If your life has no vision to strive after, to wish for, one that you want to realize then there’s no motive for you to struggle.

Eric Fromm

You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Firstly, guessing is important because if you have a good guess you’ll know if the answer could be right. Secondly, you can easily validate facts in news paper or on TV. Thirdly, in many cases a guess is enough. You don’t need to calculate a problem exactly.

This sounds very abstract here’s a concrete example: You going to paint your room and obviously need interior paint. Question: How much? Unfortunately you have no yard stick or an other measuring tool. What to do? Yes, guess it!

An other one: You read in your favorite news paper that on a local festival they sold 15,000 bottles of beer. Question: Is this extraordinary? Guess it!

In summary, if you’re familiar with engineer or similar you won’t need this book. For other people it can be a introduction in guessing and practicable mathematics.

The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.

Malcom Forbes

You are reading about meetings between Steve Gardner and David Zhao. Steve works in a big company doing strategic planning and wants to learn more about profitability. The book is written like a novel. That’s unconventional but great. So, why do I need such a long time to read it? That’s easy. You are Steve Gardner and as a good student you read the books recommend by your teacher. There are 18 of them in this book raging from ABC of Reading to The Art of War.

In summary, if you are working persistently through this book and it’s literature you’ll learn many valuable things about profitability.

To a lot of entrepreneur, hiring more seasoned executives can be threatening, and actually delegating power to them is even more so. In my own case, I have to admit, it wasn’t easy. My identity had quickly become so closely tied up with that of Starbucks that any suggestion for chance made me feel as if I had failed in some aspect of my job. Inside my head, it was constant battle, and I had to keep reminding myself: These people bring something I don’t have. They will make Starbucks far better than I could alone.

Howard Schultz, Pour Your Heart Into it, p.155