Book Review - Tribes: We Need You to Lead US

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very thought provoking books with great wisdom about taking leadership in groups and situations with leadership voids. I enjoyed many of the concepts and ideas related to the use of emerging technologies. There are groups of people with the same common interests that are now finding each other because of these new technologies, but do not know how to organize. This book has inspired me to take actions on several different action items to provide leadership to groups I work with and in. I am really glad that I read this book and think it is an important way to look at leadership in our society today.

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Take a “Time Out” Before You React

What do Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kayne West all have in common?  They have all made the mistake in the last week of not exercising one of the most powerful options we have as human beings.  We each possess the unique ability to choose how we react to the events that affect us every day in our lives.  Each of these three famous individuals have chosen to react to an event in their lives in a way that has embarrassed them, cost them personal respect in their respective arenas, and have acted in a way that has hurt others in doing so.

One of the most important lessons we can learn is to take control of the moment between an event that happens to us and when we react.  Our brains are powerful tools if we train them to pause and choose.  That is right; it all comes down to creating a moment of time, a pause in reacting, between the event and our reaction to it.  Once we create a moment of time to think about how we are going to react to a situation, we will almost always make a better decision than if we react right away.

Joe Wilson blamed his outburst calling President Obama a lire, on the power of “his emotions” getting the better of him.  Our emotions affect the choices we make and can sometime seem very powerful, but we still have to make a choice to stand up in a joint session of Congress and disrespect the President of the United States.  I believe that if Joe took one or two seconds to think about the choice he was making he would certainly have chosen not to have to apologize for his action, be the talk of every news network and to have a resolution passed in the same congress reprimanding his behavior.

So what can cause us average human beings the same kind of issues.  Well how about that email that you received today where the person writing the email was accusatory, shared bad information and best of all carbon copied it to their entire address book.  What is your first response?  Do you want to jump on your key board and tell them how things really are and point out how “stupid” they actually are?  You know if that email goes unanswered to that entire distribution list without a quick rebuttal from you everything in it is bound to come true.

I say take a deep breath, wait an hour; wait till after lunch; you may even want to wait until tomorrow before formulating your response.  I learned in First Aid Merit Badge that unless the person is not breathing, their heart isn’t beating and they are not bleeding to death – you have time to evaluate the situation and make a good decision. By giving ourselves time to think it over, let our emotions settle down, maybe event seek the input of a mentor or trusted confidant (my wife always provides me with good perspective) we will make a better choice of how we react.

Serena was “in the moment” and ended up with three days of coverage of a 12 second obscenity filled tirade.  Who knows what Kayne West was thinking he was going to prove, but I am sure that he enjoyed being called out on (as he should have been) the season opener of the new Jay Leno show. The highest viewer ratings since the finale of America Idol, that's over 17 million people.

Take time to make your choice.  Time brings things into perspective, and if your can consciously work on taking time to think about your reactions your life will be fuller and you will be able to achieve at your own Peak Achievement levels.

Focus On Where You Want to Go

As an avid mountain biker I have learned that the most important skill is to focus on where you want to go, not on the rock that you want to avoid.  This is one of the reasons that I like mountain biking as much as I do.  When I am out on the trail I have to let go of all the other things that are going on in my life and focus on the here and now.  I can not be distracted because to avoid ending up with dented helmets and a broken collar bone I have to focus on the “line” or path that I want my bike to travel.

Sometimes the path you need your tire to take is just barely larger than tire it self, and when you are riding along at 20 miles per hour you really do not have a lot of time to think.  Once I learned to focus on the path I needed to travel I became a stronger mountain biker and found that I was much less likely to hits the rocks that I needed to avoid. The opposite is still true, every time that I focus on the obstacle that is in my way I hit it.  These are not usually glancing blows, but straight on collisions with the items that I new I needed to avoid.

This same theory is true in life.  I have found that I have to focus on the path that I want to travel and not on all the obstacles or hurdles that stand in between me and where I want to be.  Our minds are extremely powerful machines and when we focus on the goal or objective we want to achieve, our minds will work faster than we can think to help take us there.  Many of the obstacles we hit along the way could be avoided if we focused on the path we want to take, or at least their impact on our trajectory towards achievement could be minimized.

Now I still hit rocks when I ride my bike, and I usually have at lease one good crash a year. This is just like the project or goal that has challenges you need to overcome, they will always be there.  A strong focus will make sure that you get to the desired outcome with a minimum about of pain.

Book Review - Creating Magic

You Too Can Create Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney by Lee Cockerell

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best comprehensive business leadership books I have read in the last year. Lee Cockerell shares his experience as a leader at Disney on every topic from hiring, inspiring,training, leading with character and much more.

Most of us have probably visited a Disney resort in the past and remember some sort of magical moment we had on that trip. Now you can make the same type of "Magic" happen for your customers by using some of these tips and concepts shared directly from a true Disney leader.

This is one of those books that if you could truly implement a handful of the suggestions demonstrated here into your workplace you can lead your team to great results. This book is designed for leaders of people not just managers.


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Rituals Provide a Foundation for Success

Have you ever watched Tiger Woods golf, or a star baseball player step up to bat. You will notice that they both have a ritual they follow as they get ready to take that next shot, or swing at that next 90 mile per hour fast ball. They have trained their body to perform a series of events in preparation to make the next big play of their game.

What are the rituals in your life? Do you have strategies that lead you to have greater success in your everyday life? In Jon Gordon's book titled Energy Addict - 101 Physical, Mental & Spiritual Way to Energize Your Life he states:

"...rituals are the key to turning our goals into reality - or chaos into concrete action. Rituals help us create positive habits that will become our foundation in a crazy world."

I have been thinking about this concept for the last couple of days and feel that this is really an important statement. When I look back at my times of peak performance I realize that this performance was achieved because I had a commitment to a goal that developed rituals that I performed every day. We each performed a ritual this morning as we woke up and got ready to go to work. Think about it, you have a "routine" in the bathroom and you have your routine with the kids to get them out the door on time for school. Life is filled with rituals.

So ask yourself what are your rituals that you performed today?
Are these rituals leading you to your peak performance or are they holding you back?

It is critical that we match our rituals to our goals and work to strengthen the habits that will lead us to the level of achievement we want to have in life. If our rituals are not constructed to lead us towards what we want, we feel stress in our lives and an inner conflict. The great news of the day is that we can chose our rituals, we can change rituals that are not helping us achieve our goals and build or strengthen the rituals that will help us reach our Peak Achievement.

Book Review - The No Complaining Rule

The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work by Jon Gordon

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well I really liked reading this book after completing the "Energy Bus". I am definitely on board with both of these books and plan to implement them into my life, home and business. I think when Jon got to the end of the book he pulled the pieces together very nicely, and if you really study the plan it will direct you back to key sections in the book to remember and plan your own implementation.



Be sure to visit his web site as well. I think that the posters, discussion guides and other items that he provides are very helpful and make bringing these practices into the work place much easier.



If you don't like this book, remember that there is "No Complaining". :)


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Get're Done - Start with a master task list.

Lets talk about your task list.

• Is it helping you get the most important things done?
• Is it allowing you to work with integrity by helping your deliver on your promises?
• Are all your tasks available for you to review in one spot?
• When was the last time your wrote an item on your task list that you had already completed, just so that you could put a check mark next to the item.

Task lists play an important role in helping us remember the items that we need to complete at work, at home and for the family. I believe in maintaining a master task list for all my tasks and ideas. The master task list is a depository of the items that I want to do for all aspects of my life. Maintaining a master task list has many benefits:

Remember what you promised:
How many times have you been in a meeting and made a comment about something that your would do for someone. This casual statement is now an expectation for the person that you were with. They are counting on you to get that items done. Capturing these items on your list when you promise them to others helps you remember what you said you would do.

Sleep Easier:
Do you know someone who has a hard time going to sleep, because as they lay there in bed trying to relax, there brain is working overtime on what they need to get done. I know someone like this. Capturing a list of these items on a sleepless night onto a master task list is even better than counting sheep. Writing them down tells your mind that it is alright for it to relax about that task, you have it written down in a foul proof system that will remind you about the task tomorrow.

Capture Ideas:
A master task list is a great place to capture ideas that you have. Because you are not going to assign due dates to your master task list items, you can write down that ideas that your would like to figure out and try. I wonder how many good ideas have been lost because they were never recorded and went by the wayside.

Maintain Lists:
Within my master task list I often maintain other list of things that I want to record. For example you will always find a list of books that I want to read in my master task list. Maybe it is a list of items that you want to order from a vendor, but you want to make sure that you meet their minimum order. Keep your list handy so that you can refer to it the next time you want to place an order and make sure you do not miss anything.

Your master task list does not have to be perfectly organized, you will do that when you move the items to your daily task list. Remember that you can delete these items later if you feel that they are irrelevant or no longer apply. Just get all your ideas down onto your list.