Alexandersmap

    Tag: Beryl Markham

    • My 12 Favorite Books of 2021

      I’ll finish the year having read somewhere between 34-36 books. That includes some heavy lifting non-fiction, some escapist pager turner fiction and a couple of books of poetry. All but one are older classics that I finally tackled in 2021. We ought to live a bit outside ourselves more often, and reading is an easy way to travel back in time, far into the future, or to places we thought we knew better. Here, in no particular order, are some favorites:

      The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods – A. G. Sertillanges
      “If you produce nothing you get a habit of passivity; timidity grows continually and the fear caused by pride; you hesitate, waste your powers in wasting, become as unproductive as a knotted tree-bud.”

      Referenced in Newport’s book (next), I immediately purchased a copy and placed it on the top of the pile. The book is a bit dated, certainly written through the lens of a French Catholic philosopher in the first half of the 20th century, but bits of brilliance shine through. I’ll return to this one now and then in the future.

      Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World – Cal Newport
      “To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work. If you’re comfortable going deep, you’ll be comfortable mastering the increasingly complex systems and skills needed to thrive in our economy.”

      Reading this book finally pushed me to delete Facebook from my phone, and to put the phone itself in another room when I want to get deep work done. The world is increasingly distracted, but we don’t have to be. The people capable of focusing and rising to the next level will fare well in a world where artificial intelligence and globalization threaten more and more jobs. Go deeper and differentiate from the shallow, distracted masses.

      The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals – Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey
      “When a team defines its lead measures they are making a strategic bet. In a sense, they are saying, “We’re betting that by driving these lead measures we are going to achieve our wildly important goal.” They believe that the lever is going to move the rock, and because of that belief, they engage.”

      A classic in business writing, this book outlines the steps needed to identify and execute on the most important goals for an organization. The secret is deep focus on no more than one or two wildly important goals. The magic is in drawing the entire organization in to help make the dream a reality. Most people want meaning in their careers. When they identify the actionable tasks that contribute to the overall win and execute on them, everybody wins.

      Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania – Erik Larson
      “In his final log entry on the attack, at 2:25 P.M., [Kptlt. Walther] Schwieger wrote: It would have been impossible for me, anyhow, to fire another torpedo into this crushing crowd of humanity trying to save their lives.”
      Schwieger directed his U-boat out to sea. His crew was jubilant: they had destroyed the Lusitania, the ship that symbolized British maritime prowess.”

      Larson is one of the great historians of our time, and he unpacks moments like the Blitz and the sinking of the Lusitania with a style that few can match. We all sort of know the story of the Lusitania, but Larson unpacks the tragedy of it in a page-turner style. This book will fascinate you, and even as you know the inevitable ending you’ll be surprised by many of the details.

      Mastery – Robert Greene
      “Your true self does not speak in words or banal phrases. Its voice comes from deep within you, from the substrata of your psyche, from something embedded physically within you. It emanates from your uniqueness, and it communicates through sensations and powerful desires that seem to transcend you. You cannot ultimately understand why you are drawn to certain activities or forms of knowledge. This cannot really be verbalized or explained. It is simply a fact of nature. In following this voice you realize your own potential, and satisfy your deepest longings to create and express your uniqueness. It exists for a purpose, and it is your Life’s Task to bring it to fruition.”

      How do we reach mastery? Most don’t. Most settle for a life of unfocused and relative comfort, unwilling to spend the hours of apprenticeship to master their craft. For those who want to rise above the average, this is an excellent playbook. Greene walks the talk–few take the time to research and perfect a topic as he does.

      Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
      “We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively.”

      Enlightening book that reveals how humans got to be who we are. Harari makes a strong case for the rise of humanity being great for us but catastrophic for every other species. This is a foundational book that I’d delayed reading until 2021 despite consistent prompts from friends.

      Keep Sharp: Building a Better Brain at Any Age – Sanjay Gupta M.D.
      “We don’t usually think about dementia when we’re entering our prime, but we should, because it provides a remarkable opportunity. Data from longitudinal observational studies accumulated over the past few decades have shown that aside from age, most other risk factors for brain disease can be controlled. That means you indeed have a powerful voice in controlling your risk for decline. As you might guess, some of the most influential and modifiable factors related to that decline are linked to lifestyle: physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, smoking, social isolation, poor sleep, lack of mentally stimulating activities, and misuse of alcohol.”

      Brain health is top of mind for me, and this book proved a reassuring playbook for controlling some of what happens with my own brain health over the second half of my life. Not surprisingly, what’s good for the body is usually good for the brain. Good nutrition, restorative sleep, proper hydration and exercise all help the brain as much as the body. Knowing this, you can fold the right kind of lifestyle choices into your daily routine and put yourself in a better position to have a vibrant, healthy brain to our final days.

      The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts – Shane Parrish
      “If we never learn to take something apart, test our assumptions about it, and reconstruct it, we end up bound by what other people tell us—trapped in the way things have always been done.”

      A playbook for conceptual thinking, this is one of three books Parrish published on mental modelling. It’s a helpful guide for framing a problem or decision using proven methodology. Parrish has an excellent podcast called The Knowledge Project that builds on this framework by exploring just how the world’s great thinkers frame their own decisions and build great organizations.

      West With The Night – Beryl Markham
      “The air takes me into its realm. Night envelops me entirely, leaving me out of touch with the earth, leaving me within this small moving world of my own, living in space with the stars.”

      This is a breathtaking book that sparkles with magic. Markham writes with an elegance that Hemingway would strive to match, raising the bar for writing in the 20th century. If you want to travel back in time to the barnstorming days of early flight, elephant hunting when the elephants had the upper hand and a glimpse of the changing landscape of Africa between the two World Wars this book is for you.

      Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek
      “Before it can gain any power or achieve any impact, an arrow must be pulled backward, 180 degrees away from the target. And that’s also where a WHY derives its power. The WHY does not come from looking ahead at what you want to achieve and figuring out an appropriate strategy to get there. It is not born out of any market research. It does not come from extensive interviews with customers or even employees. It comes from looking in the completely opposite direction from where you are now. Finding WHY is a process of discovery, not invention.”

      Why do we align ourselves with brands, political parties or people? Because they speak to us on some level. We desire to belong to something. How we arrive at that feeling of belonging is the “why” that drives the “what” something is and “how” it’s done. Organizations that do this well, think Apple, create a compelling case to identify with the brand. The very best leaders create a compelling why.

      On the Road – Jack Kerouac
      “Dean took out other pictures. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. All of it inside endless and beginningless emptiness. Pitiful forms of ignorance.”

      On the Road nagged me for years. For a few years in my early 20’s I chased the legend of Kerouac through the streets of Lowell, Massachusetts. I drank in some of the same bars that Kerouac drank in. Walked the same streets he grew up on. But I stubbornly kept his most famous book at arm’s length. I made a point of reading it in 2021 and saw the brilliance in his prose even as it betrayed the lifestyle that would eventually kill him.

      Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life – Richard Rohr
      “By the second half of life, you have been in regular unwelcome contact with your shadow self, which gradually detaches you from your not-so-bright persona (meaning “stage mask” in Greek) that you so diligently constructed in the first half of life. Your stage mask is not bad, evil, or necessarily egocentric; it is just not “true.” It is manufactured and sustained unconsciously by your mind; but it can and will die, as all fictions must die.”

      If we’re lucky, we all live two lives. We eventually transcend the character we are in the first part of our lives and “fall upward” into a higher self. I wouldn’t say I’ve arrived at that higher self, but I’m aware that it’s there should I stay on the path. Reading is a big part of that journey, and this and the other books finished in 2021 are stepping stones across the shallow stream to the other side.

    • A Good Map and a Compass

      “A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man’s faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust…. A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.’ It says, ‘I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      We use maps less in everyday life than ever before in modern times. It isn’t that we aren’t going someplace, it’s more that we have devices that keep track of where we are for us. And we lose something in ourselves when we aren’t part of the conversation between that GPS and the satellites silently flying above us. If maps represent faith in others, those “others” now extend to the network of technology that swirls around us, landing in our pockets with an advertisement when you stop at traffic lights.

      There’s something elegantly beautiful about a great map or nautical chart. Far more detail than the average person would ever notice, with lines and numbers most ignore. But for all the detail, a map is just a representation of what the world is, not the actual world. It can’t account for weather and downed trees and bad judgement and other such variables. Just the facts as they were, and might still be. We can be sure that the path shown on the map took somebody from here to there. Most likely it still does, but you can’t be sure until you get there. Maps represent the past in this way, but also our future as we place ourselves on them in hopes that our physical selves meet the expectations represented inside the grid.

      “We need maps and models as guides. But frequently, we don’t remember that our maps and models are abstractions and thus we fail to understand their limits. We forget there is a territory that exists separately from the map.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models

      It’s one thing to use someone else’s map to figure out where to go. It’s another thing entirely to map out our own path through uncharted territory. Where do we go from here? This thing we’ve grown familiar with has changed, we’ve changed, and now we wish to go in a different direction. Where to begin? Choose a direction and set your compass. Map it out. Figure out what the obstacles are and how to get around them. Use the paths others took to your advantage until you jump off in a new direction.

      “Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.” – Henry David Thoreau

      The fact of the matter is that most of life happens to us. We might diligently map out our career path and pick a major based on where we think that might take us, but much of life is about seeing the terrain we stumble upon and figuring out where we’re going to go next. Few of us get the map completely right, we sort it out as best we can along the way. And that’s where the compass helps set our direction or brings us back on course when we deviate from the path.

      “Don’t mistrust the compass — your judgement will never be more accurate than that needle. It will tell you where you ought to be going and the rest is up to you.’” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      The problem for most of us isn’t the absence of a good map or compass, the problem is abstraction and having too many directions to go in. With so many options, which do we choose? You can’t just walk in circles of indecision. Pick the most logical direction, map it out as best you can, and go. But bring that compass too. You’ll need both to get there.

    • Wandering Souls

      “Why am I gazing at this campfire like a lost soul seeking a hope when all that I love is at my wingtips? Because I am curious. Because I am incorrigibly, now, a wanderer.” – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      Doesn’t it feel a bit like the world is about to explode into an orgy of mad travel and celebration? We’ve already seen misguided souls partying like it’s 1999 in maskless rebellion, imagine when the adults in the room assess the situation and determine that we’ve reached a tipping point with vaccinations and – dare I say it? Herd immunity. Of course, the common cold and influenza will each dance a happy dance. This pandemic hit them hard too. But we’ve danced with each plenty of times, right? Still, we all talk a good game, but what happens when someone sneezes without covering their mouth in a crowded space? Are we ready for that moment?

      Passport stamps stopped abruptly in 2019. A lost year for ink pads and border agents and wandering souls alike. I’d like to get another stamp or two in the passport before it expires. Before I expire. To hear the thrill of rubber stamp meeting paper once again! It’s tantalizingly close now, isn’t it?

      Where do you go when the borders open up? Does the list of places you’d built up over your lifetime just resume now, or did all of this open your eyes to new possibilities? Do crowded streets in Venice carry the same appeal yet? Will remote beaches and quiet mountaintops still draw you the way they always have or have you had enough isolation? Just how much has this pandemic changed us in ways unseen?

      I don’t have the answers, of course. But I know that I’m a wanderer myself. I have places to go in this world, places to meet people (like you!) in solidarity and celebration. For life is out there as much as it’s in… here. And like you I’m about ready to get out there and mingle with kindred spirits in faraway places.

      We aren’t there just yet, but we must get ready, mustn’t we? Mastering phrases like Excuse me, where is the restroom? and Where can we get the best tapas and Sangria? and Do you know the way to San Jose? and of course, Cheers! To break language barriers we must meet the locals more than halfway.

      And then there’s our fitness level. Let’s face it, there’s been way too much Zoom and sitting around in close proximity to the pantry for our own good. We must get fit and toned for those long climbs up ancient steps, those walks through ripening vineyards, or simply those forever walks through international airports. The world is waiting for you, will you be ready when it opens up?

      Tonight, with the temperatures moderating just enough for respectable conversation, I’m going to light a crackling fire outside and inevitably be drawn into the embers as the night progresses. We may contemplate the changes of the last year, but we’ll also scheme about the future. It’s out there, waiting for us. Should we be ready to wander once again. Etes-vous prets?

    • That Moment When Everything Changed

      “I wonder if I should have a change — a year in Europe this time — something new, something better, perhaps. A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regrets. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday…

      It seems remarkable to me at least that if I had not gone to Molo, I might never have seen New York, nor learned to fly a plane, nor learned to hunt elephant, nor, in fact, done anything except wait for one year to follow another… How can the course of a life be changed by a word spoken on a dusty road?”
      – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      In this last year of the pandemic, with borders closed and wandering spirits limited to adventures of the local kind, it’s easy to throw your hands up in frustration at the “one days” that are postponed. Of one year following another with a measure of stasis unfamiliar and a bit uncomfortable. If we’re fully engaged we learn to make do, to thrive really, in those local adventures and appreciate what we have in our own back yard.

      You want a quick adventure? Click on the link above and read Markham’s book. Put aside the disgust of elephant hunting for this one (it was a different time) and immerse yourself in the perspective of an adventurous soul and a brilliant writer. Growing up in Kenya a hundred years ago, training thoroughbreds before pivoting to flying.

      Markham’s life changed when she met a man repairing his car who flew in the first World War and would soon teach her to fly. He sparked her imagination with possibility, and the rest of her life sprouted from that spark. She quickly charms you and makes you wish you’d met her in the brief time we breathed the same air. If I’d read this book at twenty I might have dropped everything and flown straight to adventure myself.

      So why not now? As with many adventurous role models, she makes you wonder; what is our own pivot? What is your moment that changes everything? It may not be a chance encounter, it might just be a small leap into the unknown. We’ve learned a lot about the world and ourselves over the last year. If there’s one clear lesson from all of it, it’s that the world was always trying to tell us something. But we were too busy distracting ourselves to pay attention.

      “The world does not act on us as much as it reveals itself to us and we respond.” – Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I

      How will we respond to the last twelve months that changed everything? And what shall we make of our future? Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday. Our one day can begin today. We don’t have to rely on some chance encounter with someone who teaches us to fly. That moment that changes everything can, indeed must, be this one. Flying requires summoning the courage to start down the runway and the accumulated experience to soar.

    • Coming to Light

      “If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work...

      ‘All the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours …’ A word grows to a thought — a thought to an idea — an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveller loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.”
      – Beryl Markham, West With The Night

      This coming to light through the sluggish Present, changing over years of work, is the tricky part. It’s the part you don’t always see in yourself and in the work you do. It’s the grind, the paying of dues, the 10,000 hours, the sweat equity of life. We gain experience in our work, and with a bit of luck, grow in prominence. But really we grow either way.

      Experience is a devilish word. We gain experience through doing the work, and we chase experiences outside of our work. Really, shouldn’t they be one and the same? Not to live for your job but to have your work be an integral part of your life. Writing a blog reminded me that the living part is every bit as important as the writing part. You don’t offer much in prose without experiencing the world a bit.

      The mistake most people make is in making the work their life, instead of an integral part of their life. “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living Barely gettin’ by, it’s all taking and no giving” as Dolly Parton put it. That’s not meaningful work, that’s checking your soul at the door and inserting your self as a cog in a machine. Trading life for dollars.

      What Markham writes about is different from what Parton was writing about. Markham saw that spark of light, imagined something bigger and built it for herself. That’s the coming to light over a lifetime. Of course, Dolly Parton did the same thing, her life hasn’t been the character she played in a movie. And neither is ours.

      And here’s the thing, the dream isn’t about work at all, it’s about the vision you have for yourself and the world around you. The work is what you do to realize the dream – not a trade-off of hours away from living your dream at all, but the building of it one small step at a time. It all starts with a spark of light, your “why”, and then filling in the work necessary to reach for the vision.

      “Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.” – Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

      Duckworth jabs us in the ribs with that statement: what you could have done but didn’t. Don’t let your vision die on the vine. Whatever your vision – sailing around the world, hiking a summit or a list of summits, breaking a time in a marathon, building a company from scratch, writing a novel… it requires change and wading through the sluggish Present to get to that Tomorrow you want. Do the meaningful work that gets you there.

    • The Restlessness of the Unexplored

      “That’s what makes death so hard – unsatisfied curiosity.” – Beryl Markham, West with the Night

      Where does restlessness come from? I believe it comes from that unsatisfied curiosity that Markham references above. What will you regret on your deathbed? The restlessness of the unexplored: unsatisfied curiosity. This phrase from such an accomplished woman, such an adventurous spirit, knocked me back two steps. Because I understand myself more in that pile of words. Don’t you?

      Unsatisfied curiosity. I see is in friends buying a bigger sailboat to go farther, to go longer, on their next adventure. In friends collecting mountain summits and filling social media with their seasons of wonder. In family and friends building meaningful businesses and careers out of schemes and dreams. And I see it in myself, writing and searching for more, exploring our history and the world around us. Stretching in new directions and pushing at my own limits.

      Unsatisfied curiosity drives progress and growth. Restlessness is a form of being uncomfortable with the limitations we find ourselves living with. The world is out there, should we be bold. Should we leap. And why shouldn’t we? Why be timid and afraid of life? There’s work to be done. Places to go and visions to be realized. Enter Henry:

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau

      It seems impossible, really, when you think about the leap from the Wright Brother’s first flight in 1903 (itself extraordinary) to Markham becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 33 years later, to humans landing on the moon 33 years after that. In our brief time together on this planet, aren’t you curious about what you can accomplish? Bold action satisfies curiosity. What you can see? What can be realized?