Bookworm Friday: Five Books Recommendations from Suavek Zajac

Time for book recommendations from someone we believe there's no need to introduce! Suavek is Chief Technology Officer of the UK focusing on the growth of the UK (Online and Retail) market, working with Grand Parade / William Hill since summer of 2014! Check out Suavek's recommendations for this weekend!

1. Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb  

This book explores the concepts of fragility, volatility and the underlying consequences. As volatility increases, there are systems, organisms and ideas that thrive on it. Written in a thought-provoking style the book makes one ponder counter-intuitive ideas on “why do fastest horses lose more often when competing against slower ones?“, “why busier people are more likely to complete more work? I think understanding the concepts described in Antifragile helps us make better decisions, investments, design better products, software and in general arm our minds with the ideas we need to face an uncertain future.

2. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio 

While Ray Dalio shares many interesting principles in the book, what I got out of this lengthy read is more about the application of the process and an obsession to stick to it and improve it. He designed Bridgewater associates around these principles and more impressively applied these principles on a daily basis in a disciplined manner. It shows the persistence, discipline, focus and obsession on continuous improvement and refining the system and principles. I’ll summarize the book’s system’s thinking approach with one of the principles:
Think and act in a principled way and expect others to as well.
all outcomes are manifestations of forces that are at work to produce them, so whenever looking at specific outcomes, think about the forces that are behind them. Constantly ask yourself, “What is this symptomatic of?”

3. Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
by Rory Sutherland 

Written by a man with a lifetime of field experience, this book can provoke, inform and entertain us. The focus of this book is an exploration of human behaviour and how it affects our decision-making process. Our human irrationality has implications on how we design products, run companies and make choices. With today’s focus on data-driven decisions and system’s thinking, it’s crucial to keep the human perspective in mind. I particularly enjoyed examples where a brilliant insight on turning apparent weaknesses into strengths via different framing can leapfrog a product or a company.

4. The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin 

A former chess grandmaster Josh shares the experiences and ideas that helped him become a peak performer in chess and later martial arts. This book weaves autobiographical elements with a mindset of a continuous learner on a mission to conquer himself. There are good insights in deconstructing the learning process. I thoroughly enjoyed the chess analogies and the nuanced approach to improvement and learning. Josh has shown well, what it takes to truly perform at the highest level, the presence of mind, the discipline and the continuous focus is what separates the great from the rest.

5. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

A tough book for tough times and with focus on the deepest of human problems... Profound and personal moving description of one man’s struggles and eventual conquering of the evils of World War 2. This book is about the responsibility each of us has to our family, friends, community, society and oneself. For Viktor Frankl, it all starts with oneself and the understanding of “Why”. He explores his own journey to understanding the question of meaning and how to focus on meaning helped Viktor Frankl and people around him not only survive but thrive, under extreme circumstances. The book reaches an important conclusion that meaning is deeply personal and essential to happiness and success in life.