Rothacker Reviews

T.S. Spivet, Field Notes and Notebooking

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a twelve-year old boy genius. He is a cartographer. He also dabbles in zoology, geology and entomology. T.S. as he is called, lives on a Montana ranch with his father Tecumseh Elijah, who is a rancher, his mother Dr. Clair, who is a coleopterist and Gracie, his sixteen-year old normal, average teenage sister. Verywell the dog rounds out the family. 

I first wrote about T.S. here at Rothacker Reviews a couple of years ago. Reif Larsen's The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet parallels Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as one of my most favorite works of fiction.

T.S. uses notebooks like Babe Ruth used baseball bats. Not only does T.S. map out territories he also maps novels, the flight of bats and how his father drinks whiskey. His extensive notebooking reminds one of Leonardo da Vinci with one exception: T.S. is more organized.

Page 3 of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet. Here T.S. shows us a map of where he lives, a diagram of his bedroom noting where he stores his notebooks and one of a sparrow's skeleton. He also explains his notebooking system.

Field Notes is a brand. Field notes is also a way of documenting stuff in the wild. My thoughts on both here. 

The most famous and popular part of the Field Notes brand is the 3-1/2" X 5-1/2" memo book. Although author Reif Larson has his own thoughts on how T.S. 'notebooks,' I envision the lad using the Field Notes memo books while out in the field. Then when he gets back home to his drafting table, he transcribes and expands upon his thoughts in the appropriate notebook from one of his three collections.

To me, T.S. Spivet is pure imagination. Like a brand, T.S. his approach to the world and his adventures make me feel a certain way: inspired to do stuff.

While T.S. is make believe, Field Notes are not. In my mind, the memo book, as I look at it through the eyes of a twelve-year old boy genius is a real life artifact that represents adventure, learning and clarification.

So, if you plan to read The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, pretend that T.S. whips out the Field Notes memo book from his back pocket to document stuff while in the middle of his adventures. I suspect that you too will be inspired to go out into the wild and do stuff too.

Need some more T.S. and Reif? I challenge you to find the screen depicting T.S.'s tools here.

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Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

The pulsating drumbeat that courses through Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In is equality for women in the workplace. Sitting on the other side of the forest listening to Sheryl's rhythm of reason however, that's not what I hear at first. I'm hearing an unbelievable opportunity to free and unleash production, effectiveness and innovation in the workplace!

Sheryl's book is going on its fourteenth printing and selling like mad. I think it's women reading the book and shouting out, "that's me, that's me, that's me!" But a lot of others, I hope, are buying and reading Lean In and saying, that's an opportunity, that's an opportunity, that's an opportunity!"

Observation: Listen, I know Sheryl comes from a well-to-do background that most of us only dream about. Get over it. She speaks the truth, the truth of what's going on out there; the truth of what most women are enduring in the workplace.

The opportunities that I feel are coming are more like a hurricane than a drumbeat. The vision I see is two 1972 Cutlass's sitting at a red light out in the desert. One has fat tires, is jacked up and breathes fire. The other looks like something your grandma might drive. But under the hood is 2013 tricked out, computerized technology. For Grandma to win the race she only has to step on the gas. And when she does, the muscle car gasps for breath while it eats her dust.

Many women today are your Grandma's 1972 Cutlass. They have what it takes. They need understanding, guidance and care from both women and men who are in a position to give it. They need to hear, "Suze, pound on that accelerator girl! We got your back. Let it out. Let the world see what you got!"

If the status-quo American business society today can get out of its own way and wake up to the fact there are millions of women, who if at least, are accorded the same opportunities as men, but on a more progressive note, are encouraged and guided,the productivity gained and innovation uncovered would reestablish America as the national business power she truly should be, and place all other nations soundly in the second paragraph. Who knows, we might even give Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan a run at their global educational power rankings.

Seth Godin, Marci Alboher and How to Matter

Special thanks to our good friend Denny Locascio of Impact Fitness in Tampa, Florida for turning us onto Seth's eight-minute talk here!

Seth talks about the importance of the stories we tell ourselves, how they're fused with memories of our past and how to matter to other people. How can we matter to others? By connecting people with a story they care about and one they'll tell others about.

Denny's timing in sending me the link to Seth's video this morning is uncanny. I'm in the process of reading Marci Alboher's book The Encore Career Handbook. I'd just written about how Gen-Y can go into espionage mode in order to enhance their career, by using Marci's book. But as I got up from my reading chair this morning, I grabbed the Encore book with the intention writing a little bit more.

Marci's chapter titled Back to School screams, just screams of the methodology I am attempting to etch out in Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness. Most people will not put to task and do the exploratory work described in the stories Marci weaves into this chapter. These most people, constitute the Sea of Sameness. The first component of Standing Out is to do this work.

So Marci's style of educating us through stories and the importance Seth places on stories compelled me this morning to tell you about both of them. Their stories matter to me and they'll matter to you.

I've been thinking long and hard on who The Encore Career Handbook might not pertain to. I've already mentioned how important it can be to younger folk and it's a no-brainer for those over fifty and considering something more meaningful to do in the encore years of their lives. That only leaves those who are approaching fifty. Let's think about that. Here's a guide that helps you prepare to enrich your encore years. Do you want to be like everyone else when you get older? Or do you want to Stand Out?

Feel like making a comment? Please join in on the conversation at our Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness Facebook Page!

Why can't we comment here Davo? Because one click to FB is easier than screwing around with the Captcha hassle issues.

 

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How to be an Explorer of the World

How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith

Does the idea of bringing value to another person's life intrigue you? Where do you get the stuff value is made of? Grade school? High School? College? Sure. 

Let's say you have a small bottle filled with marbles. Let's say a marble is the equivalent of a good deed. Let's say each time you do a good deed one marble is removed from the bottle. What happens when all of the marbles are gone? Do you run out of good deeds?

In order to give value, one must ingest the type of stuff value is made of. When marbles are taken out, new ones must go in. Conventional learning is a fine place to begin. School, seminar and websites provide knowledge that can be turned into value. But take a look around you. Isn't everyone trying to take their education and turn it into a value supplying machine? Sure. That's the world of work.

I don't know about you, but when I see sheep standing in line to walk off the cliff because the sheep in front of them are, I'm thinking twice before getting in that line. The key is to turbo charge and enhance your education. And you don't have to go to school to do it. Increase your value by providing something that no other person in the world can. How? By being an explorer of the world.

 If you take basic math in school and your job requires this knowledge to produce results, the outcome that you produce will be identical to everyone else who works in your field and who took the same math. Think sheep. Think cliff. Think splat. But if you go out and explore the world, download what she has to offer onto your internal hard drive, letting it permeate your existing education, knowledge and wisdom, then what comes out will most likely be unique to anything in the universe. 

In How to be an Explorer of the World, Keri Smith provides a creative medium that will help transfer what the world has to offer onto your own personal hard drive. 

Check out the following book photos:

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin

I participated in the Kickstarter campaign for Seth and his team. This is a picture of all the stuff that my donation included. That large book weighs twenty pounds and you can see by the ruler below how large it actually is. I'll probably review the book in the not so distant future but I just wanted to pass the word along on the book and show you these pictures.

Should you buy the book? Yes. I've already made that determination after reading about thirty pages. But here's another reason. I first began to read Seth's books in the late nineties. I've seen improvement in each book. Seth has sharpened his awareness, increased his resources and enhanced his writing skills (I have twenty pounds of proof of this). That's why I'll continue to buy Seth books, provided he's not writing on some uninteresting topic, for years to come.

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USF Humanities Institute:The Hillsborough River

The University of South Florida's Humanity Institute put together a schedule of events celebrating the Hillsborough River. I attended one of the events last night:  Dr. Kevin McCarthy, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Florida: “10 Little-known Facts About the Hillsborough River. My reason for writing today is not so much about Dr. McCarthy's talk as much as it is about the USF Humanities Institute's connection to the river, to the community and to me, a non-academic regular citizen with no commercial ties to USF or commerce involving the river.

It would be a total disservice to Dr. McCarthy however, if I didn't mention a couple of things first. I arrived early and spoke (but mostly listened) to Kevin and a couple of the attendees. It took me less than three minutes to decide that I had to have his book, Hillsborough River Guide. I later learned of his connection with Florida and what a prolific writer he is. It was impossible for this connection to not permeate his talk making it interesting and enjoyable. I recommend attending one of his talks if you get the chance and perusing the many books he's written. Although it wasn't like he was giving a talk at Florida State, he did a pretty decent job of keeping a lid on Gator Nation.

I believe that I represent a desired-type of attendee to a Humanities Institute event. I am not a student, researcher, professor or visiting scholar. I am not an Institute donor or sponsor. I am not related to the speaker or staff, nor am I a reporter. While attendance of these types of people is critical to the success of the Institute, I am just a member of the community - who is not a politician, museum employee, involved locally in the arts nor involved in charitable organizations looking to extend reach. I'm just a husband, dad and grandfather who is most intrigued by interdisciplinary human connection that is orchestrated by a great university bent on the enrichment of lives. (I'm not an alumni either:-)

From the Institute's director Dr. Elizabeth Bird to its assistant directior Liz Kicak to the staff to even
the bartender, I felt welcome. The other major felt sense that I experienced was one of caring. I spoke to Dr. Bird for a moment and watched Liz as she engaged in her role of support. It's perfectly clear that they care about the connection they are in pursuit of. 

The Hillsborough River is important to me because it symbolizes a sense of place. As we canoed down the river for the first time, I felt drawn into its history and needed to learn more. I was particularly interested in native Americans and the early settlers connection with the river. The folks at Canoe Escape where we rented our canoes, recommended reading River of the Golden Ibis. I wrote a little bit about it here. 

So my need to learn more about the Hillsborough River brought me to USF's Humanities Institute. And my need to stoke the fire of curiosity related to interdisciplinary human connection will keep me coming back.

How Children Succeed

How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. 

Paul Tough's book How Children Succeed is one that fits in well at all three of my blogs and the Standing Out Facebook page. I intend to write the review at Cultivating Awe, but for now I'd like to talk about two things. First, if you have children or are acquainted with parents or grandparents of children, Paul's book is a must read. Second, Paul's book is steeped in academic research and science. While this might give intellectuals a warm and fuzzy feeling, it's just not that important to me when it comes to understanding how this philosophy helps kids succeed*.

Why read? How Children Succeed guides us through how characteristics like perseverance, curiosity, self-control, grit, optimism and conscientiousness make a difference in young people's lives. That's why.

In regards to the research and science...if you were born on Mars and had just moved to Earth, the research would be of value. Or perhaps if you were just starting out in your first career it would be of value. Or if you are one of those old adults who after years of going through life on cruise control, just decided to tune in, it would be of value. I suppose if you are an academic contrarian it would be of value as well.

I've read thousands of books. Most are non-fiction and most deal either directly or indirectly with people's success. You'd be hard pressed to find even one of those books that didn't talk about a successful individual having perseverance. Same for self-control, optimism and grit, although grit would mostly fall under perseverance. I simply do not need the results of scientific investigation to tell me the how and why of Steve Job's success. Or if you've gone through life paying even the slightest bit of attention to, well, life, Paul's work here translates to not-so-common, common sense. I just don't have to dive into reams of scientific research to know how important the characteristic of curiosity is to the young adult bent on succeeding in business and life.

I love the tone that Paul Tough sets in this book. It's natural and humanistic which for me, duct tapes the content to my conscious...think Heath Bros.

*I  very much appreciate Paul's diligence in including the research and actually find some of it most fascinating.

How Children Succeed

Where Are You Going?

I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road and I asked him "tell me where are you going...?

He looked at me and said, "I'm tired man. I've been walking for two hundred thirty five years. It started with the Revolution, the one in 1812, the Civil one - which wasn't, a Spanish one, a WW I one, a WW II one, one in Korea, a Vietnam one, one in the Persian Gulf, an Iraq one and the one in Afghanistan."

He let out a breath and said, "You know man, we've fought hard to keep this great country free and we're still fighting and we'll always fight with those from foreign shores who threaten our way of life. But I'm tired man, I'm tired of the fighting that's goin' on inside our borders. I'm talkin' bout domestic violence man. It's gotta stop man."

I asked him, "how can we do that brother?"

He said, "You know, there's all kind of domestic violence man. But if you're askin' me, I think it starts by respecting our mothers. If we do, then as we grow we'll learn to respect women. The more a boy sees a man respect a woman, the more he'll respect women. When you start to think about what women go through...ah man, don't even get me started goin' down that road. Women are to be respected. My dad taught me that and now I'm tellin' you."

"Where are you going," I asked.

He lowered his cowboy hat and said, "I'm walkin' over there to that meadow. I'm gonna kick back, close my eyes and imagine Jimi Hendrix kick out the Star Spangled Banner and then I'm gonna thank God that I live in America and I'm gonna thank Him for my brothers-n-sisters who are overseas fightin' for us. Then man, I'm gonna go home and hug my mom and then I'm gonna thank God for my mom."

He started off and then turned back, "where are you going brother?"

"You know man, I'm gonna just hang out here a bit. I'm gonna thank God for all three of my girls and then I'm gonna thank Him for those on American soil who are fighting the war against domestic violence."

 

 

How to be Alone

From filmmaker Andrea Dorfman, artist Tanya Davis writes and performs this...

These two lines leapt out at me:

"...if you're happy in you head then solitude is blessed, alone is ok."

"...if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it."

Are you neglecting your art today?

Change by Design

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO authored a book in 2009, titled Change by Design. Today it ranks number five at Amazon under the category Organizational Change. Tim writes:

This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a blueprint for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking - an approach for creative problem solving - into all facets of their organizations, products or services to discover new alternatives for business and society as a whole.

The high ranking at Amazon is not because a bunch of leaders who want to be creative rushed out to buy Tim's book - even though Tim clearly communicates the strategies and business reasons behind engaging design thinking, c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e-s in CEO and leader language. Rather the high ranking is because those who work for these leaders are desperately in search of - as in crawling across the hot desert floor in search of a tall, cool glass of water - other leaders who get it, other companies that are doing it and other ways to operate a company better.

If you're a CEO / leader and the word change begins to constrict the little fellers in your groin's environment, relax. You don't have to embrace creative problem solving to change your entire company. Learn about it, become familiar with it and change one outdated personal business practice. Once you've gotten your arms and mind around design thinking and have effected a positive personal outcome, you will be encouraged and excited to use it once again. For design thinking to be effective in your company, it must become a mindset in which you truly believe in.

The cold reality of the situation is that if you're a CEO / leader now and are not already tuned into design thinking, you will never will. Your best bet is to step down from CEO and become a Wal-Mart greeter for your company. The only difference is you'll have the wealth and knowledge of your typical WM greeter, but you'll get to actually use it because you will remain on with your company in an advisory capacity. (Wal-Mart shuns the depth-less pool of knowledge and resources contained in their greeter's hearts and minds).

Could you possibly imagine the courage and incredible self-knowledge of a CEO who understands that he doesn't have the capacity to embrace design thinking, but cares enough about his company to turn the reigns over to someone who does and remain on to help?

The cold reality of the situation is that this person doesn't exist. And this leads back to my number one recommendation for reading Tim's work: Learn to identify CEO's and companies who embrace design thinking. Learn from them. Work for them.

Here's another reason for reading Change by Design: Use it as a compass to help navigate your own road. Read the book looking through the window of your own potential development.