Nathan Martin

In You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader, Mark Sanborn gives a good overview of leadership skills.  Sanborn defines a leader as someone who influences others.  By that definition we all are leaders.  The author challenges us to use that influence positively.  He shares many stories throughout the book to illustrate the ways that people lead others even when they hold no authoritative office or position.  We can bring positive change to our workplace, community, and relationships without being the boss.

Sanborn is also an excellent speaker.  I saw/heard him speak at Charlie “Tremendous” Jones’ memorial service.

Steve Chandler and Sam Beckford put together a collection of 100 essays (most are two to four pages each) for becoming a more complete person in 100 Ways to Create Wealth. The small sections provide food for thought.  Treat it as a quick mental stimulant for the day…many of the topics are cliched and unoriginal, but still very valuable to contemplate.  Chandler and Beckford want you to spend time thinking of ways to add value to your world and truly create wealth as opposed to waiting and hoping something good will come to you.

I wrote about Chandler and Beckford’s fiction book here.  If you like Chandler and Beckford at all, be sure to read 9 Lies That are Holding Your Business Back. I’ll write about 9 Lies soon.

Collapse Of Distinction: Stand out and move up while your competition fails by Scott McKain has been on my nightstand since April.  I received this as a part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review program.  I like the topic and was excited about reading the book.  I kept having trouble “getting into” Collapse though.  Ultimately, my take is that the book is just OK.  The author  seems–at least from the bio– like someone I would really enjoy speaking with.  He is a successful businessman and speaker.  Unfortunately, the book didn’t hold my attention the way I imagine McKain’s speaking would.  The core of the book was solid, if uninspiring:

1.  Clarity

2.  Creativity

3.  Communication

4.  Customer-Experience Focus

More interesting was Thomas Nelson’s try at something different with the sales of this book.  When buying the hardcover, you are given access to the ebook version and/or the audiobook to read or listen as well.  The idea was unique.  I didn’t love it in practice though.  The audiobook required too many different downloads…too much like work=)

The bottom line for me… Collapse Of Distinction contains solid content.  There are valuable insights especially if you haven’t studied differentiation and distinction before.  If you are interested in this topic at all,  make sure you read the 30 year old classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout are marketing legends and give plenty of real life examples to get your mind turning to come up with your own distinctions.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This week I made my second stock option purchase within a month.  I subscribed to Motley Fool’s Option newsletter and followed Jeff Fischer’s advice, buying call options on Johnson & Johnson and Intel.  The risk is somewhat lessened by the fact that these are both solid companies.  Also, the calls don’t expire till 2012…plenty of time for the underlying stock prices to go up even if the market decides to dip a few times in the next year or so.  The way call options work is that I am buying the right to purchase a stock at certain price(strike price) on a certain date.  If the stock is trading below that price on the expiration date, I will not exercise the right to buy the stock and the option will expire worthless.  In that case, I lose the amount of money that I paid for the option.  If the stock is trading above the strike price on the expiration date, I can exercise my right to purchase the stock at the strike price.  What will most likely happen though is that sometime in the next two years I will choose to sell my options to someone else, hopefully at a hefty profit.  Options can be traded through your brokerage account much like stocks.  When the underlying stock goes up, the option typically goes up as well depending on the length of time remaining on the option as well as the proximity of the stock price to the strike price.

So that’s my latest stock market adventure.  More to come…

I recently finished Brian Tracy’s book, Flight Plan: The Real Secret of Success.  It wasn’t my favorite Tracy book, but I definitely found it useful as it is loaded with some of Brian’s simple truths.  The basic premise is that you can chart a course to a goal then follow the “flight plan” to said goal.  Probably any analogy breaks down if you carry it too far.  The weakness I saw in this book was that keeping the flight plan analogy the whole way through the book felt forced at times.  That said, the content is solid.  And timely since I read it at year end when, like many others, I was taking stock of my own plans and progress.

Here are a handful of Tracyisms from the book:

• “For you to change your outer world, you must change your inner world.”
• “You have more talent than you could use in a hundred lifetimes.”
• “The most valuable asset you have in achieving your goals and reaching your destination in life is your mind.”
• “Fear is , and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind.”

At the beginning, Tracy guides the reader through choosing a destination and formulating a plan.  Expecting turbulence and making continual course corrections were two parts of the airplane analogy that were especially insightful.

Overall, Flight Plan is well worth the fifteen bucks.  In fact, I believe there is a paperback available now.

I started blogging about this time last year.  Blogging has been a fun experience so far.  Why Blog? Click Here to find out.

In no particular order, here a few of my favorite things from the past year.

1.  Registered my first domain name and moved my blog.

2.  Joined Toastmasters International in October…met some great people and made three speeches so far.

3.  Helped my friends Bob and Ronda set up a website for Bob.

4.  Traded my first stock option.

5.  Began organizing an internet department for the company I work for.

6.  Sad to hear of Jim Rohn’s death this month.  Saw Zig Ziglar speak this year.  He wasn’t healthy.  Attended Charlie “Tremendous” Jones’ memorial service last year.  Brian Tracy and Les Brown are starting to age.  Began contemplating how to be part of the next generation of motivators and personal development encouragers.

7.  Celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary with Becky.

8.  Traveled to New Mexico, New York City, Michigan, California, Ohio, Colorado, and unintentionally…Chicago.

9.  Bought my first kayak and used it as much as possible!

2010 will be even more eventful…starting tomorrow.

Don’t be thrown off by the bland cover and unimaginative title… Steve Chandler and Sam Beckford’s book is a fun fictional story about an entrepreneur and his daughter figuring out how to revive their restaurant from the brink of bankruptcy.  The Small Business Millionaire helped them achieve an unprecedented level of success in the business.  Throughout the process dad and daughter also found meaning and joy in their lives.

This quick read will give readers plenty of food for thought and some good reminders.  Here are some of the highlights I picked out:

• “Advertising is salesmanship in print.”  All salespeople should yield measurable results.
• DECIDE to make the business succeed.
• Sell the experience, not just a meal, book, or service.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
• People want to see you succeed.
• Win over your local market and watch word of mouth spread.

Go read The Small Business Millionaire.  I have more Chandler books to talk about in future posts.

One of my most recent personal development forays was joining the Chambersburg chapter of Toastmasters International in November.  Toastmasters is like speech class except that instead of a teacher you have a group of like-minded individuals each working at his/her own pace through various workbooks and critiquing one another’s speeches along the way.  I’m certainly not Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, or Tony Robbins yet, but I am having fun and improving in the process.  In case you’re curious, you can see my presentations on YouTube…I put them up so I can see what I need to improve on.

In 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea, Suzy Welch shares a strategy for decision making.  When faced with a decision, Suzy asks:

1.  If I choose to do this, what will the outcome be in 10 minutes?

2.  If I choose to do this, what does the result look like in 10 months?

3.  If I choose to do this, how does my life change in 10 years?

As Suzy explains, don’t get hung up on exactly 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.  That’s just meant to be a catchy way to remember to determine the immediate, short-term, and long-term effects of our decisions.  I found 10-10-10 to be a great reminder of the Law of Cause and Effect.  Suzy puts her journalism background to excellent use as she fills the book with real-life examples of people from various walks of life that have used 10-10-10 in all sorts of decisions large and small.

The concept of 10-10-10 is simple and very practical.  You’ll pick that up quickly in the book.  Suzy’s storytelling makes the rest of the book worth reading.

Enjoy.

Tis the season for holiday TV specials.  And yes, many of them are sappy.  This weekend I saw one I really enjoyed.  On ABC Family, George Lopez was in a TV movie called Naughty or Nice.  Lopez’ character, Hank Ramiro,  is a sports radio shock jock in Chicago who makes his living as a sort of heckler.  After a young caller gets in his head, Ramiro begins to see the influence he has on the city and has a choice to make…continue his popular though negative radio show or risk his job to explore the positive effects he is seeing from his new “niceness”.

Takeaways:

1.  We truly do influence others through our words, attitude, and actions.

2.  Like Mom used to say: “If you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all.”