Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Book Review

 

When I consider what to review it generally happens in two ways:I look at my bookshelf and I look for something that impacts me immediately.  This book qualifies for both.  I even went so far as to stay up until 5am one morning to watch Malcolm Gladwell on CSpan give a speech about his incredible book, Outliers.  Simply put Outliers are people who through stand out from the crowd because of a talent.  It's a great system for figuring out where you are in whatever it is you like or even more importantly how to achieve (and understand others achievement).  The magic number is 10,000 hours of practice that purposefully increase sin complexity.  With just that information you can understand Bill Gates, Raymond Federman, Nina Simone, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Toni Morrison, Bill Cosby, Nikolai Tesla, Carlene Hatcher Polite, Oprah Winfrey, Ervin Laszlo and a host of others.  We look at these people as having a genius or a superior talent but we rarely consider how that talent got nurtured, developed and blossomed to what we see today.

In undergraduate college I really started getting published around the country.  For four years I was a Teacher's Asst. to three professor's, all three focusing heavily on creative writing, I took close to 80 credits of just writing classes (prose, journalism, poetry even playwriting), I was often weekly in not just the campus newspaper but the campus magazine, chapbooks and even the graduate school literary magazine.  Professors began recommending me to publishers and magazines around the country.  I even had the surprising pleasure of going into a bookstore, picking up an interesting looking magazine and finding one of my short stories in it.  Friends and classmates assumed I had some sort of dark genius that was being reaped upon the university but in fact since the age of 12 I'd been writing diligently.  For about 10 years time I'd written comic book scripts and manuscripts and poems and essays so that by the time I got to college at 21, I'd had 10 years of writing experience, my heaviest work being being done with Denise Donnelly, Debbie Freeman and Dr. William Hunter at John Jay High School.  What appeared to be an amazing well spring was in fact my arriving at college with 10,000+ hours of writing experience under my belt.  By the time I arrived at the university I was ready for high level instruction in writing because I'd mastered the basic form but to the other students who were just beginning their 10,000+ journey (if they were going to stick to it at all), I seemed far ahead.  I often felt excluded from the students' level of ability and more comfortable with the teachers because I had gathered so much more experience.  Outliers was finally able to quantify for me why.

Now transfer this algorithm to another skill, any skill, that might be achieved in college.  Working 40 hours a week is approximately 2000 hours a year.  College, full time study, is the equivalent of working full time for 4 to 5 years.  Boom!  10,000 hours.  Wait for it---now graduate school is where one achieves their "Master's" degree because you've graduate from being a novice/intermediate to now a level of mastery.  Outliers has wonderful case by case outlines of people who've attained mastery and an examination of how and why, even down to examining the preponderance of Jewish doctors and lawyers and how that can be traced back to family origin and 10,000 hours.  Use this book to examine yourself or understand how to fill in the blocks of your own study.


Remember mastery is achieved by a 6 Step Process (outlined in Mastery by Robert Greene---I'll be posting it's review as soon as it comes out in November):

1. Discover your calling: the life's task
2. Submit to reality: the ideal apprenticeship
3. Absorb the master's power: the mentor dynamic
4. See people as they are: social intelligence
5. Awaken the dimensional mind: the creative-active
6. Fuse the intuitive with the rational: mastery


Thank you!
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
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Kyle Phoenix DVD Review: A Planet Rock (Blood Diamonds),by Kyle Phoenix

Bling: A Planet Rock (Blood Diamonds), DVD Review

To watch this DVD, I'm struck by several things. First the amount of contradictions and confusion expressed by African Americans at the exploitation of Africans. When hip-hop celebrities Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan, Paul Wall and Tego Calderon travel to war-torn Sierra Leone, West Africa they're confronted with the origin of the "bling"---flashing of lots and lots and lots of diamonds. Paul Wall is even in the diamond business with his partner who travels with him. On one hand I believe that they didn't understand the depth of the misery and blood that the diamonds were mined under and on the other, one has to ask how they couldn't know or suspect. Then when you listen to the three of them, Calderon in his low key, often silent but deeply insightful comments comes off as the smartest, you realize that ignorance is the norm to some celebrities. I was having a conversation with a friend and we were talking about Rihanna or Lindsay Lohan or Lil' Wayne or Pick A Star and I pointed out that when we see younger people/celebrities exampling such bad behavior we're often watching barely high school educated people coping with bigger concepts in life. We're very rarely watching college educated, worldly people who are thinkers and readers and philosophy students, who just happen to be celebrities. Bling makes this so glaringly obvious that it becomes a spotlight on celebrity buffoonery.


Sierra Leone endured a horrendous civil war in the late 1990's, the prize and instigator being it's many diamond mines that had been exploited since the 1950s by European companies. The people literally imploded onto themselves turning children into killing soldiers, amputating the limbs from children and adults alike, raping tens of thousands of women and killing hundreds of thousands more. Already a country teetering between development and desperation, the country was torn asunder. Ironically one of the poorest towns, Kroobay, Freetown is where many African slaves were taken from in the 1800s. The dark irony of rappers standing on that side of the coast, the vista beyond breathtaking but surrounded by victims of neo-slavery suddenly suggested to me as a shattering of a people. Splintered across 10,000 miles the African exploited have become the African-American exploiters and the Americanized exploiters return to discover that this is the birthplace of their own exploitation.




Confronted with the atrocities of war refugee camps and amputee towns and then even a diamond mine the celebrities are forced to really examine their own complicity in the horrors, particularly when several Africans rightfully and righteously lash out at them for essentially being voyeurs at their pain. The diamond mine owner, Jan Joubert confronts them with the question of if he's employing 450 Africans and paying the government 5% of profits and the town itself 10% of profits, how is he still responsible for the abject poverty? That perhaps they need to expand their scope and look at the full system of exploitation and question themselves and the Sierra Leone government, which one could argue he knows they neither have the courage, resources or wherewithal to do thereby maintaining his tenuously secure position as a dealer to diamond addicts like them. Absent from this film is the Sierra Leone government's explanation for what's occuring, in fact the country seems almost bereft of any ruling body and teetering on full collapse. Suddenly, the participants are left with their meager view and resources against what is a worldwide system of greed and exploitation. When Raekwon argues with the mine owner how can he allow this poverty to exist he lets slip that he and his friends love diamonds and the owner simply looks at him and nods because the answer is apparent---I give you and yours what you crave and because suddenly your craving is exposed as having blood on it you're mad at me. The Demander is suddenly trapped by the shrug of the Supplier.


The beginning of the film interviews briefly, too briefly rappers but then amazingly pimps as to the image that diamonds and grandiose, ostentatious signs of wealth projected into communities of color that were consumed with poverty already. Poverty then created a deep desire for wealth and diamonds became the expression of having made it, having triumphed beyond it. Kanye West courageously points out the addiction to not looking poor when you've come from poverty. And we're left with looking at African American men most the legacy of African slaves enslaving African people on the other side of the ocean. This is great film for looking at that full circle impact and discussing what is the difference between the raped and the rapist.


Thank you!

Kyle Phoenix

kylephoenixshow@aol.com

http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Book Review, The Color of Wealth, by Kyle Phoenix

 There are 5 "races" in America: Asian, Latino, African/Black, Native American and Caucasian.  That's a given but what isn't often examined as closely is how each racial group occupies America and why.  Every racial classification (technically Latinos are an ethnicity) has had historical issues in America, pointed laws against them achieving financial parity with Caucasians.  Suddenly that question of what's going on and who has access to the American Dream and why, becomes pertinent and immediate.

In my teaching work I am pushed by the materials often to deal with race, it is the pressing educational issue of the 21st Century in many ways as society is moving us all, races and ethnicities to a level of equality being within reach of all.  I would argue that the past 100 years of all the races excepting Caucasian, have just learned and been given the opportunity to have, use and manage large sums of not simply money but wealth.  It's not a lot yet, the annual expenditure of African Americans is close to $1 trillion a year, Latinos are between $800 to 900 billion a year but where does that money go?  Only a half to a third own homes and businesses of Latinos and Blacks.  Native Americans barely hit the measuring rod because there are so few due to genocide and Asians,who tend to be more educated that Caucasians and earn more per household, are also not a large enough population to move economies.  However Blacks and Latinos spend their money on overwhelmingly Caucasian based businesses and products, keeping one race financially healthy at the detriment of themselves.  Economic hegemony.

Where are you in your life?  Where are you within segments of your race?  Based upon generally American Census financial information:

• Poverty is 1 to 4 people living on $18,000 or less a year.
• Working Class is 1 to 4 people living on $30,000 or less a year.
• Middle Class is 1 to 4 people living on $36,000 or more a year.
• Upper Middle Class is 1 to 4 people living on up to $250,000 a year.
• Rich is 1 to 4 people living on $1 million or more in income a year.
• Wealth is $10 million a year or more in annual income and the wherewithal to pass it on to the next generation.

This book is an excellent manual for understanding historically how races use and have money in America and why.  And then it goes a level deeper, it prescribes what the individual, state and national government can do to bridge inequalities.  Take a chance figure out why you're where you're at and learn the skills to get out.

Thank you!
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Magic Mike, DVD Review

This was a fun movie.  I like Steven Soderbergh as a director, I really appreciate him as an artist.  He actually raises this film to a level of artistic interest whereas it would normally be a low grade flick.  First off, I'm not going to be directly prurient here but a stripper film that is R rated (on DVD but PG-13 in the theaters)----I don't get it.  If we're going to talk/see strippers we should be wrestling with NC-17 ratings.  But perhaps that's because this is men not women?  Okay, so there's a vein of misogyny going on here but do the actors---Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and Adam Rodriguez, raise the bar to the point where, if you haven't seen it, this is worth your time and money?  Somewhat.

The plot is simple.  Like 1970s simple.  The hot headliner at an all-male revue, Mike (Channing Tatum) takes a protégé to teach him the fine arts of dancing and picking up women.  Drugs, drama, hijinks, male bonding and betrayal ensue. There's some bisexuality (no, no, only amongst the women).  The women amazingly enough get deeply objectified.....in a film about male strippers.  There's also the push of men acting like out of control boys and women acting as the moral, mature center that little boys return to.  This is a fun, silly, medium sexy popcorn film that involves more overacting and butt shots than it does emotional depth or physical nudity.  There are some minorly clever strip/dance scenes but nothing of WOW factor.  This film though is a great vehicle for the acting range of Matthew McConaughey (including this year's startling Killer Joe film)---he'll definitely get an Academy Award nomination from the combined wattage of both of these films.  Word on the Hollywood street is that a sequel to Magic Mike is in the works (as this is based on the stripping work of Channing Tatum before he became a movie star), I think that's the way Hollywood works, no predictions about the sequels quality. 

Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

How To Be A Billionaire by Martin Fridson, Book Review

I'll admit I was skeptical at the onset of reading this book.  Billionaire was a height of wealth that is difficult to imagine but to actually have someone write a book that included strategies to achieving that goal?  That seemed far fetched.  But I have to admit, Fridson has accomplished his book's audacious title and more.  I'm always up for a great book that provides useful information and logically say you aim for billion and fall at a few million, not bad, huh?

What are the strategies, you're wondering?  And more importantly, who does he profile?  Warren Buffett, John Kluge, Bill Gates and Laurence Tisch and others ascended to billionaire status because of a keen eye for "bargains".   Sir Richard Branson focuses on out managing the competition.  This book focuses on the methods, beliefs, and behaviors every businessperson must understand and emulate to reach the pinnacle of riches. A manual for success that can benefit every aspiring tycoon, it is a fascinating read for anyone intrigued by wealth and how it's gotten.

More importantly you should really add this to your bookshelf because it gives you insight into how and why people of wealth think about themselves and the world around them.  WHat this book definitely shows is that so many billionaires are fairly normal people who simply strategize with business like a game.  That's one of the traits by the wa, enjoying the art not the money making of gambling.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet love playing bridge and several others like the mechanics of figuring out odds and possibilities.  Use Fridson's book to also get an insight to your talents and how you can apply them to developing yourself and your entrepreneurial goals.

Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Book Review

I cried at the end of this book.  I admit it.  Okay, I'll also admit that I understand that  John D. Rockefeller, Sr.,  was complicated.  He was complicated in the areas that his wealth, estimated at 2012 figures at over $800 BILLION when he was alive, brought about in his effect on not simply the nation but the world.  Standard Oil at the turn of the century was similar to a nation within a nation having unparalleled control over the oil, gasoline, real estate and railroad system around the country.  Rockefeller was also ruthless in dealing with his competition.  Buying them out, squeezing them out, leveraging the world against them so they had no choice but to be absorbed into his system.  Understand though taht this all existed before regulation of businesses and business practices, in fact the anti-monopoly government cases started with Standard Oil.

So now you're saying to yourself how could I find myself emotionally moved by this man?  I found similarities to him in his childhood, he kept meticulous records on his every purchase and started a small business selling newspapers, eventually expanding it out into a large route around the city.  I did the same starting a newspaper business with a $5 loan from my mother (I had to sign a repayment contract), I was 7 then.  I used the money to buy comic books but I kept meticulous records about each purchase and the profit needs based on what comics were coming out weeks and months ahead of time (anyone remember Marvel Age comic?)  What also impressed me was his diligence to giving money away and trying to figure out how to do it wisely.  I look at my lifetime and consider that what I amass now I'll have to learn how to adroitly give away.  I've purposefully taken jobs at non-profits with massive annual budgets (100 million+) to small grassroots ($250k) to understand the needs and usage of monies.  Rockefeller funded Spelman College as well as a host of other schools across the South, circumventing Jim Crow because he felt that religiously all human beings were allowed education.  This lead to the creation of the University of Chicago, Rockefeller University and scores of other projects.  In fact he's considered the father of modern philanthropy eventually having to design a system that the mega-wealthy use now to give away money.

And in the end, I felt sorry for him.  Without our modern perspectives on wealth and business integrity he amassed the largest fortune in modern times, in America, ever.  But personally, to his friends and family and countless strangers he was a nice, thoughtful, polite, caring man.  The dichotomy is startling but the perspective buffered by the knowledge that he acts as a true example of ambition, ability, acumen must be tempered with maturity, perhaps even spirituality, to take upon the onus of responsibility, truly being the noblesse oblige, that he came to feel those more benefited than others must have.

Ron Chernow, the author does an outstanding job of bringing this complicated Titan to life and gives us a balanced portrait of him so that we understand him.  And in the understanding, can sympathize, see similarities and yes, even tear up because his eventual wisdom went through so much isolated evolution.


Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

The Big Idea by Donny Deutsch, Book Review

People regularly have a desire to create a business that they control and design.  The desire to no longer be under the control of an employer is universal but the ability and planning to do so isn't as common.  How do you graduate from being a hopeful to learning the tricks and tips to actually make your entrepreneurial dreams come true.  The 3 areas you'll need to have some understanding if not mastery of are Sales, Taxes and Legalities.  The Big Idea falls into Sales.  Pointedly it teaches you about marketing with direct tales from people who have been on Donny Deutsch's tv show.  The people range in age, race and gender so there's someone's tale in here for everyone and more importantly they give you their strategies for how they overcame lack of money, experience and customers.

DOnny Deutsch brings his years as the owner of an advertising firm to sort of round out what works and what doesn't work and more importantly why.  Some books focus on the successes and leave it there but this book goes deeply into why something worked, what didn't work and the discernment between the two.  As a business owner you're marked by two things, your knowledge and your network.  I personally have joined several business mastermind groups because their knowledge and networking abilities are far beyond my own.  A wise man readily admits how little he knows and engages the world with humility and ignorance.  Take the time to build your library, especially if you can't find a group just yet to join.  Your bookshelf is your mastermind group and will help you through building a business and evaluating what your next steps are.

Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/