The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling

This is a book about creating lasting organizational change and one that every leader should read.

The 4 Disciplines—Focus on the Wildly Important; Act on Lead Measures; Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; & Create a Cadence of Accountability.

This book does an excellent job of breaking down the differences between the “whirlwind” of urgent activity required to keep things running day-to-day and all the time/energy you need to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow.

Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds by Carmine Gallo

Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In order to succeed, you need to be able to sell your ideas persuasively. From what I’ve observed, this ability is the single greatest skill that will help you accomplish your dreams.

At the beginning of 2020, I set new intentions to develop and drastically improve my public speaking skills. Talk Like TED is one of the books I’m reading to better understand what makes outstanding public speakers. I also joined a local Toastmasters group and plan to deliver (10) prepared public speeches. I recommend this book for those also looking to improve their public speaking & leadership skills.

Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday

MIND | SPIRIT | BODY

“Stillness as Ryan Holiday puts it is the river and the railroad junction through which so much depends. It is the key . . .

To thinking clearly. To seeing the whole chessboard. To making tough decisions. To managing our emotions. To identifying the right goals. To handling high-pressure situations. To maintaining relationships. To building good habits. To being productive. To physical excellence. To feeling fulfilled.

I highly recommend reading this book as well as the rest of Ryan Holiday’s work.

Extreme Ownership | Jocko Willink | TEDxUniversityofNevada

There is no one else to blame; you must own problems along with solutions; commit to lead up and down the chain of command.

Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World by Cal Newport

Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

Shallow Work: Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.

(2) Core Abilities For Thriving in Today’s Economy:

  1. The ability to master hard things quickly
  2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed

“I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule. Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output.” – Cal Newport

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36: The Power of Saying No & Doing Things The Hard Way

The Power of Saying ‘No’ EPISODE 36 – May 26, 2019 Some things we cover in this episode: Why Do Things The Hard Way? The life changing power of saying NO How to improve discipline Life update How to manage social pressure Mental Toughness, Discipline, Character, Grit, & Fortitude Closing Gratitude IF YOU APPRECIATE THE SHOW, […]