Now that the holidays are behind us, we are committed to sticking with the program. This takes up a good 1.5 hours a day and is a partly responsible for me taking a break from reviewing audio books and engaging in ‘social networking’.

One of the benefits is that I am now learning Russian and as you can tell from my first words, our conversations run the gamut of  food, relationships, and politics. My first vocabulary words are as follows:
bystryee – faster
zavtra – tomorrow
dieta – diet
yeda – food
politika – politics
Ded – grandfather
YA tebya lyublyu  – I love you

If you are following my MBA program, you can see how I am finding creative ways to get educated! However, I have continued to listen to  books and I am committed to reviewing some of my recent ‘listens’  in the coming weeks:  Three Cups of Tea,  A Whole New Mind,  Outliers, Younger Next Year, an The Knack.

Keep your browser pointed to AudioBookFitness!

Dev Patnaik's book, Wired to Care

I don’t recall ever hearing the word ‘empathy’ and ‘corporation’ in the same sentence…that is, until I picked up Dev Patnaik’s audio book, Wired to Care.

Through stories drawn from the histories of some of our best known corporations, such as Mercedes Benz, Nike, Disney, IBM, Clorox,  Harley Davidson,  Patnaik illustrates how a deeply empathic knowledge of  one’s market can be utilized to increase customers’ feelings of validation. This, in turn, attracts customers, because they are drawn to that which makes them feeling good about themselves.

The subtitle of this book, How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, is well illustrated. However, this book isn’t only about prosperous companies, it’s also about making  this world a better place, calling on corporations to embrace a higher standard, and giving meaning to the work we do.

In one of my careers, managing a design studio at a university, and later, in my work as an information architect,  I learned the importance of knowing one’s audience and of always being able to see from their perspective. This is one of the most valuable competencies I have acquired on my career path so far. Many companies hire people for what they know about business rather than what they understand about their customer.

While listening to this book, I got many great work outs on a treadmill, and an elliptical trainer and was so enthralled, I finished reading the book in 4 days.

The audio book version of Wired to Care is available on  Audible.com. If you prefer having a hard copy, you’ll find it on Amazon.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Length : 7 hours, 42 minutes (Unabridged)
Narrator:  Dennis Holland
Release Date: June 2008
Publisher : 2009 Audible, Inc.

I am currently listening to Wired to Care, a book I’ll be writing about in my next book review blog. Although I’ll be listening to a steady diet of audio books during the year ahead, I certainly would choose my own personal MBA anytime over a series of 30-second videos.

One last note, Fast Company, is one of my favorite publications. I subscribe, and even receive the digital edition via email. I did happen to notice that Audible now offers audio editions of Fast Company magazine. Since my life is quite busy I know for certain that I will eventually end up trying this format. When I do I’ll report back to you!

The Age Curve

Having listened to The Age Curve, I never will look at a news story, business decision or politics in the same way. This book has added to my ability to think critically about trends shaping our country and about business models that exist today. It is one of the best business books I’ve heard or read.  Start to finish, this book is so informative that I have found myself re-listening to some of the sections.

And I wish to give a hand of applause to the author, Kenneth Gronbach.  He actually made a book about demographics that not only is informative, but also is entertaining! I especially appreciate his concise style.

I have a confession to make. When listening to the audio book, I found the subject matter so valuable for considering  long-term career goals  (the next 20 years at least) that I went out and bought the hard cover version for my book shelf. I know I will refer back to it from time to time. And although this is a blog about audio books and exercising the brain and body, I promise to read this hard cover version on a stationary bicycle!

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Length : 6 hours, 6 minutes (Unabridged)
Narrator:  Max Bloomquist
Release Date: June 2008
Publisher : 2008 Brilliance Audio Inc

I started with a book by Brian Tracy, Eat that Frog. My six word summary is this: Stop procrastinating, be unstoppable and amazing. So far I love it. When I finish I’ll write more…maybe a 12 word book review. Just kidding!

What I want to address is the ‘Almost’ part of this blog title. I am a member of 24 Hour Fitness and am having a difficult time showing up at the gym during ‘peak’ hours and competing with their sound system. I have no desire to listen to the ‘top 40′ rock songs that are blasting. Is it fair that when I listen to my book, that 24 Hour Fitness is forcing on me a sound track at the same time, one that I don’t want to hear?

On Monday, after my elliptical workout, I went to a Yoga class. The soothing new age music that was played to a class of Yoga students had to compete with blaring music on the other side of the door. What’s up with that? Tomorrow I am calling two managers at 24 Hour Fitness, the one I worked out at on Monday and the one I worked out at tonight. When I spoke with the clerks, I was told that the music is pumped up during Peak Hours so everyone can hear it, and turned down at other times.

Geez, I shouldn’t have to go deaf if I want to listen to a good book during a workout!

Once the dust settles from all my summer excursions, and the sand is brushed off my feet, and all my summer visitors fade in the horizon, I’ll be settling down for the MBA adventure.

Running Shoes and Smartwool Socks

It seems as if I am getting ready for school and getting ready to run a marathon. I’ve put plenty of thought into my schedule, what I’ll wear, and such. I did buy a pair of New Balance shoes, Nike Shoes and Asics (I walked the Maui marathon with these).

On a recent shopping trip, I  found an exceptionally comfortable pair of socks. I bought several pair and will not wear any others. Ever. Check out www.Smartwool.com. Their Light Cushion Running Socks are superb.

More to come–keep your browser pointed to AudioBookFitness!

Although I can’t afford 20 grand,  I’ve decided that I can design my own MBA program.  My MBA will stand for Master of Books in Audio.  What if I were to spend an entire year listening to nonfiction books—mostly business books, books on career, some self-improvement—and reviewed each book on my blog? What would be the results after a year? How would I measure those results?

I am looking for suggestions on ‘good listens’ in this genre, so if you want to recommend any audio books for my MBA program, let me know and I’ll add them to the list. Stay tuned…I’ll start sharing this ongoing list in the upcoming weeks. I will listen during morning walks and will commit to 4 -6 morning walks weekly. For a year.

Oh, and by the way, depending on the source of audio books, my MBA will be practically FREE!!

I quickly learned that all of the Selected Short radio shows were excellent.  However, I also discovered that each required a solid hour of uninterrupted listening on the ipod shuffle. This was not always convenient, because I was using the stories as entertainment during brief morning walks and evening treadmill excursions after a yoga class.

The stories I downloaded from Sniplits.com were equally excellent ! Venita Blackburn’s stories were especially delightful… I appreciated her inventive character descriptions . . . so much so that I’m eager to hear more from this writer.  I found the humor in House Rules By Libby Fischer Hellmann equally engaging. Humor and crime work well for an energetic workout!

Listening to the stories from Sniplits.com worked as a quick exercise support and escape because they were no longer than 40 minutes.  I found that anything more, such as an hour radio show, became a task especially since I was adding this activity to my already busy life. The absolute best feature on Sniplits.com is the fact that one can find stories listed by listening time! Got 20 minutes? Download a story and take a walk around the block!

So if you are a fitness fan with a portable digital media player and want a break from your audio books or even music, a hearty short story downloaded from Sniplits.com can be a great solution for a quick exercise excursion!

At  Sniplits.com, I paid $2.06 with my PayPal account and downloaded three stories to iTunes and from there to my iPod Shuffle.  One story was the free story of the week. Sniplits.com has done a GREAT job of making the purchase and download easy, the process was seamless. Then I downloaded a few shows from  Public Radio’s (PRI) broadcasts of “Selected Shorts podcast that I located in iTunes. Here’s my upcoming listening schedule, not necessarily in the  order I’ll hear them at since I expect the stories to be shuffled:

SESSION A*, 30 MINUTE WALK

• Story: A Brief Excerpt in the History of Salt by Venita Blackburn
• Story: Hand Signals by Venita Blackburn

SESSION B*, 40 MINUTE WALK

• Story: House Rules By Libby Fischer Hellmann

SESSION C, 1 HOUR WALK

• Podcast: Playwright’s Delight- Selected Shorts
  

SESSION D, 1 HOUR WALK

• Podcast: Indian Country- Selected Shorts

SESSION E, 1 HOUR WALK

• Podcast: Shatterd Peace- Selected Short
  

I will begin listening to stories on Monday, May 18! Send me your tips for this upcoming week. Oh, and watch next weekend for the upcoming reviews on the all above mentioned stories/podcasts!

* These downloads are from www.sniplits.com

Not wanting to loose the language skills I have been gaining, I bought a new Garmin nüvi GPS (to be reviewed at a later date) that plays MP3 files and I am dedicating it to reviewing and learning Spanish while I drive.  I downloaded the highest rated Spanish audio book series from Audible– Pimsleur, Spanish I, Second Revised Edition: Lessons 6 to 10. This was only for review, and after listening to it, I realized it was a bit on the simple side. ‘Vamos a bebir una Cervesa in al resturante Colon.’  or ‘¿Cuanto Cuesta dos Cervesas?’ are not sentences I will use daily (well, I could change cervesa to vino…) yet this has proved to be a good brain exercise while I am driving. Actually, audio language books are IDEAL for puttering around town, because if you are using a GPS with an MP3, the interruptions of GPS instructions (‘In 500 feet, turn left.’) are best interlaced with the short verbal exercises and sentences of a language (‘Repeta: ¿A donde va Carlos’?) rather than a long narrative of a book.

The biggest challenge for me has been finding the right level of Spanish instruction to start at since I am familiar with the language. There was no assessment to help determine what audio book to start with. So if you have tried any of the Spanish audio books, let me know what you like and didn’t like about them along with some commentary about their difficulty level. I’d love to hear from you.

Italian and French are next…then Chinese. And of course, I will be starting with Level 1 on these languages when the time comes (Yo! I could be in my nineties by then!).

I keep thinking about a study that I read years ago about elderly nuns learning French and how it kept them mentally agile into old age. Yes, that is one of my goals, brain fitness and agility, and I want to speak decent Spanish as I meander the cities of España.