Tag: Books

Think Like a Failure?

Cybrarian.  Never heard of this person, probably.  No worries.  I had never heard of it until this month.

Librarian.  Everyone’s heard of this person, probably.  The librarian is in charge of the library – the place where books are kept.

How many of you can see it coming?  The day when books will be relics on display in museums. It may not happen in the next 10-20 years, but it will happen.  And it may even happen sooner.

The music industry never saw it coming. They should have led the revolution, instead, they were victims of it.

Free music file sharing over the Internet.  Preposterous!  Exactly.

Cybrarians can see it coming.  Amazon’s Kindle is the first ripple of the cybrarian tsunami.

Surf’s up, dude.  Catch a (digital) wave.

Seth Godin’s Top Book Picks

Seth Godin announced his November Top Book picks. Click here.

Most people, like I was three months ago, are clueless who Seth Godin is.

If you are serious about your career, and committed to becoming better at your leadership performance, and especially your leadership thinking, you better should become familiar with Seth Godin.

I first read Purple Cow (about being remarkable) and now Tribes (about, well, stay tuned).

Seth Godin is also on You Tube and you can start to see how refreshingly different, and amazingly brilliant, his thinking is.

But wait. I almost forgot. Most humans (like 90%) are not proactively seeking change.  Leaders say they embrace change, but how often do you see leaders transforming themselves and others?

Is This A Purple Cow?

Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow, is about how to be remarkable.  If you’ve ever flown before, you know what a flight attendant does.

Or do you:

OK, I’ve seen a ton of flight attendants. There are the traditional items that must be covered.

But how there are covered has yet to be defined, or may never be defined. This Southwest Airlines Flight attendant is remarkable.

Bottom line:  in a highly competitive world, playing it safe is risky.

Who Is Leading Your Tribe?

Tribes, by Seth Godin.  Heard of it?  Read it?

The tag line, “We need you to lead us”, really hits home for me.  Why?

Because, in today’s world, if you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of chaos and uncertainty.  “Duh”, right?

What I’d like to challenge is our predisposition to look to others to be better leaders.  When in reality, the real work, where the biggest need is, is right in front of you as you look in the mirror.

Quite complaining about others needing to do this or do that – and presumably thinking that your life will get better as soon as “they” change.

Let the change begin and end with you.  Period.  Because until that happens, you are in no place to expect it from someone else.

Exploiting Chaos!

Walking through an airport this week, a book title caught my eye, “Exploiting Chaos“.

Why?  If I have to explain this to you, you most likely won’t understand. But, because I’m a sucker for people who want to understand and continuously improve, I’ll give it a brief try here.

Chaos is a paradox.  We can (and probably do) hate chaos.  Or, we can (and probably don’t) love chaos.

Hate it for all of the societal norm reasons most hate chaos.

Love it for all the opportunity it brings.  Yes, opportunity.  So once again, if I have to explain this to you, you won’t understand.  But if I were you, I’d quickly try to figure it out, or get left behind.