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Life-Sparring Podcast - Round 17: David Siu - Food for Thought 2021

Synopsis:

Before I started podcasting and Food for Thought became a regular book review segment in the shadowboxing solo podcasts, it was the title of an annual blog post introducing my top five books I read in the outgoing year.

I just published this year’s Food for Thought blog; it is the seventh consecutive year. But since 2021 was the year of the Life-Sparring podcast, it felt unavoidable not to record a Food for Thought Podcast special.

To make the best of the format and to spice things a bit up, I invited a guest for this round, Hong Kong-based executive coach and friend of the show, David Siu.

David and I have similar reading patterns, and our book choices are somewhat similar, despite the little overlap in the titles we read during 2021.

Before getting down to our books of the year, we chat about the outgoing year and how it influenced our choice of books. David’s theme of the year was “history,” while mine was “consistency.”

We discuss what David learned from reading three books on Jeff Bezos and Amazon this year and why none of the books made his top three, which leads to a discussion on management framework vs. entrepreneurial personas.

We also talk about how we choose books and how I sometimes embark on “reading projects” before getting into our top three picks for the year.

Links to all six books reviewed in the show and more resources are found below in the link section.

Just as with the past rounds of Life-Sparring, you have the choice to listen to the audio-only version via your favorite podcast platform or to watch a video version on YouTube.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Food for Thought 2021 - Life-Sparring Blog

David Siu on LinkedIn

David’s Book’s 2021 from his blog Leading in the Real World

David’s Top 3 Book: Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics, by Tim Marshall on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link

David’s Top 2 Book: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, by Scott McCloud on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link

David’s Top 1 Book: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link

Fabian’s Top 3 Book: The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, by Michael Lewis on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link

Fabian’s Top 2 Book: A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link to support Life-Sparring

Fabian’s Top 1 Book: Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell, by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle on Goodreads and as Amazon Affiliate Link

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About the Life-Sparring Podcast:

Sparring is an important part of martial arts; it is the reality check of your abilities. As Mike Tyson famously said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Life-Sparring takes the sparring from the ring into real life. Hear Life-Sparring host Fabian Gruber punching above his weight, interviewing top experts in their respective fields, trying to fight (his own) mediocrity one round at a time.

The Life-Sparring podcast is hosted by Fabian Gruber and produced by Thomas Latter.

Intro and Outro beat is produced by Markezi Producer.

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