Round 3 brings The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho from 2001 and The Naked Presenter by Garr Reynolds. Generally I don’t go in for the spiritual category that Coelho tends to fall into. This was the first of his books I read and although I have read a few more in the last 10 years I can’t say they are a ‘must read’.
Coelho wrote (in The Zahir) about the idea of a ‘favour’ bank, which seemed to me at the time, reducing good Khama to a clinical give and take transaction. Then or now this is not a view I subscribe to. In a belligerent nod to my accounting background I’ve always felt that favours should be a one sided transaction. This is one of those rare transactions with only a debit. This of course creates an imbalance, or in accounting terms an unbalanced transaction which I find ironic. Isn’t Khama all about balance?
Nonetheless The Alchemist is a good story and recommended. It is a good story, or storytelling to be more precise which took me to Garr Reynolds. He has been one of my go-to guys in terms of how to give presentations and deliver pitches ever since I borrowed a friend’s copy of Presentation Zen. In The Naked Presenter he suggests the idea that you should throw away the slides completely and, to paraphrase, tell the story. I do this in class sometimes. Too many students focus on copying down exactly what I put on my slides. If I have no slides then they are forced to pay attention to me. At least that’s the theory!
Click on any of the book covers above to be taken to the book on LibraryThing.
You can find both Paulo Coelho and Garr Reynolds on twitter by clicking on their names.
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