Florida – Page 7 – Disney Brand Loyalty Keynote Speaker

Leadership Books

I get it. There is only so much a person can read. We can’t do it all. Right there with you. And, many of us received new books as gifts recently.

What books changed your life last year?

There were a few for me. Two had significant impact.

Up first, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. Randy was a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, in his mid-40’s. He had a wife and three children under the age of six.

Then he got pancreatic cancer.

To paraphrase what I heard Randy say:

This isn’t a book about dying. It’s a book about living.

It isn’t a book for you and me. It is a book for Randy Pausch’s children.

How did this book change my life?

It is in living in the moment that makes us great leaders. Doing things – things that matter – with a heightened sense of urgency has changed my life. I’ll tell you why tomorrow.

jungle jeff New Year New You?

Happy New Year. Anyone reading this with a hangover? 🙂

Just a guess. A hunch. Been there done that.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 the highest, how much thought have you put into your big, audacious goals for 2010?

You don’t even want to know mine. Seriously. It’s like a 15, or maybe a 20!

That’s totally flipping out of control, isn’t it? Maybe some of you are still drunk, but pinky-swear, that’s the real number.

Okay, here comes the “Hail Mary Pass“ – I ain’t waiting to find out my time is almost up, and then try to start doing something great.

I also am not going to wait for another potentially serious wake-up call to get my butt in gear.

Different strokes for different folks.

Walt Disney Said

Walt Disney said many profound things. There are few on Earth that think Walt Disney was stupid and misguided.

Are you a Walt Disney fan? I mean, a fan of the man, the dreamer and doer?

After several days of long jungle jeff blog posts, I’m cutting this one short with a simple and profound Walt Disney quote, which summarizes how I want to think in 2010:

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

In 2010, let’s pursue the dreams we’ve always had, but have not yet made our dramatic leap. Ya with me?

Tough Love

Yesterday’s Christmas gift from jungle jeff to you was probably not what you expected, was it?

Tough love is what our son’s Kindergarten teacher called it.

A college roommate that became a US Marshal, handling some exceptionally criminal minds, told me that he would sometimes have to tell the people he was “guarding”, “Don’t mistake kindness for weakness.”

Our US Marshal friend is a Dad, a husband, and a really nice person. But he knows some quick moves that’ll bring the biggest brute to his knees in seconds.

The world is full of very competitive people and very competitive businesses. And there’s a phrase, survival of the fittest, that works in nature, and it works in business.

People forget this. Or, they ignore it or deny it.

I can’t. You can’t. No one who wants to be excellent can be unclear of this natural law.

This is why I’m upping the ante at jungle jeff. Not by an unbearable amount, but more than 2009.

Almost forgot, if you trek on over to jeffnoel.org , and read just a few entries, you’ll see a much softer side of tough love.

jungle jeff Vacation

Woo-hoo! jungle jeff is on vacation!

Now I can really get some work done. Here’s my list:

Slow down

Will let you know how this goes. Carpe diem.