As a basketball player, there is no better individual feeling than being “in the zone”. Shooting the ball into the hoop is no longer a challenge. Getting open is easy, the defense seems to moves slower than normal, and most importantly, there is an extremely high level of focus and confidence that is a part of being in the zone.
My question is, as leaders, can we be “in the zone”? I believe we can. Here are 5 tips for putting yourself ”in the zone” as a leader: (more…)
Recently, I completed Decision Points. What a fantastic read.
Whether or not you were a George Bush supporter (which I was), I believe this book will be on best-seller lists for a long time. I didn’t necessarily always agree with the decisions that President Bush made, but after reading the book I now have a better appreciation of the process he used to make important decisions. Each chapter is based upon a major decision or series of decisions the president had to make.
His process was clear and consistent. There were 3 distinct processes he used in making these decisions:
1) He studied history – He read many books of past decision makers
2) He seeked insight from subject matter experts and/or his inner circle – Whether it was a family member, a relationship he had build in his life, or his staff, he asked others for their input
3) He prayed - He prayed for wisdom, strength, and courage in making tough decisions.
Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
The book was 481 pages in length. My ‘dogear measurement’ probably doesn’t work for biographies and autobiographies. I did find in his book an interesting ‘challenge’ he had with Karl Rove on who read the most. Rather than only measure books read, they competed in pages and lateral area. So, I will track this during the year. Total lateral area for the book = 481 pages x 31.5 sq in per page = 15,151.5 sq in read! You will enjoy every sq inch of this book. I am sure if you read it, you will have a new found appreciation for the decisions a President must make.
Has anyone else read the book? Let me know what you think. What other biography work do you suggest for good reading?
Don’t you wish we had one of these buttons for ‘life’? Hard to believe that 2010 has come and gone. In the Gallagher household, it was another year of growth for us as a family. Somewhere I heard that the 3 most stressful things in life to do are: 1) get married, 2) start a new job, and 3) move.
Well, thanks to my very understanding and beautiful wife, Chris, I won’t have to complete number 1 any time in the near future, but we did go through 2 and 3 this year, aside from all the other fun stuff!!
In April, I started a new chapter in my career with Simpler, Inc as a Senior Consultant. I have found this new opportunity to be challenging and rewarding. Then, in June, we sold our home to a nice family and moved down the street into a home that we had been building for nearly 2 years. The real estate market, to say the least, has posed MANY challenges over the past few years, not just 2010.
To say that it was an EASY year would be a lie. However, I know that it was EASIER as a result of having my own written Life Plan to provide a filter for some of the decisions that I needed to make in 2010. Many tough choices were made in our family this year. Choices that have us all looking forward into 2011. There are too many people to list that I need to thank for pouring into our lives this year.
Thanks for reading my posts this past year. It is my wish that they add value to your life.
So, was your 2010 easy? Let me know how it went by commenting below!!
As a result of commenting on a blog post at www.michaelhyatt.com, I was given the book titled: Mentor Like Jesus by Regi Campbell. I must say that I really enjoyed this book. In this book, the author defines a process he developed on his own to called “next-generation mentoring mentor a few men (8) in a year long process. The author defines a great mentor as “one who can listen, ask good questions, bring others into the conversation, and tell a relevant story to make a point.” He uses Jesus as the model mentor.
He defined 11 elements of next-generation mentoring: 1) On purpose, 2) Selfless, 3) in a group, 4) handpicked 5) for defined period of time, 6) Scripture, 7) Prayer, (8) Modeled, 9) Taught along the way, 10) Mutual commitment, 11) Required multiplication.
The elements that touched me the most included:
Handpicked – Generally, a mentee, chooses a mentor, but in this program, the mentor choose the mentees HE wants to mentor…Just like Jesus picked his 12!
Defined period of time – Too often, I think mentoring, once started, goes on for an undefined period. In this program, there is a specific end date
Required mutual commitment – The sessions are scheduled out a year in advance and there are no ‘excused’ absences or tardies. His math is simple. If there are 9 men in the group (1 mentor and 8 mentees) and you are 5 minutes late for a meeting, you aren’t just wasting 5 minutes, you are wasting 45 minutes of time!
Several quotes hit me as well:
The book gets a ’6′ on the dogear scale that I use; however, most of the books that I review have 220-250 pages. This book only has 152 pages, so the effectiveness of the book is much higher than it’s ’6′ rating. I will be passing a copy along to a friend and would suggest it to you. I want to thank Michael Hyatt for the opportunity to read this book.
So, what are you waiting on? When are YOU going to start a mentoring group? Actually, the book has a great list of questions to let you know WHEN you are ready to start and WHO to mentor! I have the date set on my calendar for when I will start my mentoring group. I want to work to prepare myself for it.
I was reviewing some of my blogs from 2009 and came across my reading list for 2009 post. Well, 1 of 5 isn’t bad. I did complete a total of 5 books in 2009, am enjoying finishing up Tribes right now and have developed a list for 2010, also. Because I didn’t finish the others on the original list does not mean that they were not important, just that situations may have changed during the year(First 90 days), or someone may have have suggested a book to me(Love & Respect), a new book came out that was not available when I made my original list, I read about it in a blog post of someone else I follow(Duct Tape Marketing), or it was a gift given to me during the year.
So, what are the criteria for books that I read? The book should fall in to one or more of the following categories for me to consider:
1) Relationship building
2) Improvement (of myself, others, or processes I am working on)
3) Learning (kind of like New York, NY). Reading a book is learning
4) Discipline – How to improve priority management in my life.
This year, I have the follwing books in my ‘stack to read’:
I have already started a few of them.
Questions:
