Tag: Oprah

Leadership Books

The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture

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.

Wasn’t Looking for This

Writing five blogs every day has wonderful, and may I audaciously say, transformational benefits.  Far beyond what was ever thought possible.  And yet….

What comes along with the good – and everyone knows this as a “truth” – is the bad.  The bad in this case is writers block.  My first little bout came and went a few days ago.  It lasted a couple days.  Triggered mostly by time pressures, not lack of desire.

Anyway, following a daily routine of scanning Facebook, Twitter, LnkedIn, blogs, etc, I stumbled upon a LinkedIn status update.

Susan Harrow’s article, Changing Your Body Changes Your Self, is definitely worth a quick read.  Why?  Because she speaks about what is common knowledge, but not common practice.

One of the best ways to change our bodies is to use common sense. One of the best ways to use common sense is to focus on it every day. Ya with me?  Every single day.  Period.  Carpe diem.