Where I was behind on meeting my goal of reading one book a month this year and writing my “take-aways” from them here at The Hot Iron, I am well ahead on reading but behind on writing! This post gets me caught up on a journey of reading, not to mention clearing off my bookshelf. As I read books, I give them away. This makes room on my shelf and I can share what I read with others.

The book Not On The Level by Michael V. Maddaloni is a welcome departure from the books I have read so far as it is fiction. It is the story of Joe DeFalco, a first-generation Italian-American baby-boomer who grows up in Philadelphia and his life story from grade school to retirement. As an Italian-American myself, I greatly enjoyed reading this story.

If you read the story and then read the bio of the author, you will see they are very similar, so it can be assumed that much of the book is based on real events or stories heard through his life. The book takes you from his youth in Catholic schools to the Marines, college, the Secret Service and corporate America to this retirement. At each stage there are opportunities presented to Joe and decisions to be made. Where some earlier decisions in his life may not have been the best he made, many of these were influenced by his environment. As he grows and experiences more of life, his wisdom shows in his decision-making.

As a result a take-away from this book was on decision-making and how much they are influenced by our environment. Fresh in a new environment, these influences are greater than later as we get accustomed to it and make our own observations and couple them with past experiences. I also have to admit another take-away is to read something other than business books.

My overall take-away from this book is that you need to know who else is out there who shares the same name as you! Though our middle initials are different, I share the same name as the author of this book. I first found about the book and author when Googling myself, and many others have pointed this out to me as well. I don’t think we are related, as Maddaloni is a town in Italy and many people have surnames derived from where their ancestors are from. Nonetheless, in addition to my recommendation to read this book here on The Hot Iron, I will contact him directly with my praise for his enjoyable work.

This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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