Recently I completed Put Your Dream To The Test by John C Maxwell. As usual with John Maxwell’s books, I was not disappointed. The sub-title to the book was “Ten Questions That will help you See it and Seize It.” One of the things I appreciate with the author’s books is that they are not necessarily chronological, but you can pick up and begin at nearly any chapter in the book. This was valuable to me as it took me nearly 3 months of picking up and putting down to complete. Not because of the book, but because of lots of ‘stuff’ happening in the life of John Gallagher over the past three months (several blog posts coming soon about the learnings here!)
In any event, I found the book to be filled with several development nuggets and timely quotes from other leaders that he ‘borrows’ to emphasize his points.
There were some specific questions for me that I went back to review a couple times:
1) Do I have a strategy to reach my dream? While I have a Life Plan to outline the dream, my action on the strategy has been sputtering. I need to remove some non-essentials (I identified 7 of them in writing. I know there are more!) that keep me from reaching my dream.
2) Am I willing to pay the price for my dream? One of the prices to pay in achieving the dream is dealing with criticism. This is not a strength of mine. Just ask my wife, Chris!
3) Am I moving closer to my dream? This question focused on believe in self. Another area where I can grow.
So, I am sure that of the ten questions in this book, you can find 1,2, or 3 to trigger some thought in your mind and more importantly, action by you, to help you achieve your dream.
This book, like most of Maxwell’s books, was 225 pages. I had 11 dog ears. My new rating system will be on a ’20:1′ ratio of ‘total pages:dogears’. My expectation for a good book would be a 20. Anything from a 15-20 is a good book and worth the investment. Above 20 – Go get it now!. This book’s score is: 20.5. Go get it…read it…take action from it…
So, what is keeping you from achieving your dream?
Recently, I completed Leadership Gold: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Leading by John C Maxwell. This book took me over a year to complete. Not because it wasn’t a good book, quite the contrary. This is a book that you can pick up, scan the table of contents, and go to a specific lesson without the need to complete the book front to back. There will be times you are on your leadership journey that some of the lessons may impact you more or less, but clearly, this is a valuable resource for leaders. As valuable as ‘Gold’? I will let you decide!
