F*ck It, Watch This

Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud

De: Ana Visneski

Narrado por: Anastacia Visneski

In Ana Visneski's candid snarky guide, "F*ck it, Watch this: Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud," she throws traditional leadership wisdom overboard like a soggy biscuit at a pirate tea party. Forget stuffy boardroom jargon and "rah-rah" motivational speeches—Coast Guard veteran (tech executive and company founder) Visneski dives straight into the tumultuous waters of playing the career game your own way. From looking at the whole ocean to wearing velvet leisure suits in hurricanes, being a Coastie teaches you just as much (if not more) about leadership than any fancy MBA program.

Gone are the days of fluffy, feel-good advice that leaves you nodding off and wondering how to get your time back. "F*ck it, Watch this" delivers actionable ideas with the finesse of a cannonball into the corporate pool. Whether it's learning how to work for an octopus manager or discovering the power of being underestimated, Visneski's unconventional approach guarantees that you'll never look at leadership the same way again. So, grab your highlighter and prepare to laugh, cringe, and maybe even learn a thing or two about leadership from someone who isn't afraid to say the quiet parts out loud.

©2024 Anastacia Visneski (P)2024 Anastacia Visneski

Have a conversation with a BA who's lead through chaos

This book is a riotous and humanizing look into leadership in big tech and the military. It strikes a chord by mixing approachability, topical contextualization, catharsis, and actionable insight into a conversation about how the listener can choose the ways they wish to lead.

The author is upfront about this book will upset people, some more than others. Having finished it, I think there are three main audiences who will benefit from it be the most: vets and military adjacent people looking for insight into how to adapt to big tech, workers in big tech who are trying to understand how to lead with rigor, and anyone who has an interest in learning from case studies in leadership based on lived experience either big tech or the military.

A few things any listener should keep in mind:

The conversational nature of the book makes it more accessible and at times harder to follow because it's not strictly linear. The transitions may come across as abrupt.

This book is not a "how to" guide on leadership. I feel it's meant to provoke thought and push you to find your own direction. If you want the ABCs of Leadership, there are plenty of books out there.

The editing of the audio is fairly raw. There are moments where you may find it jarring to hear the same sentence repeated or long pauses. I encourage you to let these pull you back to the book, as they made me hyper aware that I was listening to someone doing their best to pass on their wisdom.

I think this book is a great example of one of the author's main points: the best way to prove someone wrong when they tell you can't do something is to show up and get it done.

Unconventional and Empowering

Ana hits some great points about leaders And their ability to directly impact teams and the ability or inability to execute. She brings to the forefront how having a diverse backgrounds adds to the dynamic and doesn't take away. Saying F*ck it, I'm going to do this my way when you don't see a way that makes sense to you or has been done before (while still legal) is the core principle to take away from this book. As an Agilist, she even talks about how you can do this in an agile world and be successful. I have embraced this myself by slowly but effectively pushed my teams by telling them how things will suck to start but will get better if they can stick it out with me.
I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a leadership book that isn't your typical book, that includes some hard facts, shares some interesting in for about the Coast Guard, and that may just make you laugh a long with her as she reads it to you.

Spoiler: there is no quiet part

This book holds itself out as a guide to unconventional leadership wisdom, and from where I sit it is anything but.

She seems to be anti-agile, advocates waterfall planning, and at one point in the book she even suggests that the first step of a new project should be getting the legal team involved.

It also fails in its promise of avoiding business jargon, another marketing point for the book, If you are not deeply literate in corporate-speak and Coast Guard terminology, certain parts of the book are going to be very clunky to listen to.

As for the audio, the narration isn't bad, but there are definitely spots where it is obvious the author is halting mid-sentence because the next word in her mind isn't the next word of the book. There are also a couple of spots where several sentences were read twice in a row. Basically the editor missed cutting out a first take.

Overall, I would say if you were looking for a leadership book, take a pass on this one.