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Hardcover
114 pages
ISBN 9781933060026 Published Sept. 2005
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Posted Nov. 16, 2010 2:54 p.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
Maybe you don't really know. You feel stuck in a rut.
Maybe, like I did, you just want to get away.
You are thinking, "Anywhere but here." I've been there.
Or maybe you think you've got your journey perfectly mapped out. But seemingly impassable roadbloacks cause you to crash and burn.
Those words come from Sam Bracken and his distinctive new book, My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change. Bracken's book is part biography and part personal development guide.
It begins as a hard-to-stomach story of dysfunctional childhood—a flurry of strange men, bad influences and, beginning at age 9, drug and alcohol abuse. But that question, "Where do you want to go," was always burning inside him, and Sam Bracken somehow escaped that life of abuse, neglect and abandonment. After collapsing during track practice after a night of partying when he was only 13, Bracken decided he didn't want to be like the rest of his family, and his story quickly becomes one of a different kind of struggle—one of hope, pain and progress. And that story becomes the journey at the heart of My Orange Duffel Bag.
And on that journey, Sam Bracken learned some very valuable lessons—lessons he shares in the second, more instructive part of the book. He dubs them the 7 Rules for the Road, summing each of them up with single words: Desire, Awareness, Meaning, Choice, Love, Change, and Gratitude.
As you can tell from the photos here, the design of the book is truly unique. The only book I can think of that's even comparable is Kevin Carroll's Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. And the writing is singular as well. It's most lively and engaging when he's in teaching mode, relating the lessons he learned on his journey, and he is lyrical, almost poetic, while relating his own story. Summing up entire years with a sentence or two (and through the great design of the book, sometimes with one striking word), he seems almost disconnected from the words on the page.
You can understand why that is as you move through the book—he is no longer the person he describes in the early part of the book. He is no longer the victim of circumstance he was before he was old enough to make the decision to get out. And though it greatly shaped who he is, Sam Bracken is no longer the teenager "crawling in the dirt and gravel" after collapsing at track practice. He is the man who got past that, the Brian Piccalo Award winning football player from Georia Tech, and now an executive at FranklinCovey.
Ironically, the abused boy, once homeless and in special education classes, now teaches about excellence, leadership, time management and change.
The teen who feared he'd never escaped Las Vegas now flies around the world for his job.
And the young man who never knew his father and whose mother abandoned him has been blessed with his own great family.
So, no matter where you want to go, know that you can get there. And if you ever doubt that, you can turn to Sam Bracken and his Orange Duffel Bag.
Butterfly in the Sky...
Posted Aug. 28, 2009 5:01 a.m. by dylan
In Personal Development - 800 CEO Read Blog
When Geordi La Forge left his career as helmsman and chief engineer of the starship Enterprise , he found a new calling—as a champion of literacy to Earth's children. Known to us as LeVar Burton, he took the helm of Reading Rainbow in 1983. (I know the television sequence of events runs backwards here, The Next Generation not premiering until 1987 and all, but the man was a chief engineer... I'm sure he found some ripple in the fabric of space-time to exploit. But you don't have to take my word for it. Okay, yeah, you do.)
But, after 26 years on the air, nobody is putting up the cash to renew Reading Rainbow's broadcasting rights (NPR story here), leaving a void in the world of peer-reviewed children's literature. Having been on the air since before I was literate, I've taken it for granted that Reading Rainbow would always be around. Along with Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street—which, by the way, are the only two children's series that ran for longer on PBS—Reading Rainbow was an integral part of my generation's upbringing—being raised on television as we were. We would watch it at home and in school, and it was not an uncommon occurrence for everyone in a room to spontaneously break out in the theme-song, which everyone knew. Butterfly in the sky... Not since 3-2-1 Contact had a song took such a hold of our developing minds.
So, in remembrance of a fine show with a noble purpose, let's join together in song one last time. I can go anywhere! And, Oh, the Places You'll Go! (More on that below.)
We try to do our small part to support children's books here as well. Jack and Todd chose Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! as one of The 100 best Business Books of All Time, and we recommended others in a sidebar of the book called Business Books for Kids of All Ages. I've excerpted that below.
Business Books for Kids of All Ages BY REBECCA SCHLEI HARTMAN
Sometimes to think outside the box you have to draw outside the lines. Draw inspiration, that is, from unlikely sources. “All grown-ups were children first,” wrote Antoine De Saint-Exupéry. Whether it’s time to reevaluate, rejuvenate, or simply escape the demands of our busy lives, we recommend returning to the stories and lessons that were most impressive to us as children. The truths you’ll find there are timeless. Here are a few stories in which we find inspiration again and again.
Le petit prince, or The Little Prince, is Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella about a small, extraterrestrial boy who changes a grown man’s life by reminding him of simple truths too often forgotten with age: Children learn by asking questions. Flowers bloom when they are nurtured. Work is futile when it lacks purpose. You must experience the world to appreciate it. There is still time to make friends. And, perhaps most profoundly, On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur, l’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux—”One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes” (63). The Little Prince will put you in a renewed frame of mind; you might even look up at the stars tonight.
Based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy, Jon J. Muth's The Three Questions follows a small boy, Nikolai, as he searches for answers to three questions: “When is the best time to do things?” “Who is the most important one?” and “What is the right thing to do?” As Nikolai visits his animal friends and helps a few in need, he learns—with a little help from an old turtle named Leo—that he already possesses the answers. Jon J. Muth’s concise prose and serene watercolors make The Three Questions a contemplative read for children and adults alike.
Kevin Carroll’s Rules of the Red Rubber Ball is a creative little book with a big message for people of all ages: no matter what you do, pursue that which makes you most happy…and pursue it with abandon. For the young Carroll growing up on the streets of Philadelphia, the playground was his refuge and passion. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball is both his remarkable story of chasing that red rubber ball for the rest of his life, and also a powerful charge to dream big, take chances, and make time for play in everything you do.
In Walk On! A Guide for Babies of All Ages, Marla Frazee uses Baby’s experience of learning to walk as a metaphor for knowing how to get out of a rut, take chances, overcome obstacles, and determine who and what to trust. It’s the earliest “try, try again” experience we have as humans. “See how different everything looks from here?” Walk On! reminds us that sometimes you have to stand on your own two feet to find a new perspective on the world.
Get Back In The Box - It's OK To Have Fun
Posted Aug. 3, 2006 3:55 p.m. by todd-sattersten
In Innovation - 800 CEO Read Blog
This is the fourth in a series on Doug Rushkoff's Get Back In The Box.
The final theme I want to discuss is the importance Rushhoff puts on play. He says Apple is the company it is because Jobs let people have fun. He says companies do all sorts of things to make it difficult for their employees to play -- incentive bonus structures, short-term consultancies, and "business as war" mentalities.
That's right: the driving force behind our new renaissance society is play.
Sure, groups can organize around a variety of things: fear, patriotism, even hatred. But these are more suitable for armies than cultures. They require blind allegiance to a single idea on the commands of a leader, and are compromised by feedback or cross talk. They can't handle complexity, freedom, or natural selection. And because they tend not to be fun, they require enforcement. That means additional resources must be spent just maintaining cohesion, which eventually leads the whole enterprise towards diminishing returns
Play, on the other hand, allows for engagement on an entirely more voluntary and complex level. Participants in a successful brand culture are not cajoled or coerced into membership, but simply invited. Even the spread of media viruses--the word of mouth promoting products and ideas through culture--is a form of play. The reward, as in a game of "telephone," is seeing what the whole collective has wrought. We pass on tidbits of social currency because it's fun. The mediaspace becomes a kind of play space, where the object of the game is to get the most Web "hits" for one's homemade animated video, or to see if a media prank can get coverage on the national news.
In a renaissance society driven by the need to forge connections, play is the ultimate system for social currency. It's a way to try on new roles without committing to them for life. It's a way to test strategies of engagement without being defined by them forever. It's a way to rise above the seemingly high stakes of almost any situation and see it as the game probably is. It's a way to make one's enterprise a form of social currency from the beginning, and to guarantee a collaborative, playful, and altogether more productive path toward continual innovation.
Think Red Rubber Ball.
Todd's Best of 2005
Posted Dec. 23, 2005 4:28 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog
It has been an incredible year. I know it sounds like a big echo here on the blog, but we are so happy and want to thank everyone who has help make this year such a success. Like the awards shows, there are too many names to list. We went to thank all of the individual customers, publishers, authors, agents, public relations folks, speakers bureaus, distributors, corporations, and universities that have been a part of everything we have accomplished this year.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You'll find my many best of's below:
Best Things That Have Happened:
1. The arrival of my second son
2. Joining 800-CEO-READ full-time. I love my job and hope the fun we are having is showing through.
3. More Space
4. Bringing Kate onboard
Tied 5. Changethis and inBubbleWrap
Best Books I Have Seen:
I still stand by my two Must Reads - A Whole New Mind and Then We Set His Hair on Fire...
I really enjoyed Rules of the Red Rubber Ball and Radical Careering because they took the normal black & white of business books and gave us a great message in Technicolor.
Two books I missed from prior years - Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices and The Republic of Tea (out of print); both are brilliant - take the time and go read them.
Best Blog Posts We Have Done:
What's In A Name? (1/17/05)
Design Thinking Books (2/28/05)
The Last Personal Finance Book You'll Need (3/23/05)
Moving Pictures for Business People (3/24/05)
A Whole New Summary (of A Whole New Mind) (3/25/05)
Democratizing Innovation: This Book Needs More Love (5/25/05)
800-CEO-READ and ChangeThis (5/26/05)
Reading The Future (6/8/05)
Unwritten Rules of Management B2.0 article (6/23/05) and where to get it (11/04/05)
Examples from Abroad (7/18/05)
Tom's Make Your Own Magazine Karma (10/4/05)
100 Day Projects (10/5/05)
Kevin Caroll's Play List (10/27/05)
Paul Brown's Tribute to Peter Drucker (11/16/05)
Great Ideas Interview with Simon Wilder (12/1/05)
Best Excerpts We Have Run:
Just go read one - The Battle The Soul of Capitalism by John Bogle
Best Audio We Have Recorded:
It would be a tie between the interview with Kevin Carroll and The Church of The Customer Remix.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We'll see you next year!
Reminiscing about 2005 (from August on) and business thoughts
Posted Dec. 21, 2005 6:00 a.m. by kate
In Current Events - 800 CEO Read Blog
Here we are, a few days from Santa's visit and 1.5 weeks away from ringing in 2006. As promised by Todd earlier this week, here is my Best of 2005.
Let's start with the beginning -- or at least, my beginning here at 8cr. I started in early August and have since learned a lot (don't tell Jack and Todd!).
As I imagine is true for everyone, a lot has gone on in the past 4+ months. Some of the highlights include:
- LAUNCH: Our launching of inBubbleWrap -- a new "business thought" giveaway site. It started with an inspiration, turned into an idea, and eventually become reality. I just wish I could legally enter contests, especially this contest. Okay. I still can't enter legally -- luckily, you can.
- TAKEOVER: Another major event of our year is taking over ChangeThis. This was something I was excited about even when interviewing with Jack, Todd and Sally. I love the idea behind ChangeThis -- the idea of ideas manifesting and then turning them into manifestos for the world to see. Here are a few of my favorite manifestos (from August through now):
- Speak Softly -- Ira re-defines humbleness as an important virtue and encourages people to become more humble
- The Creative Generalist -- I found the message in this manifesto to be unique because lately (at least in my lifetime) it seems that people are trained, taught and begin to have what I will call "tunnel-think". We're all specialists of some sort -- brain surgeons, early-childhood development teachers, history of Africa professors, marketing majors, etc., etc. There's so much to know that we've started to concentrate on each slice of the pie rather than the pie as a whole. Yes, there is an emphasis on looking at the big picture but perhaps, we need to be trained to look at the bigger picture. In his manifesto, Steve is basically explaining that we need to return to thinking broadly.
- PODCAST: Each month we try to do a few podcasts which are typically audio book excerpts or interviews with interesting people. My favorite two podcasts:
- Todd's interview with Kevin Carroll (author of Rules of the Red Rubber Ball). It's a Q&A session about finding your red rubber ball -- i.e. your passion. The book is great, quick, and easy read.
- A clip from Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The idea, alone, is very captivating.
- READ: Two of my favorite books from 2005 are Radical Careering and Let My People Go Surfing. The first being a cutting-edge designed book on jumpstarting your career and life (for a preview, check out Sally's manifesto) and the latter written by Yvon Chouinard on the beginnings of Patagonia. Personally, I love the adventure stories as they remind me of my week in Switzerland (but that's another story).
I'll stop there. What have been your favorite books, manifestos, podcasts, excerpts and/or _______ of 2005?
