The Power of Less - Leo Babauta

The book " The Power of Less - the fine art of limiting yourself to the essentials...in business and in life" written by Leo Babauta. This is about streamline life by identifying the essential and eliminating the unnecessary. This book shows how to:

• Break any goal down into manageable tasks.
• Focus on only a few tasks at a time.
• Create new and productive habits.
• Increase efficiency

Here is what I learnt from this book.

There are some guiding  principles which helps us to  maximize productivity by simplifying life.

• Setting limitation: Limits helps
•  our life to become more manageable and less stressful.
• to focus on more important task.
• to be more productive and efficient.

• Choosing the essentials: Identify needs and eliminate the wants, which are non-essentials. Make a list and start eliminating according to needs such as what are
• Yearly Goals
• Life Commitments
• Work Project and tasks.

• Focus: Focusing on single task is more effective than multi-tasking. How to focus on the present is by
• taking deep breathe, stretch and taking breaks.
• Single tasking.
• doing exercise regularly.
• putting reminders.
• Always practicing.

• Creating habits: It makes long-lasting improvements.
• Choose an easy goal.
• Choose something measurable.
• Be consistent.
• Keep a positive attitude.

• Starting with small: main reasons are
• It narrows our focus
• keeps energy and enthusiasm going for longer.
• It's easier to handle.
• You ensure success
• Gradual change is longer-lasting.

The book is divided into two parts- part I includes principles and  part II is of practical examples (of his own). The book is written in very simple language and is very inspiring. The author Leo Babauta is famous blogger and his blog zenhabits.net  is also interesting. I would suggest everyone to read this book and implement to make life more better.

Tribes

The book "Tribes" is written by Seth Godin. He is the most popular business blogger in the world, his blogs are very much inspiring.  There are no chapters in this book and is full examples of tribe and leader.

"A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another"

Some of the interesting points explained in the book.

• You can't have a tribe without a leader - and you can't be a leader without tribe.
• Everyone is not just a marketer- everyone is now also a leader.
• Tribes are about faith- about belief in an idea and in a community.
• " Leadership is management"
• Leaders have followers. Managers have employees.
• Managers make widgets, Leaders make change.
• The Art of leadership is understanding what you can't compromise on.
• The Secret of leadership: Paint a picture of the future.  Go there.. people will follow.

Seth Godin has explained in below video why tribe is needed.



I would recommend this book to all. You can visit www.sethgodin.com to know more about him.

High Probability Trading Strategies

Today I finished reading " High Probability Trading Strategies" by Robert C. Miner. This book accompanies with 2 hrs video CD which includes examples of how to apply the high probability trading strategies for many markets and time frames with bar-by-bar and step-by-step recording. Also the author has devoted an entire chapter called "Real Traders, Real Time" with trade examples submitted by his past students.

The book includes four key factors of dual time frame momentum, pattern, price and time. 

Here is what I learnt from this book.

• Dual Time Frame Momentum Strategy:

• A Larger time frame to identify trade direction and a smaller time frame for trade execution setups.
• Traders with different time frame.
• Positional trader  : weekly and daily charts
•  Swing trader      :  Daily and hourly charts
• Day trader           :  60 mins and 15 mins
• Main Indicators:
• Stochastic: It includes overbought(OB) and Oversold (OS) zones. Line above 75% indicates overbought and below 25% oversold. 
• MACD Histogram: It measures the difference between two moving averages.

• Pattern Recognition for Trends and Corrections:

• ABC correction: It is a frequent type of correction for all markets and all time frame in 3 swings. Below are some guidelines.

• The Wave-C should exceed the extreme of Wave-A.
• If the market trades back into the range of Wave-A, the minimum conditions for a correction are complete.
• A trade beyond the Wave-B extreme is a pattern signal that the correction should be complete.

• Five- wave patterns ( Eilliot Wave): The five wave trend pattern make five sections and the section do not overlap, is called an impluse wave. Some of the guidelines are below.

• Wave -2 cannot trade beyond the beginning of Wave -1.
• Wave - 3 cannot be the shortest in price of waves 1, 3, and 5.
• Wave - 4 cannot make a daily close into the closing range of Wave-1.

• Beyond Fibonacci Retracement: 

• Alternate Price Projections (APP): 
• It compares the price range of swings in the same direction also called as price extensions.
• Frequently used APP are 61.8%, 100% and 162%.
• APP made of three pivot points, the price range between two pivots is measured and projected from a third pivot.

• Internal Retracement:
• are 38%, 50%, 61.8% and 78.6%
• The  38.2% level is temporary support or resistance.
• The 78.6% retracement is typically the maximum retracement for a correction. If a market closes above the 78.6% retracement, typically it is not making a correction but will continue to trend to a new high or low.

• External Retracement:
• are 127%, 162% and 262%.
• are important to help identify the final section of a trend or countertrend.
• are not used on their own for price targets, but to confirm an alternate price projection and or internal retracement.

• End Of Wave-C:
• ABC correction ends with Wave-C, which should include internal retracement and an APP.
• Internal retracement are first in the order of importance of the three sets of projections, since most corrections end near one of the four internal retracement.

• Entry Exit Strategies and Position size:

• Trailing One Bar Entry and Stop:
• Following a smaller time frame momentum reversal in the direction of the larger time frame.
• The entry price is trailed one tick above/below the last completed bar.
• When the trade entry order is executed, the initial protective stop is placed one tick below/above the swing high/low made prior to entry.

• Position Size:
• Formula to calculated position size is:

Available Capital X 3% / Risk per Unit = Maximum position size.

• Exit Strategy Concept:
• Use of Trailing stop, never exit at a predetermined price target.

All four strategies momentum, pattern, price and time together help to develop a trading plan that includes entry and exit strategies and trade management.

This book is not difficult to read and understand, but the reader must spend time learning and practicing each strategy. I took almost 2 month to read this book and currently practicing and implementing each strategy.

This is very practical book and would recommend to every trader and investor. The author also post blog on his website http://www.highprobabilitytradingstrategies.com/blog/

Thanks Robert!!!

Presentation Zen

I just finished reading Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynold. This book provides guidelines for preparing, designing and delivering the presentation in simple and creative way. It includes practical examples, stories in simple terms which are easy to understand. I think this book is very useful for presenters and people who want to improve their presentation delivery skills. Here is what I learnt from this book.

Presentation has three phases: Preparation, Design and Delivery.

Phase I: Preparation

• Start with beginner mind because beginner's mind is fresh, enthusiastic and open to vast posibilities of ideas and solutions.
• Always plan away from computer. Plan with pen and paper or whiteboard. This will save time and also the analog approach to sketch out ideas and create a rough storyboard helps to solidify & simplify the message.
• Ask yourself two important question:
  
  • What's your point? 
  • Why does it matter?
  These questions will put presenter in audience shoes and will help him to understand what audience want and how effectively to convey the point.
• "Create a Document not a Slideument". Don't combine slide and document together. Always prepare presentation with these three components:
• Slides: for audience
• Notes: for presentor's reference
• Handouts: audience copy
• Six principles to remember while preparing for presentation:
• Simplicity will help to deliver message effectively to audience. Make presentation simple. Don't include everything, include only points containing of core message.
• Unexpectedness is violating people's expectation and creating curiosity. Making audience aware that they have a gap in their knowledge and then filling the gap with the answers to the puzzel (guiding them). 
• Concreteness is natural speech with real examples, not abstractions.
• Credibility is putting the terms that people can visualize. 
• Emotion, whenever possible put ideas in human terms by showing images or pictures rather than words. This will have more impact on audience. 
• Stories with real examples gets attention and are easier to understand than the list of rules. Story come in by information, emotion and visualization. It makes the presentation memorable.

Phase II: Design

• Design is not decoration. It is to make things more clearer and organize information. It is about making conscious decisions about inclusion and exclusion.
• Four design principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignement and Proximity. 
• Techniques to prepare design:
• Images/ Pictures: Use of more images makes the presentation memorable and powerful. Image should cover entire slide and should have plenty of empty space so that text can fit comfortably with good contrast.
• Grids and the Rule of Thirds: Divide the slide into nine boxes just like tic-tac-toe board and adjust the text or image into 1/3rd portion of slide. This will help to create clean and simple presentation and also saves the time.
• Bullet points: are effective to summarize the key points. It is advisable to use bullet point followed by 1-7-7 rule. The rule means 1 idea per slide, only 7 lines and 7 words per line. But bullet points are not effective in live talk and should be avoided whenever possible.
• Logo: Logo's, trademarks and footers are not advisable to use in every slide because it's an unnecessary bombarding on audience. It should be display on first and last slide.

Phase III: Delivery

• Increase confidence by rehearsing more and more.
• Complete presentation before allotted time.
• It is better to leave audience satisfied yet yearning for a bit more, than leaving them stuffed and with feeling that they had more than enough.
• Audience must always see and hear presentor. Don't switch off lights and always use wireless mic whenever possible. This creates bonding between presenter and audience which results in effective presentation.

Along with explaining these phases, Reynolds also mentions about two popular events: PechaKucha and TED talks. These two events helps to spread ideas by delivering presentations.  

• PechaKucha presentation format is simple: 20 slides x 20 seconds. Each slide is allocated 20secs and is set to automatically move to next slide after 20sec. Presenter has to tell story in sync with the visuals in 6 minutes 40 seconds. PechaKucha is changing attitudes toward presentation in a wonderfully creative and unconventional way.
  
  

• TED talks is annual conference where world's most fascinating thinkers and doers are invited to share their great ideas in only 18 minutes. The time limitation usually results in very focused talks. TEDs mission is to "spread ideas", which they do by releasing best talks online on their site, so that ideas can reach wast majority of population around the world.
  
  

This book has provided a good balance of principles and concepts, inspiration and practical examples. I have never given thoughts on these details while preparing and delivering presentations in past. This book has given me insight into getting better. Thanks Reynolds!