We Summarised Blinkist’s Summaries Of Bestselling Books

If you haven’t heard of Blinkist, a company that took $50 million in VC funding to sell people summaries of books, don’t worry! Blinkist honours authors and publishers by making summaries of their work, mostly without permission, and selling them for $150 a year. I’m all for pretending to read books. So I’ve decided to honour Blinkist by summarising their summaries of three popular advice books, for free.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People

by Stephen Covey

Book reading time: 7 hours / Blinkist reading time: 15 min / Lifehacker reading time: 2 min

• If you want to change, you have to change your habits. Specifically seven of them.

• It’s more effective to improve your character than to learn skills as a “shortcut.”

• Shift your paradigm. Someone’s mother died once. Think about it.

• Be proactive. Don’t let the weather dictate your mood. That’s a metaphor. Serenity prayer. Viktor Frankl was so serene in concentration camps that he inspired the guards. Blame your problems on yourself for a month.

• Begin with the end in mind. Houses need blueprints. Visualise doing things before you do them, like competitive sprinters do. Write a personal mission statement. No, like, work on it a few times, come on, be serious here. Put your ladder against the right wall.

• Put first things first. Sort all your to-dos by whether they’re important and/or urgent. You should spend more time on the important non-urgent stuff.

• Think “win-win.” Most situations in life aren’t competitions. And if you and a potential partner are thinking “win-lose,” you’ll end up with “lose-lose.” So think of what the other person could gain from an exchange, and see how you can meet that. Relationships are like emotional bank accounts, and the biggest deposit is understanding people. For example, Stephen Covey’s friend once watched a lot of baseball with his son even though he doesn’t like baseball.

• Seek first to understand, then to be understood. What if doctors sucked at their jobs? Don’t hand people a prescription based on your own experience and not theirs. Practice empathetic listening, and do it by learning body language.

• Synergise by being open and respectful of others. “One plus one can equal three or more,” which I had to type out because Blinkist blocks the copy-paste function on their site. The head of the post-war Atomic Energy Commission got a bunch of experts to get to know each other before running the commission together, and it helped them resolve disagreements better.

• Sharpen the saw. If you want to stay healthy, exercise. If you want to stay smart, read books. Breaks and vacations are important. Read Stephen Covey’s next book.

The Virgin Way

by Richard Branson (2014)

Book reading time: 6 hours / Blinkist reading time: 13 min / Lifehacker reading time: 2 min

• Virgin founder Richard Branson used to steal candy money from his parents’ bedroom. When he got caught, his dad acted not mad but disappointed. This is why Richard Branson is rich now. Once he caught an employee stealing merch and didn’t fire him. Donald Trump is a dick.

• Winston Churchill and JFK must have been great listeners, because leaders need to be even better listeners than they are speakers. Richard Branson is a good listener, who takes notes. So is Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who listened to Branson and took notes and then founded EasyJet.

• Talk about company culture, and people will think you’re talking about yogurt! But seriously, “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” as management consultant Peter Drucker says. Early on at Virgin Records, they had bean bag chairs. The president of Southwest Airlines once almost got sued for allegedly stealing the tagline “Just Plane Smart,” but he got the other company’s CEO to arm wrestle him for it! And once, a Southwest cabin crew hid in the overhead bins and surprised the passengers! Fun place, Southwest. Makes money too.

• Making your own luck means being prepared to take unexpected opportunities. One of Virgin’s first albums was Tubular Bells. Branson couldn’t get Atlantic Records to buy it for the U.S. market, but he finally got their head to play it, and William Friedkin happened to be in the office and made it the theme song of The Exorcist. So.

• Once as students at Stanford, Branson’s friend Antonio made a friend, and the friend was starting a business, and Antonio invested $10,000 he’d saved up for a car for a 1% share. The company was Google. Be like Antonio! Have $10,000 and make friends at Stanford.

• Branson started Virgin Atlantic without much research. But he also started failed businesses like Virgin Cola and the bridal-wear business, this is real, Virgin Brides. Now Branson has a strategy of “purposeful procrastination,” which is apparently just planning.

• Goldman Sachs failed to convince Virgin to invest in subprime mortgages.

• An Ottoman sultan’s engineers rejected Leonardo da Vinci’s plans for a bridge. Similarly, people thought a Virgin megastore would never work in seedy 1996 Times Square.

• While other airlines only focused on the bit where you’re in the air, Virgin Atlantic made the bit where you’re on the ground more pleasant, with amenities in the lounges.

• Branson thinks schools should train more children to start businesses. Teachers focus on algebra and calculus instead of emotions and critical thinking. So more entrepreneurs should talk in classrooms.

He’s Just Not That Into You

by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, 2004

Book reading time: 2 hours / Blinkist reading time: 12 min / Lifehacker reading time: 1 min

• He’s not that into you if he’s not calling you.

• Men aren’t scared of ruining friendships.

• Men aren’t too busy to date.

• If a man likes a woman he’ll ask her to be his girlfriend.

• All these statements are based on a “poll” of 20 men who were friends with the authors. Look, this is a 200-page book adapted from a Sex and the City episode.

• If a man is married, he is not into you.

• If a man has just broken up with you, he is not into you. No but really don’t let him keep calling you after the breakup.

• If he doesn’t want to get married, he’s not into you. If he says it’s because he doubts the institution of marriage, he’s lying. And at a certain age your babymaker will run out.

• Yes, there are exceptions to all these rules. Don’t focus on those. Focus on how good it feels to be free of a man who wasn’t into you.

• Mixed messages don’t exist.

• Record yourself telling the story of your relationship. Listen back. If you were your best friend, how would you advise yourself? Is this book written for women without close friends? Maybe! Maybe that’s exactly who needs it!

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