Books Archives - The Blog of Brent Crowley

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade Summary

Pre-suasion How To Build Trust When You Have None Undertake a small trusting activity. Robert references a tactic that was used by a fire alarm salesperson named Jim. Jim would purposefully ‘screw up’ when delivering his sales pitch. The pitch included a test that the homeowners would need to take. During the test, Jim would slap his forehead and announced that he forgot a crucial bit of information—the accompanying book. He requested that the owners stay and do the test while he let himself in and out of the house to retrieve the book. Most complied in this small display …

The Practice: Shipping Creative Work Summary Sketchnote

by Brent

A fan of Seth’s and looking for the skinny before pulling the trigger? I’ve got you covered in this summary of Seth Godin’s, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work. This post honours the content with limited commentary and opinion. I do, however, make links to other texts throughout the summary. To help consolidate my understanding, I like to draw sketchnotes that serve as shortcuts to the main ideas. You can find the completed sketchnote at the end of the post. This book is geared towards creatives who are either starving or selling out. Seth reminds us that a practice is merely …

Think and Grow Rich Summary Sketchnote

by Brent

This Think and Grow Rich summary sketchnote utilised the notes of the Readitfor.me service. I’ve attempted to synthesise Hill’s main points with other content I’ve come across in recent times. Included in each section are links to this other high-performers and some questions that you can ask yourself. 1. Desire: How to Create The Desire to Change Desire. It can be a little dirty word at times. Often associated with craving and bad intentions. But to start any kind of change from within, one must have compelling reasons to change. This boils down to desire. In Personal Power II, Tony …

Made To Stick Summary Sketchnote To Exponentially Better Your Storytelling

by Brent

Ever told a story that had a lingering… … ending? You just kind of let it hang out there. Or maybe it was one of those monotone under-dramatic pieces that better suited to evening sleep routines. Well, Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick summary sets out to counter this via their SUCCES principles. SUCCES is an acronym that stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. Remember this acronym and you’ll have success when writing or telling your next story. Let’s dive straight into the first principle. Keep Your Story Simple Stupid You’re probably familiar with the old …

Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It Summary Sketchnote

by Brent

Keen to get the skinny on Richard Koch’s latest book that aims to chart a map of success? Below I’ve listed each of the 9 landmarks that he discovered while analysing 20 key historical figures and made some brief comments on each. So let’s get started with the Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It Summary. The Importance of Self Belief Koch defines self-belief as “defining self as special and important.” I make comparisons here to self-worth. Koch suggests that self-belief has an element of destiny to it. I regard this as self-efficacy. In other words, the belief in oneself …

B.J. Novak Sketchnote from Tools of Titans

by Brent

BJ Novak is a former writer of the American Office show. He is also the author of the One More Thing short story series. On the podcast he spoke about a list app called li.st. Googling has told me that it was rebranded to Kiyo, but I’m not having much love with it here in Australia. How To Use Systems To Push Through Fear Of Failure I’m going to make a rhyming link with Novak and Evacuation. Evacuation means to abandon or leave a situation and that’s what Novak did after his first standup appearance which he said was terrible. …

Sophia Amoruso Sketchnote from Tools of Titans

by Brent

Sophia has humble beginnings. She was a thrift shopper back in the early 2000s and flipped them online on eBay. She grabbed a copy of eBay for Dummies and got to work. The two most defining factors that led to the success were the name of the item and the image. So copywriting and knowing how to take a good photo. Comically, she started commenting on the feedback of her purchasers that she was starting nastygal.com, which eBay frowned upon. You don’t want people in your community sending traffic away from your marketplace. So she was banned. This leads us …

Peter Diamandis Sketchnote from Tools of Titans

by Brent

What’s the magnitude of your thinking? According to Peter, you, me and the other person are part of the 99.9% of people who aren’t focussing on the big problems. Peter Diamandis is worth listening to. He’s rates in the top 50 of the world’s greatest leaders according to Forbes. He is founder and executive chairman of X Prize among other notable prizes. He is author of the books Bold and Abundance. According to Peter, the best way to find out how your company will be disrupted is to pay a 20 year old entrepreneur to reveal how they would take …

Justin Boreta Sketchnote from Tools of Titans

by Brent

Justin Boreta is known as a founding member of the electronic group Glitch Mob. He has no formal knowledge of traditional instruments so is an outlier when it comes to success. I like this as it’s a demonstration of an obscure way to get to the same destination. He is a well-spoken and thoughtful speaker and I would encourage a listen of the podcast in its entirety. Tim’s DiSSS in Action The interview is an example of Tim’s learning process in action due to his curiosity around audio equipment and production. DiSSS stands for deconstruction, selection, sequencing and stakes. The …

Mike Shinoda Sketchnote from Tools of Titans

by Brent

Mike Shinoda is a rapper, rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, principal song writer, artist, producer and mixer of Linkin Park, which has pulled in two Grammys. His side project is Fort Minor of which Tim is a fan. Interestingly, prior to listening to this podcast, I thought to myself that I ought to watch the Godfather series as I’ve never seen it before. Guess what Mike referred to as one of his favourites? Yep, you got it, so now I’ve scheduled it in. We seem to have similar film tastes as he also referred to Se7en, Fight Club and even Wall-E. S …