of us struggle to get above our own agenda, and instead went to be seen to be making a difference.

p. 92 There are a number of things you can do to improve your listening.  The first is simple, but not necessarily easy. Start noticing when you are not listening, and then bring your attention back to the speaker.

p. 92 The second thing is a discipline called managing your communication cycles.  …the first part of the cycle is called initiation: the coach asks a question or issues an instruction to the player.  The second part is called the response, the player having understood the initiation, answers….The cycle is only complete when the player knows that he has been understood.

p. 95  Repeating, summarizing and paraphrasing – the intent: to help the player understand himself and his situation more fully, so that he can make better decisions than he would have done before.

p. 97  Silence is truly golden in coaching.

p. 100 How Much?  adds clarity and raises awareness when matters of quantity , size, or scale are under discussion.  “How concerned are you on a scale of 1 to 10?

p. 103 Please do not worry about the ‘right’ question to ask.

p. 105 I spend approximately 90% of my time following interest or, to use my previous term, at the non-directive end of the range, because that is what is most effective.  There are occasions – fewer than you think – where the coach has something of value to add. This set of skills, which I call ‘proposing,’ is perhaps the most difficult to apply effectively because of the inherent dangers of removing responsibility and choice from the player.

p 110 Feedback; There  is no such thing as negative feedback, and there is no such thing as positive feedback. There is just feedback – data. …The role of the coach is to give the data as cleanly as possible, so that the player can receive it, assess it, and make their own decision as to how to proceed.

p. 111  Feedback: The only intent that has integrity is to raise awareness..

p. 112. It is important that the coach does NOT make an assumption that the player will welcome the feedback.

p. 113  Making suggestions; The only issue is whether I  can present them to the player in such a way as to give the player a genuine choice as to whether to accept them or not.  Always present your suggestions as an offer: “I’ve got a suggestion. Would you like to hear it?”

p. 114  Giving Advice:  When I give advice, I am making a stand for what I believer in, which means that I have probably stopped attending to the player’s learning.  So I tend not to give it.  But (if you do) make an offer, and if the advice is wanted, give it. Once it has been heard, return to the non-directive mode so that the player is left with a choice.

p. 116 Evoking Creativity is a vital part of coaching.  It shows up in many ways, but the two that we will focus on here are concerned with creating the future (‘visioning’ and ‘goal setting’) and innovation (new ways of doing things, new options).  I describe a third technique, generation of success criteria as part of setting goals for a coaching program.

p. 117 The funny thing is, the people who are supposed to have our best interests at heart are the people who do the most to ensure that we conform.

p. 120 If I have something to propose such as a suggestion to offer or some feedback, and I’m not sure that it is the right thing to do, I will ask myself the following questions:

• Will it raise awareness?
• Will it leave responsibility and choice with the player?
• Is the relationship strong enough to withstand the intervention (that is, is there sufficient trust in my intention?)
• What is my intent

p. 123-124 The “client” for a coaching intervention is frequently the organization, not the player.  The organization and the player will have different needs and the coach needs to account for and accommodate these different needs in a coaching intervention.

p. 124-127  These four quadrants reflect how the individual interacts with the organization. The right side is what is shown to the world.  The left side is what is actually going on inside the individual and the organization. When there is incongruity between the right and left sides, there are problems. Whatever happens in one quadrant is reflected in all four quadrants. When coaching the player within the organization, this chart offers an insightful look at the interplay between the player and the organization – what is going on inside each, in contrast with what may the face of each shown to the outside world.

p. 130 The biggest reason why organizational value statements fail to take root in most organization is the schism between the lower left and the upper left quadrants – between an individual’s personal values and how s/he sees the real values of the organization, as expressed by behaviors and decisions.   Often times, the leadership group does not create organizational values for themselves, but for everyone else – they don’t walk the talk. Individual’s see the hypocrisy.

Chapter  11 “Coaching for Leaders and Managers is particularly insightful

P. 142 In a similar way to how leadership has been distinguished from management, we need to separate coaching from management and leadership.

• Leadership – concerned with the future, role modeling, morale
• Management – subordinates perform roles w/in certain parameters – accountability
• Coaching – a series of conversations that help a person perform closer to his/her potential , understand roles/tasks, develop right skills, and on a good day, to be fulfilled and joyful at work.

p. 144.  To be an effect manager, it is imperative to understand the nature of authority.

p. 145 Under a strongly hierarchical, authoritative regime, people do not take responsibility, do not take risks, are not creative, and are not proactive. They wait to be told.

p. 145 Many people do not understand that when they join an organization, they sign up to play the organization’s “game” – to play by its rules.

p. 146 There is an appropriate balance to be struck between individual and organizational authority, and the manager, caught in the middle, needs to understand how to strike it.
p. 147 The image to the left describes the relationship between leadership, management, and coaching, noting that they all are built on the relationship between the leader/manager/coach and the player. Also this graphic shows where authority lies between leader/manager/coach and the player.

p. 148 – Managing and coaching – there is an analogy between roles of umpire and coach for tennis, and the “organization” is represented by the size of the court and the rules of the game.

p. 149 Often, managers try to handle performance and learning with a management style – command and control –  rather than a more facilitative style.  Managers have to wear both manager and coaching hats.

p. 151 Organizations that are operating in “flow” are characterized by

• Clear goals every step of the way
• Immediate feedback to one’s actions.
• A balance between the challnges and skills required
• Action and awareness are merged
• Distractions are excluded from consciousness
• No worry of failure
• Self-consciousness disappears
• Activity becomes autotelic (driven by a sense of purpose and commitment)

p. 152 Formal coaching includes a formal and explicit agreement between coach and player, and frequently with the organization as client. Informal coaching on the other hand often happens on the spur of the moment – kerbside, or corridor coaching.

p. 154. It staggers me that there are still organizations where the manager sets the direct report’s goals. I can think of few quicker or more sure-fire ways to erode motivation and undermine responsibility.

p. 155 In change situations, where there are often no right answers, coaching will draw out possibilities and options from which the best can be selected.

p. 156 Coaching Upward: Anyone can be coached- if they are willing.

p. 157 In principle, mentoring is concerned with longer-term career issues, while coaching is concerned with more immediate performance issues.   Many of the skills are the same….a mentor who can also employ a non-directive approach when appropriate – will have a much greater impact.

p. 159 Part of why coaching works is because when the player communicates to another and is understood, the thoughts are externalized, and a certain distance is achieved between the player and his thoughts and emotions.

p. 161 I’m not sure it is possible to be a “bad” coach if your heart is in the right place; a solide “inner game” spawns a solid “outer game.”

p. 164. Coaching should be introduced not as some new fad, but to facilitate learning and improved performance.

p. 165  When a direct report does not want to be coached and is not achieving his goals, the manager needs to make clear that it is no longer a coaching issue, but a management issue….The ability both to coach and manage another requires a strong, honest relationship, with clear performance goals and success measures.

p. 177 The truth is that the only thing that can cause coaching to fail is an insufficiently strong relationship. The coach must be able to create an environment in which the player feels safe and un-judged.

p. 177 You don’t have to like the player. You do have to care for the player.

p. 178 The player needs to be able to fully trust in the coach…Equally, the coach needs to be able to trust in the player.

p. 180 The quality of the goals and success measures that are agreed upon at the beginning of a coaching programme is the single greatest factor – after the relationship – that impacts on the success of the coaching.

p. 181. Key question: “When you have successfully achieved your goal, how will you know?”

Chapter 14 Coaching Teams is particularly interesting to me

p. 188 An individual can get to a level of clarity and make a decision relatively quickly.   In a tream, that process takes much more time, as each person needs to be heard, disagreement needs to be handled, consensus and commitment need to be built.

p. 188. In teams, BOTH inner game and outer game need to be addressed.

p. 188 In a team, “interference” is multiplied – no, it is squared – and in the worst cases, performance diminishes to the point where one person could do the work of the team in a fraction of the time.

p. 189 One of the places where the impact of being a great team, without interference, is immediately noticeable is in sport.

p. 189 Interference in a team might include the following:

• Lack of trust in other team members
• Fear of ridicule
• Fear of being dominated
• Pursuit of personal agendas n
• Need to lead
• Lack of clarity about the task or the goals
• Pursuit of incongruent goals
• Hidden agendas
• Not understanding (or distrusting) each other’s intentions
• No agreed process for working together
• An absence of agreed ground rules
• Rivalries
• No listening
• No meaningful collective work
• Inflexible beliefs and positions (“this is how things are or should be”)

(That list is followed by a list of qualities that characterize a team that is successful in reducing interference.)

p. 193 – 195 He recommends the team coach reduce interference by helping the team deal with the WHO, the WHAT, and the HOW of the team.  Get clarity on WHO each person in the team is – such that they can be trusted and their intentions are clear. Discuss WHAT in order to get clarity about the task facing the group, why they are doing ti and what would success look like.  HOW is about the process of achieving the aims of the group- to include strategy and priorities, methods of communication, meeting frequency, agendas and ground rules.

P.195 The potential for friction within the team can be greatly reduced by creating an agreement about how the individuals will cooperate.  And then get commitment on how teams will deal with tension and disagreements.

p. 195 Great teams have a process for feedback. It is good to create a standard format for giving feedback, as well as a standard response for receiving it.

p. 196 When a team is in conflict and is not making progress, try declaring one minute of silence. At the end of the silence someonew will usually take the risk and say what needs to be said.

p. 197 He gives an alternative to the standard stages of group development.  The traditional stages are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.  Downey offers a different model:  Pseudo community -> Chaos -> Emptiness -> Community.  He describes how these stages look and notes that a sign that a team has achieved “community” is when people are reluctant to leave the room when the meeting is over.

p. 207-219 Chapter 15 discusses how coaches and coaching can open up the “genius” or better selves in the players, and open doors to creativity, learning, and growth that traditional management and bureaucratic approaches leave untapped.

Why this book:  For several years, one of the members of our reading group has been insisting that we read this book, but we have resisted because of its size – it is 930 pages long.  Finally we relented and selected it for a post-Christmas book – to give us the vacation window to read it. So glad we finally agreed.

Summary in 4 Sentences: This is a novelized autobiographical account of about 5 years in the life of the author, living in Bombay, India after having  escaped from a maximum security prison in Australia.  The author lives by petty street crime on the streets of Bombay, eventually becoming a medic in Bombay’s slums, until he is invited to join one of Bombay’s most powerful crime syndicates.  The author is tough and street-wise, intelligent, thoughtful, and wise – but haunted by his own personal demons.  His experiences and many adventures are fascinating, but what truly makes this book extraordinary is his commentary on what he does and sees, and how his experiences affect him as he comes to better understand himself and others, the world,  good and evil, love and hate, joy and sorrow, and what is worth living and dying for.

My Impressions: Wow!  What story! What a book!  It is indeed an epic – a rollicking adventure, a roller coaster ride,  beginning with his arrival in Bombay with little money and a fake passport as one of Australia’s most wanted criminals – all the way to the book’s conclusion, with the author still in India, a scarred survivor, a much wiser and more mature man, contemplating his future.

In between, he is constantly aware that if anyone looks carefully into his past, his cover will be blown and he’ll be extradited to Australia and returned to the “punishment cell” in the maximum security prison where he hd been routinely tortured.  He learns to live by facilitating drug deals for western tourists who can relate to a “white westerner,” more easily than to locals.  He lives on the streets for a while and then moves to a small cardboard/plywood hut in the Bombay slums where he uses his background in first aid to treat the poor, and becomes a highly respected healer among the inhabitants of the slum.  In the interim, he learns the culture, learns the local dialect as well as Hindi, the official language.

Then his talent and his skills are noticed by the bigger fish in the world of crime, and he is invited into counterfeiting and money laundering, and eventually passport and document forging, as his skills and reliability make him a trusted member of one of Bombay’s most powerful mafia syndicates.  He finds this mafia group to be a good fit – he likes the men he meets and works with, he is making good money, and the connections of this group protect him from the police and possible compromise of his illegal status. Also, he is drawn to this group because of his respect and eventual love for the mafia Don, a well-educated and thoughtful man who draws a line on what kind of crime he will commit: No prostitution, no drug dealing, no pornography, no trafficking.  Violence only when “necessary.”

There is a love interest in the story, which provides a romantic tension throughout the book.  Not only is our protagonist an intelligent, and appealing but troubled character, but so is Karla, the woman to whom he is drawn and who is drawn to him – intelligent, appealing, intriguing, but also damaged and haunted by her own demons.

Shantaram is an epic story, and includes many sub-stories in the author’s journey:  His time as a healer in the slum, several horrifying months in a Bombay prison, becoming addicted to heroin and the horrors of cold-turkey withdrawal, rescuing a woman from a powerful prostitution cartel.  He eventually gets caught up in a scheme which takes him to Pakistan, hiding from the Pakistani police and later fighting for his life with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Russians.  He also gets involved in a battle over territory between warring criminal factions in Bombay.  And much more.  There is plenty of macho testosterone in the book, but it is always tempered by the author’s humility and vulnerability, and his love and loyalty toward the key men and women in his life.  His love for the people of India and Bombay are infectious and reinforced throughout the book.  There is something in this book for everyone.

What gives this epic its backbone is the appeal and self-awareness of the protagonist and his efforts to understand and grow from the good and the evil he not only observes but participates in. He is physically and mentally tough, and yet not afraid to be vulnerable and honest with us the readers about his own fears and weaknesses, and his struggles to overcome his own demons.  He struggles with the reality of his life of crime while trying to evolve as a human being.  He is still drawn to traditional civil and moral values, but also comes to realize that good and evil, right and wrong, luck and fate, love and honor are complicated, and cannot be adequately understood simply within the basic structures we are taught in civil, law-abiding society.  The honor of strong loyalty to friends, and the shame of betrayal are themes throughout the book – fundamental values which clearly form the backbone of his own moral hierarchy. There is a saying that his boss the mafia Don frequently uses, which troubles our protagonist, but to which he constantly returns: Sometimes we must do the wrong things for the right reasons. 

Shantaram can be appreciated on so many levels – as an amazing adventure story, as great insight into Bombay culture in India, as a look into the culture of honor in criminal activity, and as a love story about two very intelligent, but wounded people who love each other but don’t know how to deal with it.  And there is so much wisdom and insight into values and what motivates people. It doesn’t surprise me to learn that Roberts studied philosophy in college before his life went south, before despair drove him to drugs, criminal activity, and he found himself in prison and then on the lam in India.

Concluding Mystery: There is an abiding question about this book:  How much of this story is true?  Reading about the author on-line, clearly, much of it is.  But Roberts won’t share how much, nor which parts – insisting that it’s simply a novel based roughly on the broad outlines of his life and experiences during that window of time.  How much is true? That uncertainty is part of the appeal of this book and the author.

Note on PTSD:  There are some interesting insights about PTSD in this book.  There are several characters in the story – and I would include the author among them – whose nefarious and occasionally irrational actions are clearly driven by a reaction to previous trauma.   The author’s inability to deal with his own sense of hopelessness and occasional self-loathing leads him back to heroin.  Others commit much worse crimes because they simply don’t care, or are looking for something to break through their emotional numbness, or else are driven simply by anger, hatred, and/or a desire for revenge.

There are some great quotes sharing the author’s personal wisdom and philosophy.    Here are a few:

p. 9 I was what Karla once called the most dangerous and fascinating animal in the world: a brave, hard man, without a plan.

p. 96  “I want everything,” Ksrla replied with a faint, wry smile. “You know, I said that once to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.”

p. 167 If fate doesn’t make you laugh, Karla said, in one of my first conversations with her, then you just don’t get the joke. 

p. 186  The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance, Didier once said, is that it works so well.  

p 189  “There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor,” Abdullah said in his quiet tone.

p. 207 Abdullah: “Most of us – me and you, my brother – we wait for the future to come to us.  But Abdel Khader Khan dreams the future, and then he plans it, and then he makes it happen.”

p. 215 (On Abdullah)  He was the kind of man who tough criminals call a hundred percenter: the kind of man who’ll put his life on the line if he calls you his friend; the kind who’ll put his shoulder beside yours, without question or complaint, and stand with you against any odds.

p. 243  Fear and guilt are the dark angels that haunt rich men, Khader said to me once. I wasn’t sure if that was true, or if he simply wanted it to be true, but I did know from experience, that despair and humiliation haunt the poor.

p. 294 Madjid:  “Suffering, you see is a kind of anger. We rage against the unfairness, the injustice of our sad and sorry lot.  And this boiling resentment, you see, this anger, is what we call suffering.”

p. 384  There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, Didier once said to me, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.  

p. 203 Silence is the tortured man’s revenge.

p. 432  The worst things that people do to us always make us feel ashamed.  The worst things that people do always strike at the part of us that wants to love the world.  And a tiny part of the shame we feel, when we’re violated, is shame at being human.

p. 451  There’s a little arrogance at the heart of every better self. That arrogance left me when I failed to save my neighbor’s life.

p. 454  Karla: “It isn’t a secret, unless keeping it hurts.”

p. 455 Vikram: “This is India.  This is the land of the heart.  This is where the heart is king, man. The fuckin’ heart.”

p. 472.  Khaderbai:  “We concentrate our laws, investigations, prosecutions, and punishments on how much crime is in the sin, rather than how much sin is in the crime.”

p. 595. Each dead man is a temple in ruins and when our eyes walk there, we should pity, we should pray.

p. 596 I didn’t know the that good soldiers are defined by what they can endure, not by what they can inflict.

p. 607 I envied his (Anand’s) peace and his courage and his perfect understanding of himself.  Khaderbhai once said that if we envy someone for all the right reasons, we’re half way to wisdom.

p. 661 But friendship, for him (Nazeer), was measured by what men do and endure for one another, not by what they share and enjoy.

p. 707  Khaderbai:  “The Big Bang expansion happened from a point called a singularity – another of my favorite five-syllable English words- that is almost infinitely dense, and almost infinitely hot, and yet it occupies no space and no time, as we know those things.”

p. 709 Khaderbai: “Sometimes it is necessary to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.  The important thing is to be sure that our reasons are right, and that we admit the wrong – that we do not lie to ourselves, and convince ourselves that what we do is right.”

p. 712  She (Karla) said I was interested in everything and committed to nothing.  

p. 740 You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself.  Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own, and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever.

p. 741  Men wage wars for profit and principle, but they fight them for land and women…..what makes men fight on, and die, and keep on dying, year after year, is their will to protect the land and the women.

p. 759 I didn’t know then, as I do now, that love’s a one-way street.  Love, like respect, isn’t something you get; it’s something you give.

p. 791 There wasn’t any glory in it (war.)  There never is.  There’s only courage and fear and love.  And war kills them all, one by one. Glory belongs to God, of course; that ’s what the word really means.  And you can’t serve God with a gun.

p. 805 Didier:  “The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly and with the eyes open.”

p. 831.  She’d confused honor with virtue.  Virtue is concerned with what we do, and honor is concerned with how we do it.  You can fight a war in an honorable way – the Geneva Convention exists for that very reason – and you can enforce the peace without any honor at all. In its essence, honor is the art of being humble.  And gangsters, just like cops, politicians, soldiers and holy men are only ever good at what they do if they stay humble.

p. 837 The mafia was theirs, not mine.  For them, the organization always came first.  But I was loyal to the men, not the mafia; to the brothers, not the brotherhood.  I worked for the mafia, but I didn’t join it….I never found a club or clan or idea that was more important to me than the men and women who believed in it.

p. 851 I cut the last  mooring rope of grief, and surrendered to the all-sustaining tide of destiny.  I let him go. I said the words, the sacred words:  I forgive you…

p. 858  Fate always gives you two choices,  Scorpio George once said: the one you should take, and the one you do.

p. 870 Silences can wound as surely as the twisting lash, the poet Sadiq Khan once wrote.  But sometimes, being silent is the only way to tell the truth.

p. 871 I discovered something that I should’ve known, as Modena did, right from the start.  It was something simple: so simple that it took a pain as great as Modena’s to shake me into seeing it. He’d been able to deal with that pain because he’d accepted his own part in causing it.  I’d never accepted my share of responsibility – right up to that moment – for the way my marriage had failed or for the heartache that had followed it. That was why I’d never dealt with it.

p. 873  Didier:  I love money, but I hate the smell of it.  The more happiness I get from it, the more thoroughly I have to wash my hands afterwards.

p. 882 She (Karla) once told me that heroes only come in three kinds: dead, damaged, or dubious.

p. 905  The only kingdom that makes any man a king is the kingdom of this own soul.  The only power that has any real meaning is the power to better the world.

p. 915 Abdullah: There is no man, and no place, without war, The only thing we can do is choose a side, and fight.  That is the only choice we get – who we fight for, who we fight against.  That is life.

p. 918  “Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.” Karla murmered.  “Fuck you, Karla,” I replied laughing.

p. 929 Nazeer:  Good gun, good horse, good friend, good battle – you know better way that Great Khan, he can die? 

Why this book: I have always been drawn to survival stories by and about people who find themselves in the most challenging of circumstances and must rely on their wits, creativity, mental and  physical toughness to survive. This one popped up on one of my Amazon searches and I jumped on it.

Summary in 4 sentences: In the 1860s, unbeknownst to each other, two different groups of men are shipwrecked at the same time on opposite ends of Auckland Island, an uninhabited island south of New Zealand and just above the Antarctic circle.  The two groups have no contact with each other, and both have a really tough time of it, as the terrain and weather were extremely inhospitable, and there were few prospects for rescue or long term survival. This book tells their stories in parallel: One group had a good leader and after 16 harrowing, touch-and-go months, all survived, due to working well together and some pretty ingenious steps they took to survive.  The other group had a poor leader and poor teamwork, and when rescued after about a year, only 3 out of 19 had survived. .

My Impressions:  Great story of survival – reminiscent of Shackleton’s Endurance, even a bit of Louis Zamparini’s Unbroken, and other great survival stories I’ve read.  Several of those who survived wrote memoirs afterward, which the author painstakingly reviewed, deconflicted and gave us a great account of how much these men suffered, how they struggled to keep hope alive, and how their suffering fostered a genius for developing options to keep themselves alive just a bit longer.

As noted in the summary above, leadership and teamwork were key.  In the one group of five men, all survived.  Similar to Shackleton’s Endurance story, the last desperate option was to modify their small boat and for a few of the men to make a several hundred mile ocean crossing to get to civilization (New Zealand) and muster a rescue for those left behind. As in Shackleton’s case, the small boat journey was through some of the most hazardous seas in the world had only a small chance for success, but they made it to civilization, exhausted and starving and near death.  When they did arrive, the captain struggled to find someone willing to undertake the return to Auckland Island to rescue the other two men, but he did.

The focus of the story was on these five survivors- since both the captain and first mate kept journals which eventually became widely read books about their story. The group at the other end of the island does not get as much attention, because those who survived did not write much.  There was clearly some shame on the part of the two officers who had so poorly led their team and survived,  The junior man, a seaman who was indeed the strongest and most resilient, innovative, and determined of the three, didn’t write his memoirs until nearly 60 years after the event.

In Island of the Lost, the author offers us interesting information about Auckland Island  –  it’s history, about unsuccessful efforts to colonize the island before and after the event, about the ecology, the flora and fauna of the island, its terrain and geography and what has happened to Auckland Island in the 150 years since the shipwrecks described in the book.  I felt this additional background added a lot to the book.    At the book’s conclusion, she shares with us what eventually happened to each of the survivors, as well as a fascinating account of her research into this incident, and her challenges in putting together a coherent story from a number of different accounts.

For survival enthusiasts like me, this is a fascinating and quick read. I read it in a few days and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Why this book: Given to me as a gift from  my friend Paul Monahan, a professional executive coach who uses the methodology outlined in this book in his practice.  Paul impresses me as a man and a friend, and I promised him I’d read the book. So I did. And I’m glad I did.  It was a gift from him that I appreciate.

Summary in 3 sentences: The author uses  (I assume) a hypothetical coaching story as a basis for explaining his approach to leadership, as he coaches a CEO of a failing company out of a downward spiral using what he calls “Core Energy Coaching” – the model he describes in this book.   In this scenario Bruce Schneider, the author as coach, helps the CEO understand what is happening in his company in terms of the types of energy he transmits to others and that others transmit to each other, and then with this understanding, helps him increase this energy from negative, or catabolic, to positive or anabolic energy, and thereby increase positive energy, morale and profits. The result is a more creative and energized company, more engaged and fulfilled employees and greater success in the market place.

My Impressions: I really liked this book – and found it valuable in understanding how I see myself and others in my world  – in terms of the kind of energy I /we/ they transmit.  This model applies a positive psychology approach to people and how their interactions drive short or long term success in business.   Though there is no “religion” as such in the book, he does refer to the levels of energy he describes as synonymous with levels of consciousness, and the upper levels in his energy hierarchy are very reminiscent of levels of spiritual enlightenment described in many of the world religions.  I found that how Schneider applies his philosophy to the work-a-day world of business to be unique, interesting and insightful.

He describes his hierarchy of energy levels in what he calls his “I-chart,” so named because it is oriented on how the self – one’s “I” – interacts with the world.  The levels in the picture are reminiscent of other models I’ve seen,  from Kohlberg’s moral development hierarchy to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to even Buddhist levels of enlightenment. He refers to levels of energy or levels of consciousness as key to who we are and how we affect the world and  people around us.  Schneider’s philosophy is based on the statement that “The only way to make real, sustainable changes in your life and your organization is to change (one’s ) level of energy,” (p75) and the book is a story about how he coaches a CEO into making his level of energy more positive, and thereby improving the level of energy of his company.

A very quick explanation of the above I-chart:  Though he shows 7 levels of energy, these 7 levels are within three main circles, beginning at the center with  Self, then  Self-Mastery, and finally, Self-Transcendence.  He spends most of the book on how to move from the first circle (levels 1 and 2) into the second circle (levels 3-5), since most struggling companies are at level 1 (apathetic, victims) or level 2 (anger and conflict).  In Energy Leadership, he works with his CEO to move him (and his company) into the second circle, which begins with level 3 – a more positive level of energy –  and then beyond, to level 4 and 5.

He notes that many if not most businesses operate at level 2 in in the market place, focused on “I win/you lose,” with the result that people in the company are also internally competitive, and see personal success as almost necessarily at someone else’s expense. Moving to level 3 is a HUGE step for the company, as well as for employees, in that it demands moving from friction and competition to cooperation, personal responsibility, teamwork, and working toward a common goal with people one may not even like.

Levels 1 and 2 are characterized by a bleak world view, in which leaders and employees  focus primarily on efficiency and dealing with problems, moving from crisis to crisis, rather than focusing on solutions and moving from one success to another.  Level 3 and beyond maintain a positive view of people, as well as current and future opportunities. Level 4 makes room for heart-felt compassion and empathy – a concern for others.  Level 5 sees ALL problems as opportunities with no judgment of “good” or “bad.”  This level 5 philosophy reminds me that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters – one for danger and the other for opportunity.  It also reminds me of Jocko Willink’s response to every problem his subordinates brought him: “Good. This gives us an opportunity to…. (whatever.”)

He notes that progress for most of us is inhibited by 4 main “blocks” that we impose on ourselves to prevent us from increasing our level of energy and reaching our full potential:

1. Limiting beliefs about possibilities and the world;
2. False assumptions from our past experiences that affect us today;
3. False interpretation of other people’s words, intentions and actions;
4. Fear that we are not good or capable enough to achieve what we want.

He offers several tools for becoming aware of these blocks (which is the most important first step) and then afterward, how to not let them hold us back.  As a coach, helping his client to recognize and move past one of these blocks, he asks, “What might be another way to look at this? What new thoughts could you adopt that might lead to different results?    This question may open new doors of insight and understanding.

He doesn’t spend a lot of time on levels 6 and 7 – the self-transendence circle of his I-chart, I assume because it’s enough work to get from self-centered to self-mastery, from levels 1 and 2, to levels 3-5.  But he does give us a chapter on levels 6 and 7 to give us a glimpse of how he believes it is possible for a truly enlightened business, led and run by truly enlightened people to operate.  Whether and how this might be possible would be  another discussion.

Some other insights I found interesting”

1. His guidance on “centering” is very consistent with what we teach the SEALs to do in what we call “arousal control.”  The breathing/centering practice is a standard in Yoga and other practices.  I use it myself.
2. Emotions – he argues against the widespread view that emotions are out of place in the work space, noting that emotions are key to a positive energy work environment.  But emotions need to be managed, channeled, and positive. That is much of what this book is about.
3. He speaks of Emotional Intelligence as “EI” instead of the more standard “EQ” and notes how expressing emotions “appropriately,” is key to achieve what he calls “IE” – interpersonal effectiveness.  “EI is not about just expressing emotions, it’s about expressing emotions appropriately.” (p 181.) Knowing what is “appropriate” and then being able to act on it is the challenge….
4. “How we see ourselves determines everything.” p 135
5. We are often victims of our inner gremlin – our inner critic, driven by fear and one or more of the four blocks.  But we also have a more positive self – what he calls a higher self or an inner genius. He says when we pit our genius agains our gremlin, our genius will trump the gremlin every time.
6. In his discussion of levels 6 and 7, he talks about the paradox of “detached involvement’ – being totally engaged in a task or activity, yet completely detached from the result. This correlates closely with what I’ve read about a state of “Flow.”

Throughout the book he suggests viewing short videos (4-6 minutes in length) on his website, which explain different aspect of the Core Energy Coaching approach to leader development, and personal and organizational change.  I viewed several of these videos and they are a good supplement to the content of Energy Leadership. Were I to decide to adopt this as an approach to coaching, I would view all of these videos, and then work with a coach to help with the coaching side of this approach.  And if I were to decide to become a coach, I’d seriously consider this approach.

Energy Leadership is about a philosophy of personal and organizational development. It also applies a non-directive, inquisitive coaching style to helping a leader to understand this philosophy., understand him/herself and others in their environment.  It is a combination of teaching and coaching. I like it.  I think it would combine well with the coaching approach advocated in Effective Modern Coaching by Myles Downey.