The above words of wisdom are from Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life. Robert weaves the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen - slow, incremental continuous improvement - into a navigable, sensible way to change your life.
If you need to make a chang in your life, pick up Robert's book today.
Photo from jhhwild on flickr.
According to Peter Drucker, "We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop."
Marshall Goldsmith writes, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, a book that meets Mr. Drucker's statement head on and tells us what to stop doing. Marshall Goldsmith is a communicator extraordinaire! Although over the years, he's dealt with CEO's, he writes in a clear and specific style so that average people like myself can understand. He first caught my attention as a columnist for Fast Company.
Perhaps you have achieved a level of success but you have stalled. As Marshall says:
You are here.
You can get there.
But you have to understand that what go you here won't get you there.
Pick up a copy today and get there!
This is my third post in a review of chapters from Mark Matteson's book Freedom From Fear.
In this chapter we learn about reflection. Len, one of the book's main characters, uses solitude to gain a greater understanding of his actions and of himself. Although this chapter is a quick read, the suggested steps toward learning more about yourself can take a weekend.
I love this quote by Len: The door of the soul opens inward.
Pick up Mark's book today!
Red door by Pia on Flickr
What are your strengths? What are you really good at? What is your genius? What do you want to be when you grow up?
When I sit down and try to answer questions like these, no matter how hard I try, my mind continues to run in neutral, I simply cannot pop the clutch. Sure I can throw out some half-baked ideas. But I'll start doubting them in about twenty seconds.
I've been this way as long as I can remember. About twelve years ago however, I began to put forth an effort to figure out questions like these. Stacks of self-help books are littered about my office, giving testimony to my decade long stay at the Woodstock-Figure-it-all-out-Festival in my mind. The intense rain, lack of food and no answers finally wore me down. Funny, I thought bell bottom pants would have gone out of style by the 80's.
It took all of this time to sink in, but I finally agree with what most gurus say: The answers lie within. So instead of trying to perform a self-induced extraction by sticking my finger down my mind and spew forth these answers, I've decided to simply start watching myself. Dick Richards calls it Notice Yourself in his book Is Your Genius at Work? Marcus Buckingham provides some resource material in his book Go Put Your Strengths To Work that finally woke me up enough to get off my butt and do something. The goal is to make note when I find myself doing something that I really like. And to make note of stuff that I find really interesting, stuff that zaps me with an emotional zing, out there in the universe. Dan Pink first planted this seed in my head in his book A Whole New Mind when he suggests to keep a design notebook. Maybe I'll even try to write about them here...
