Tom Peters is not a BIG MOUTH & stuff you can learn from him

I used to think Tom Peters' writing was annoying. While I've always appreciated his message, his use of capitalization, bold fonts, radical paragraphs, wild exclamation marks and fonts, in more sizes than there are defintions of design, downright irritated me. It did that is, until one day I had a conversation with my doctor.

I asked my doc, who is also a teacher, "how many students in your class are passionate about what they're learning and are engaged in their professional development? "

Doc said in a class of twenty, maybe one or two. Those one or two make her fifteen hour days worth it. They give her reason to go on.

I think it has to do with how strongly my doctor believes in her craft and its power to heal. To the core of her being she knows it does. The precise moment when I realized this is when Tom and his exclamation marks took over my head. And as they did, Tom's writing style began to fade and his message leapt at me from the pages.

Tom believes so strongly in this message that he overpowers the fonts and punctuation marks and enlists them into his army of persuasion. I don't think Tom is willing to settle for the smaller percentage of believers as my doc, so he raises the volume on his discourse.

To be real, this isn't so much about Tom as it is about me getting my head on straight. Here's another example. My perception of Tom's audience / market was CEO's and managers who wanted to be like the rock star CEO's who Tom consulted with.

This view changed when I read The Little Big Things, Tom's latest book, for the second time. I read it through the window of this mindset: How can Tom's book help college students stand out from their peers and prepare for life after college? OMG! I think The Little Big Things is more relevant to college students than it is to some ole coot managers (or x-managers like me). Matter of fact, I could pattern my entire Standing out in a Sea of Sameness site after it.

The book's premise is that Excellence is the result of many small tasks, all of which can be practiced and mastered. Tom says, "hard is soft and soft is hard."

More on Tom's book here.

If you're an ole coot you need the book because it is relevant. If you're a college student catch Tom over at You Tube where he is presenting short videos of the book's content.

Comments

[tom peters]

Thank you! (!!!) Made my day-week-month-year! (!!!)

tom peters

[dave]

Thanks for stopping by Tom. I am on my third go round of The Little Big Things and I am totally stoked by what our Gen-Y friends can learn from it!

I encourage younger people to seek stories from those on the road ahead of them. Well, you're not only on the road holding a light, you helped to build the road.

To me, your book is like packing a village elder in one's backpack.

Thank you for everything you do brother!