45. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 - Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Overall ... this was a good book. The authors first talk about emotional intelligence ("EQ"): the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions and to be aware of others' emotions. An interesting piece of information about the "science side" of EQ is that our brains are hard-wired to give emotions the upper hand (over logic):

"[E]verything you see, smell, hear, taste and touch travels through your body in the form of electric signals. The signals pass from cell to cell until they reach their ultimate destination, your brain. They enter your brain at the base near the spinal cord, but must travel to your frontal lobe ... before reaching the place where rational, logical thinking takes place. The trouble is, they pass through your limbic system along the way - the place where emotions are produced. This journey ensures you experience things emotionally before your reason can kick into gear."

Also, according to the authors, IQ (intelligence quotient) is fixed at birth, absent a traumatic event like a brain injury. "Intelligence is your ability to learn, and is the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. EQ, on the other hand, is a flexible skill that can be learned."

The bulk of this book sets forth strategies on increasing your EQ based on four key EQ skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Like so many other books, this one was very cutesy-story-heavy (if you've been keeping up with my blog, I'm clearly not a fan of that!). And maybe I've been reading too much, but I really didn't think it said anything new. [Also - how does the Dalai Lama manage to write the forward for every book that deals with emotional intelligence?!]

If you want to read something about emotional intelligence I'd recommend Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman.

44. The Five Love Languages: Singles Edition - Gary Chapman

I'd heard a lot about this book a few years ago - and I'm glad I finally read it. The premise behind it is that people are best able to speak and understand emotional love when it is expressed through one of five "languages": quality time; words of affirmation; receiving gifts; acts of service; or physical touch. Chapman argues that many of us may be able to speak and understand several of these, but that everyone has a primary or "native" language in which we are most comfortable expressing and receiving love. Chapman writes from a Christian perspective and I like his use of passages from the Bible in support of his arguments.

The original book is supposedly more geared towards married couples; this one (the "singles edition") explains how understanding these love languages can be helpful while dating, and also in relationships within your family, among your friends, and at work.

This book was incredibly anecdote-heavy, but the core message was great. Although Chapman doesn't talk much about gender differences, I believe that they play a huge role as well ...that's why Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus remains one of my all-time favorite books! This book has my recommendation - but skim through the anecdotes, they get mushy and all sound the same after a while.

43. Rich Woman: A Book on Investing for Women - Because I Hate Being Told What to Do! - Kim Kiyosaki

Kim Kiyosaki applies the same principles as her husband, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, in this book that is geared towards women. She gives financial advice to women who want to be financially independent - "without depending on a man, family, company, or government to take care of them."

Although her strategies are pretty duplicative of her husband's (see previous blog post) I appreciated reading this book because it spoke directly to concerns that I and (I'm sure) a lot of women may have about investing: that we're not "smart enough"; don't have the financial know-how; are risk-averse (which can actually be a good thing), etc. She also presents a lot of great ideas about what to invest in, but most of her advice centers around real estate, where she supposedly made her millions.

The plot of this book centers around Kiyosaki sharing financial advice with her group of girlfriends. Sometimes the girl talk gets a bit distracting, but the overall message was great and it was certainly much more interesting than a generic "how-to" book.

42. Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! - Robert Kiyosaki

I understand why everyone kept telling me to read this book! This seems to be a great lesson on - as the author says - how to make your money work for you rather than you always working for your money. The title comes from Kiyosaki's two dads - one was his incredibly intelligent biological dad who was a superintendent of education and died broke; the other was his best friend's dad who dropped out of school when he was 13 and ultimately became one of the wealthiest men in Hawaii. Kiyosaki uses the stories of these two men and their differing financial strategies to show how to achieve financial success.

One thing that really stood out to me was the way Kiyosaki defined assets and liabilities. So many people say that "your home is your greatest asset" - but per Kiyosaki, nothing is an asset unless it is putting money into your pocket.

According to the author, wealth is measured as the number of days the income from your assets will sustain you, and financial independence is achieved when your monthly income from assets exceeds your monthly expenses.

I'm hesitant to use this book as my financial roadmap, however, because it definitely does have its critics (one real estate investor says that Kiyosaki is more of a salesman than a real estate investor - which, even if true, is alright with me. I don't think he claims to be solely a real estate investor - he seems pretty diversified!). But this book has its good pieces of information that I definitely plan to put to use.

*Note: every investor I've talked to swears this guy is a fraud! How disappointing - after I read it, I was all inspired to go out and buy some investment properties. Check out John T. Reed's critique of Kiyosaki here.

41. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News - Bernard Goldberg

Bernard Goldberg presents an ... interesting ... argument for the mainstream media's liberal bias. Goldberg had some pretty good support for this argument - i.e. 50% of journalists identify with being Democrats, while only 4% identify with being Republicans. But my question is ... why are there more Democratic journalists? Are Republicans ... discriminated against in the journalism industry?

Even if he does present a good amount of support for this argument - some "support" left me a bit confused. For example, he has a whole chapter on "the network color bar" - explaining why so many "victims" on network news are blond-haired and blue-eyed. Goldberg says, "We know who our viewers are. We know what they look like. And we know that they would be drawn more to stories about homeless people who looked just like their mothers and fathers and sons and daughters than homeless people who looked like, well, homeless people." He says that if journalists win sympathy for "them" ("people who look like our next door neighbors"), then they had a chance of winning sympathy for the less sympathetic homeless - which might translate into a new homeless shelter. But if this is true - why is something that is classified as a "liberal bias"?? Are liberals the only people who would want to do something to garner support for something like a new homeless shelter?

In my opinion, Goldberg tries to appeal to conservative emotion more than present hardcore facts. An interesting book - but I'm not convinced. Don't waste your time.

40. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete - William C. Rhoden

Rhoden presents a very persuasive argument that although integration was a major step forward in the history of the black athlete, it brought with it a lot of problems: "a destructive power dynamic between black talent and white ownership; a chronic psychological burden for black athletes who constantly had to prove their worth; disconnection of the athlete from his or her community; and the emergence of the apolitical black athlete, who had to be careful about what he or she said or stood for, so as not to offend white paymasters."
Rhoden clearly knows his stuff, and gives a lot of really interesting background and anecdotes. A lot of things I knew (i.e. the disproportionate number of black athletes and white coaches/owners); but some things I maybe should have known and hadn't realized (i.e. how Michael Jordan was incredibly apolitical and almost refused to talk about any race issues in public).
To be honest, I thought that first half of this book, the historical context, was a bit dry - some was important to know, but still a bit dry. It was interesting, though, to learn that three of the greatest landmarks of African American sports history took place outside of the U.S. - Tom Molineaux fought for the boxing championship in England; Jack Johnson won the championship in Australia; and Jackie Robinson integrated baseball in Canada. I also really liked learning more about Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays - according to Rhoden, Robinson had to be apolitical, non-controversial, and had to hold down his temper since he was the first (hmmm .. Obama?); but Willie Mays had much more of a swagger and a style that became typical of a lot of black athletes.
Also, I thought this was cute - a young girl at an elementary school in NY asked Rhoden, "Who was the first white player to integrate the NBA?" Ha!
This is a great book for anyone to read - I especially think all black athletes should read it.

39. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

This is a book by Azar Nafisi, an Iranian professor, about her experiences teaching in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Much of the book centers around the class on "forbidden Western classics" (The Great Gatsby; Lolita; etc.) that Nafisi teaches to a small group of female Iranian students. The author very eloquently weaves in themes from the books that her class reads with the changing Iranian culture and also with what is going on in their personal lives. The book is divided into four sections - each section dealing with a different time period and having a different theme. My favorite section, Gatsby, is set right as the revolution is starting. Nafisi compares the "American dream" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby with the dream of the Iranian Revolution, and how this Iranian "dream" changed the lives of women in Iran. When one of her students gets really upset about the book because he says it condones adultery, they decide to hold a "trial" in their class - and they prosecute the book! I like Nafisi's conclusion ...

"What we in Iran had in common with Fitzgerald was this dream that became our obsession and took over our reality, this terrible, beautiful dream, impossible in its actualization, for which any amount of violence might be justified or forgiven."

When Nafisi returns to Iran years later after the revolution, she asks, "Who will pay for the snapshots of the murdered and the executed that we hid in our shoes and closets as we moved on to other things? ... Tell me, Mr. Bahri - or, to use that odd expression of Gatsby's, Tell me, old sport - what shall we do with all these corpses on our hands?"

This was a great book - but a bit slow for my taste. There were some parts that seemed to go on for longer than they needed to. But overall, it shared a lot that I didn't know about Iranian culture (despite all the Persian friends I have - shame on me!) and was a beautifully written story.