Summer 2021 Vacation Reading

Photo by Dan Dumitriu on Unsplash

Greetings -

I hope you, your families and friends are staying safe and enjoying the start of the summer months! Our family is doing well; school has wrapped up for our daughter and we collectively enjoyed a lovely staycation this past week, filling our days visiting with family and friends, reading, walking and hiking in a very beautiful and sunny start to summer in the Bay Area.

As I resume writing, I thought it might be nice to lead off with a recap of the great books I read over my break. One has inspired me to re-think this newsletter and its timing. So for the summer months. I am going to experiment with a twice monthly publication cycle and see how I like it. Of course, I welcome your comments and thoughts on this and any other aspect of the newsletter.

I am also including a link to the Unlabeled Leadership podcast interview I gave re: aspects and examples of leadership just prior to going on vacation. It's relatively short, audio only and for you fans of NPR's This American Life, the Unlabeled Leadership approach is modeled on that format. You can find it here: Unlabeled Leadership, May 27, 2021, 062: Kevin Jordan Discovers Gifts in Situations

I will be back in two weeks with our regularly scheduled content and programming.

As always, happy reading and listening!

Be well and take good care of your families and community,
-kj

"Simplify, slow down, be kind. And don't forget to have art in your life -- music, paintings, theater, dance and sunsets." - Eric Carle

[When asked, why do you write essays?]: "To change my own mind. I try to create a new vocabulary or terrain for myself, so that I open out — I always think of the Dutch claiming land from the sea — or open up something that would have been closed to me before. That’s the point and the pleasure of it. I continuously scrutinize my own thinking. I write something and think, How do I know that that’s true? If I wrote what I thought I knew from the outset, then I wouldn’t be learning anything new." - Marilynne Robinson, The Paris Review Interviews: Volume IV

"Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing someone to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome." - James Clear

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

by Adam Grant

"Think Again is a book about the benefit of doubt, and about how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong. Evidence has shown that creative geniuses are not attached to one identity, but constantly willing to rethink their stances and that leaders who admit they don't know something and seek critical feedback lead more productive and innovative teams...In the end, learning to rethink may be the secret skill to give you the edge in a world changing faster than ever." [I intentionally read this book in tandem with The Culture Code (below) as I suspected they (and they did!) would reinforce each other and collectively provide an array of great ideas re: culture, teams, approaches to perspectives, etc.]

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups
by Daniel Coyle
"An essential book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides readers with a toolkit for building a cohesive, innovative culture."

Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing
by Pete Davis
"A profoundly inspiring and transformative argument that purposeful commitment can be a powerful force in our age of restlessness and indecision." [I posted his 2018 Harvard commencement speech in a past newsletter. For folks more into the brevity thing and discreet commitments :), here it is again: https://petedavis.org/talks/]

Your Music and People: creative and considerate fame
by Derek Sivers
"A philosophy of getting your work to the world by being creative, considerate, resourceful, and connected." [An excellent sliver of a book - clear, concise and cogent, with a universal message as well as specific insights into the world of music.]

The Likeness: Dublin Murder Squad #2
by Tana French
"Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What’s more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison – the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie’s real identity, Cassie’s old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer out of hiding to finish the job."

New and Selected Poems, Volume One
by Mary Oliver
"Features previously published and new poems that explore the natural world and how it is connected to human beings and spirituality."