by johnireland | The Book Shelf
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012) asks a simple question of anything you own: does disorder hurt it, leave it unchanged, or make it stronger?Taleb sorts things into fragile (harmed by shocks), robust (unaffected) and antifragile (improved by them).Key tools:...
by johnireland | The Book Shelf
Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game (2019) borrows James Carse’s idea that some games are played to win and others to keep playing — and argues business is the second kind.A finite game is played to win; an infinite game is played to keep playing. Business has...
by johnireland | The Book Shelf
From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks (2022) argues that professional decline arrives earlier than high achievers expect — but that it need not be the end of the story. Two curves: fluid intelligence (raw problem-solving) peaks early; crystallised intelligence...
by johnireland | The Book Shelf
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman argues that a human life is roughly four thousand weeks long, and that productivity systems fail because they promise mastery over a finitude you cannot master. The efficiency trap: getting faster attracts more work, it does not...
by johnireland | The Book Shelf
Clayton Christensen was a Harvard Business School professor known for disruptive innovation theory. In How Will You Measure Your Life?, written with James Allworth and Karen Dillon, he turns his management ideas onto personal life instead of companies. He borrows...
by johnireland | The Book Shelf
Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family by James E. Hughes Jr — the classic on why families lose money across generations, and what actually prevents it. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations is a pattern, not a superstition. Hughes argues the cause is...
