Book Bite: The Shark and the Goldfish by Jon Gordon

This week's book bite/review is on The Shark and the Goldfish by Jon Gordon.

A short fable of less than one hundred pages which focuses on forming a positive mentality. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of this message - all too often, leadership can be too focused on the negatives, but also can be too focused on the "dream" ignoring reality. The tight focus on the fable also weakens the book to a large extent.

The book begins by pointing out that "each day you make this choice with your beliefs, thoughts, and actions. The choice is yours." (13) This lesson on a positive mentality moves on to the idea that "while they were in the midst of their challenge they looked for the opportunity. As a result, they turned their misfortune into fortune" (19). Gordon's mentality can thus be summed up as "your faith and belief in a positive future leads to powerful actions today" (39).

I was glad to see that Gordan also acknowledges the role of hard work (55) and focus (57) - not just trusting in a positive mentality. Here the key quote is the idea that "every day that you choose to work hard and not settle is a day that leads to the life that you want" (59). The short text ends with some discussion questions - honestly - the most relevant and helpful part of the entire text.