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Book Review Monday Morning Musings Architecture, Architects by Allan Kehrt

Do you ever think about just what you are doing?  Really think about it?  As we race through our business daze in which swift decisions gain appreciation over thoughtful ones, data chokes out cogitation, devices are leaned on as lifelines, and action above all is heralded as The Answer, the art of gaining a stand-back, overall understanding grows increasingly elusive.

In 2003, twenty years after co-founding KSS Architects in Princeton, New Jersey, Allan Kehrt penned his first short essay inviting his partners and staff members to begin “thinking about why they were working so hard and why they were so passionate about their careers.”  For the next nine years, every week Allan would climb the 300-foot ladder of perspective, gain insight, and distill that piece of wisdom into a succinct Monday Morning Musing.  He’d then place a copy in each KSS team member’s mailbox.  (Don’t you wish you had a CEO like that?)

Now Allan has collected 100 of these Musings for your benefit.

Each of these roughly 200-word essaylets is introduced with a one word title: Waste – Influence – Water – Sunlight – Personality – Wood – Roles – Clarity.   Each, with elegant simplicity serves as a short fuse that leads to an explosion of personal pondering, and perhaps discovery.  Allan’s Craft reminds us: “We need to know that it takes time to do things well…to empathize with those trying to solve problems created by others’ lack of attention…and to learn what it takes to make something of value.”

All of us, after all are architects – only our choice of designs and creations differ.  And each reader will doubtless find a little delight and a hand-up in our search for purpose from the Musings of Allan Kehrt.

To get your copy, write info@bartsbooks.com 

 

Work Wit

All Aboard – My elevator pitch is brilliantly clever.  Trouble is, unless the elevator runs from Baltimore to Bangor, I can never finish it.

Biz Quiz:  If an entrepreneur is shipped to a desert island and told she can take only one book – which will she choose?

Answer: How to Build a Canoe.    www.BartsBooks.com

The Worth of Wealth – The more money you make, the more people are inclined to believe you deserve it.

Afterthought: No one quite believes that their own salary aptly reflects their own personal wroth, but that doesn’t stop us from slathering envious admiration on those pulling down a lot more bucks than ourselves.

 

2022 – The Year All About You

Yes, a brand new year of Hope is bursting upon us.  And as we hoist our glasses in search of optimism, I propose we may discover our expectations in that stack of holiday life-sharing letters which our friends and relatives take time to send.

Christmas letters tend to be a remarkably accurate bellwether of what folks thought of the last year – or at least what feel they should think about the past year.  And so many of them (our own excluded) kick off with the expected litany of horrors…yes we do have a dire plague haunting the planet; yes, our nation has one major political party so desperate to keep “the other side” from looking good, that they are disparaging all vaccines, precautions, and remedies.  Yes, climate change is wreaking havoc…it all gets painfully listed.  But then, when global social concerns are duly met, the letters get down and personal: We took 93-year-old Aunt Jenny on a birthday balloon ride…Christopher hit Dean’s List and is taking his junior year abroad…Ann’s homeless shelter charity just raised $1.2 million…Linda and John got married…Martha and John, now 83, are joyfully celebrating their first anniversary…(all actual quotes from our card pile.)

In short, despite all the distant clouds of hovering gloom, our lives are still riding on, often quite merrily.   Individually, we are making our marks, caring for others, improving ourselves, and delving into new accomplishments.  Interestingly, in this period of personal resiliency, of all our books, CEO of Yourself has experienced the greatest interest.  So this New Year’s Countdown – as the ball falls while the bubbly and our hopes rise, perhaps we might resolve to focus on ourselves, our hearts, and our own eagerly creative hands.  After all, nothing pierces outer darkness like inner light.

Wishing You Every Success and a Joyful 2022,

          – Bart Jackson