I just finished reading Guy Kawasaki’s new book called Reality Check. It’s officially the longest book that I’ve read that I enjoyed. My only advice to Guy is that in the future I think he needs to hire a hatchet editor to streamline his content. The book is 474 pages long. I skimmed through several sections. But within those 474 pages is some rich advice that really challenged my thinking in several areas.
Here are some examples of the wisdom contained within the book:
- “It’s hard to stay motivated and excited about executing crap. It’s easy if you’re changing the world. So if you and your team are having a hard time executing, maybe you’re working on the wrong thing.”
- “The only thing that’s worse than asking for too much help from a person who’s unwilling to give it is to ask for too little help from a person who is willing to give it. So ask. And keep asking.”
- “If you are starting a new church, do you really need a $100,000 multimedia audiovisual system? Or just a great message from the pulpit?” (Didn’t expect to find that question in a business book. It’s a valid question.)
- “Create great products that make segments of people very happy. And fear not if these products make other segments unhappy. The worst case is to incite no passionate reactions at all, and that happens when companies try to make everyone happy.”
- “Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators.”
- “You should not try to bludgeon them into becoming a customer. My recommendation is that you enable people to test-drive your product or service in order to make their own decision.”
- “The problem with most presentations is that people try to include too much… What is the core message?”
- “If you create a great product or service, you may not be able to stop a community from forming even if you tried.”
- “The best people are seeking great jobs, and great jobs usually involve great challenges.”
- “Tradition holds that the opposite of excessive ego is humility, when in fact having too little ego is just as dangerous and unproductive as having too much.”
- “At the very top of the list of things that make people feel happy and fulfilled is doing work that you find challenging and deeply meaningful with colleagues whom you respect and care for.”
- “One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to accept the known and resist the unknown.”
- “Life is too short to deal with assholes.”
If you are unfamilar with Guy’s work, you can learn a little more about him here or by following his blog. He gained fame for evangelizing the Mac. More recently, he launched Alltop, where, among other things, you can keep up with what’s happening in churches.
Great post. Love number 13. Seriously this is great stuff for those of us who are learning from Newspring. There are some things we need to be awesome at before we worry about the 100000 sound system. Wow every one of these hit home with me. Thanks Tony.
I’m going to have to grab this book. Tony, you pulled out some really great lines, I’m especially happy to read about 1, 9 and 13. Challenge me please.
Sounds like a good read. Thanks for putting great examples from the book in the post. Randy Bryan is right — #13 is priceless.
I’m want to work on this one with a future book series:
“If you create a great product or service, you may not be able to stop a community from forming even if you tried.”
Thanks for mining the wisdom of Guy’s new book. Very helpful.
I also found fascinating your comments on the book’s length.
“It’s officially the longest book that I’ve read that I enjoyed.”
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about long form learning vs. short form learning. Your comment gives me more to ruminate on.
I did wonder at the long form Kawasaki choose given the shorter books he’s written in the past. Why such a long book now? As you suggest couldn’t the book have been edited down a lot?
Keep creating…it freaks people out,
Mike
Some great nuggets of wisdom extracted out of 400+ page book. Looking forward for mine to arrive. I am sure there is much information contained in the book is common sense, but I also bet there is some that may spark some new thoughts.
Just my 2 cents.
Apolinaras Sinkevicius
Guy Kawasaki has mastered the art of simplicity.
Its been said that anything groundbreaking has already be created or discovered it’s just a matter of repackaging it.
Guy has the eloquence of shiny wrapping paper and a giant gold bow.
Thanks for these quotes. We’re looking at launching a bunch of new projects to help with Rapidly Reproducing Churches in Europe and I’ve just posted a bunch of these quotes to our working group.