We hear it all too often when we turn on the news today, jobs getting shipped out to other countries and millions find themselves out of work. Earlier in the century, during the industrial revolution, work changed dramatically. The high skilled work that dominated the century prior started being replaced by processes and machines. And so came the production line and factory mindset where productions were split into simple processes that even the most unskilled people could do. This drove the cost of labor low and was extremely profitable for companies, but created the problem we have today of people loosing jobs to outsourcing and more and more robots. Even previously thought to outsource proof white collar careers like banking jobs, assistants, stock brokers, analyst, those who just show up and followed instructions are finding their hours cut and having their jobs replaced and outsourced. Best selling author and one of my favorite marketing thought leaders offer us the idea, that to be irreplaceable, we need to be indispensable and remarkable, or what he calls the Linchpin. Seth says “The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.” Linchpins don't need a set of instructions, they create opportunities and apply their vision without being told what to do. They humanize and connect their artistic problem solving to their daily work. We all have what it takes to bring this out and become a linchpin, we simply need to fully understand what goes into being a linchpin and start applying it to our works today. Allow me to leave you with this In today’s modern workplace, being a good team member, following instructions and being able to do things that everyone else can makes you very replaceable. The key to succeed and get the best jobs today, we need to become indespensable and be that linchpin for every company. We need to be the catalyst for members of our company, deliver our domain knowledge and contribute generously. Manage complex situation with clear judgements, lead our customers and inspire our staff. We cant allow our lizard brain and fear stop us from getting out of our comfort zone and embracing our inner artist in solving problems. We need to lay our heart on the line and make our work a platform for our art and get things done outstandingly and become an indespensable linchpin.

We all know that some of the most successful brands and individuals, share something in common, and that is their ability to share their message and tell a story. As leaders and entrepreneurs we often wonder how we can get better at story telling. And some of us are even scared of public speaking. Many sucessful people today, who often give inspiring talks once found themselves battling the same jitters of public speaking that most of us do. But we need to realize that storytelling is in our evolutionary DNA. We are here today as a species because of story telling. Imagine our ancestors 400,000 years ago in camp fires passing down stories to the next generations of what we needed to do, from the foods to eat, how to hunt and how to survive. Inspiring storytellers have changed the course of history and made us lead better lives. Business leaders such as Warren Buffet and Richard Branson and political leaders like John F Kennedy and Nelson Mandela are great storytellers who inspired various people. This book by Carmine Gallo is dedicated to featuring 50 visionaries who have mastered the art of storytelling. We learn to tell our story persuasively and achieve our dreams. People from different walks of life – business, entertainment, and politics use stories to put their point across. Carmine says, ”Storytelling is the act of framing an idea as a narrative to inform, illuminate, and inspire.” It teaches us that a good story can explain an idea but a great story, educates, entertains, inspires, and even launches movements. The author has interestingly and effectively divided each chapter into three sections. The featured storyteller, a complete guide on how to apply the tools and also the storytellers secret. Whether it's our goal to pitch a business idea, ace a job interview, build a company, improve our teamwork, give a presentation. Storytelling can be our unique competitive advantage. Mark Burnett left the UK to come to Los Angeles with only $200 in his pockets. To make ends meet, he hung t-shirts on fences in Venice beach and sold them. But he had a skill for telling stories which he parlayed to become one of the most successful executive producers on TV with shows like Survivor, Apprentice , The Voice and Shark Tank. Allow me to leave you with this final thought To become a great story teller. We need to sharpen our presentation skills through practice and be passionate and inspired about our own ideas. Illustrate our stories by Introducing heroes in our stories who overcome hardships and learn valuable lessons. Build our stories with the rule of 3 in mind, Use pictures and make our story not only readable but compelling and memorable. Share stories to strengthen our organization and teams culture, and use metaphors and analogies to communicate our difficult concepts. Great stories, move us to change the world. It’s time that we take our place in history and become among its greatest story tellers.

In our business, workplace and in life, we all experience the tough times or the squeeze of the bad economy. I found this very relevant to my work, being the head of marketing for a brand and also my own ventures. When these times come, it's important that we are on the top of our career or business, because this presents us with major advantages to dominate our market. It's very dangerous not to be number 1. If you’ve listened to my review on Grant Cardone’s 10X rule, read his books or listened to him speak, you know he is a no nonsense guy and not only talks but walks the walk. Grant Cardone is a well-known business speaker and sales guru. He shares with us his specific process and actions he took and we should too, to move us from where we are now to the front of our field, regardless of our products and services. My favorite excerpt from the book is this. "Your Success is not limited by the economy; it’s only limited by the people you know and the amount of interest you can generate in your products and services." My final key takeaway is The most important skill needed to advance and conquer. We all need to learn how to sell. We can plan and organize until we are blue in the face, but if we can’t sell our products, what does it matter how organized you are? Let's not kid ourselves and think that there is a line of people waiting for our products, We actually need to work and generate interest, sell our products and services and close the deal. The most needed and protected people in the workforce are those who can sell and bring in the money. We need to realize that There is no shortage of money, but there is a great shortage of people who are willing to take action and follow-through.

When we think of millionaires, we typically think of those we see on TV or instafamous driving nice cars, Hollywood Hill mansions, flashing wads of cash and blowing their money on parties. Last week we talked about the book about Billionaires, I know that most of us will not be able to achieve that. So I wanted to do a book about millionaires, how that can be realistically achieved. What we may not realize is that many of today's millionaires living below their means, save and budget their income and spend wisely. They main concept of The Millionaire Next Door book is that our societies concept of a millionaire is based on false assumptions and that most actual millionaires live a very simple lifestyle. Most of us, when we expect to get a tax refund, get a nice commission or bonus check, we are already planning what to do with it before we even receive it. The authors suggest, sticking to some basic money habits and we too can be on our way to becoming a millionaire. The authors Thomas and William were obsessed with studying the wealthy, or as they call them “affluent”. And what they found was 7 key traits of most of the millionaires they studied. Allow me to leave you with my final thoughts. We need to realize that our dream of accumulating wealth is not a pipe dream reserved for a few, like most of us may think. 80% of the millionaire households are ordinary people who have accumulated their wealth over one generation. The lessons in this book are quite straight forward but a great reminder to us all. We need to manage your finances responsibly, save more and spend less and not take on too much debt that we cannot afford. And being consistent about making smart investments as early as possible to take advantage of compound interest. We all need to find our own balance between denying our selves of what we need an want and over consumption take control of our finances today.

In our study of some of greatest achievers in history, we find that they seem to be smarter, gifted and talented in many ways and appear as though they are just flat out geniuses. What may surprise us is that we have the same potential as those geniuses and muses of history. But in todays world full of distraction and immediate gratification, we limit our opportunities to grow and develop. The key to our greatest potential and highest level of achievement comes from Mastery. But it has become very rare. Most of us want to achieve success superficially, with low level of work and not put in the hard work and don’t appreciate the process. Mastery takes great effort, passion and persistence and very often requires us to break through obstacles and even sometimes earn the animosity of our peers. But most people lack the work ethic and the willingness to really invest in themselves and get stuck in the mire of mediocrity. Multi Best Selling Author, Robert Greene reveals that Mastery wont be easy, but is extremely fulfilling and a worthwhile endeavor if we are willing to put in the time, blood, sweat, effort to mastering our craft. Allow me to leave you with this. In order to achieve the level of success in our lives to that of the Einteins, Mozarts, Darwins, the Ben Franklins of the world. We need to start by finding our true calling or our life’s task. Then apprentice to acquire the necessary skills to master our life’s task, where we learn the rules and the necessary skills. Where we show up, shut up, and take notes. Then Follow what our mentors teach religiously and not stray from it until we reach the next stage. Next in stage comes in the so called creative/active phase. This is when we practice what we’ve learned during our apprenticeship and make additional connections. We get to see the bigger picture and develop our own unique style, our own way of executing our craft like no one else. Then, after we've invested 10,000 or more hours and years worth of learning and practice, we achieve the holy grail of our lives… and that is mastery.

Early on in our lives and in school, we have been taught that to succeed, we must be competitive against others. On our journey to achieving our goals in life, we often come across individuals who seem to only care about themselves. Wether it may be family, friends, coworkers, bosses or even employees, there are those who completely brush off the needs of those around them. They seem to only care about money, status and being admired by others. They often promote themselves and focus on “I” rather than “WE”. We all know that to really succeed, it takes interacting with others. We all know the power of Reciprocity, Gary Vaynerchuk, built his wine empire into a 60 million dollar business by helping people. But there are different reciprocity styles that we employ in our careers or businesses, Adam found that most of us operate as givers, matchers or takers. Let us First learn a quick Breakdown Of Adam's 3 reciprocity styles 1.Takers They are those who focus on getting more for them than they give. Their taking mindsets either makes them uber careful so they don't get taken advantage of or cut through so they can get as much as possible from others by any means necessary. They say “If I don’t look out for myself, no one else will.” 2.Matchers Are those who believe in quid pro quo. They operate on the principle of fairness. When they do favors, they expect a favor of equal value later on. On the receiving end, they feel indebted to those who did them good. They say “I’ll do it if I’m pretty sure I will get something in return.” 3.Givers Are those who are "other-focused." They don't weigh the pros and cons of others. Instead, they give without keeping score. Simply put, givers seek to enrich the lives of the people they interact with. As Grant writes, "If you're a giver [...] you simply strive to be generous in sharing your time, energy, knowledge, skills, ideas, and connections with other people who can benefit from them." They believe “I’m happy to share my time and energy with those who can benefit.” Allow me to leave you with this final thought. Lets remember that People fit into one of three reciprocity styles. Givers like to give more than they get, paying attention to what others need. Takers like to get more than they give, seeing the world as a competitive place and primarily looking out for themselves. And matchers balance and give on a quid pro quo basis, willing to exchange favors but careful about not being exploited. - adopt a giving attitude. If this isn’t your natural orientation, start with small giving behaviors to people you care about. - ask in every interaction, how can I help you? - make your giving reputation known – this will increase reception by people approaching you, no matter which of 3 stances they belong to. - to avoid burnout from giving, make the impact of people’s work tangible – create customer videos, publicize testimonials and results. - Five-minute favor: if you can help someone within 5 minutes, do so. Give honest feedback and make introductions. - giving is contagious - by becoming a Giver, you slowly infuse others with the same collaborative, sharing values. This translates to a lot more for everyone in the long run.

Being a millionaire today is no longer what it was years ago. If you find the right high paying job or build your skills and stay long enough in the workforce, most of us will earn a million in our work life. But have you ever considered becoming a billionaire? That might sound far fetched, but why not aim for a goal high enough that would alter entire generations. Often when talking about Billionaires, we think of old money like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and even Waltons, or tech wiz kids. But did you know that 2/3 of today’s billionaires are self-made and not from inheritance? So what do self-made billionaires have that create such massive value? Amazon’s description of this book says. “John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen decided to look more closely at self-made billionaires because creating $1 billion or more in value is an incredible feat. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, the authors concluded that many of the myths perpetuated about billionaires are simply not true. These billionaires aren’t necessarily smarter, harder working, or luckier than their peers. They aren’t all prodigies, crossing the billionaire finish line in their twenties. Nor, most of the time, do they create something brand-new: More than 80 percent of the billionaires in the research sample earned their billions in highly competitive industries.” So let's first talk about Myths of Self-Made Billionaires: We often think of Young Age, but 70% of today’s self-made billionaires happened after that age of 30 and nearly 40% were older than 40. We also think of the Tech Industry, but less than 20% came from tech, with other industries such as finance, consumer products, oil and gas, apparel, food and beverages, publishing, printing, entertainment, hotels and real estate. Often we think of Blue ocean, but more than 80% of these Self-Made Billionaires earn their millions in highly competitive, red oceans. Such as Red Bull, Spanx, and Amazon. We also often think , they just got lucky. But data shows luck alone does not explain it. 90% of self-made billionaires are not one trick ponies, they have started up multiple successful companies. Slave labor you say? A large number of billionaires have promised to give away more than half of their net worth. And finally we think of overnight success stories. It's important to note that 50% started working before 18. 30% were hit by the entrepreneur bug bug before age 22 and 75% before age 30. And 75% were raised in the middle class or higher level households. So lets dive into why exactly do Billionaires Succeed Jon and Mitch label a majority of those who can succeed within the constraints of organizations or established systems, as performers. Billionaires, on the other hand, are producers. “They envision something new,” they explain, “bring together the people and the resources to create it and sell it to customers who didn’t know they needed it.” Allow me to leave you with this final thought. The billionaires of our world thrive when presented with complexities because of their ability to practice dual thinking. When we train and dedicate ourselves, we will also be able to develop and increase our working memories and be able to do some extraordinary things. Self-made billionaries combine, ideas and actions that most of us keep separate. We need to undertand that billion dollar ideas are a combination of Empathetic Insights and imagination that allow us to see what customers want and need and the imagination to come up with ideas to bring them into fruition. And finally, we need to build our skills or find performer partners to build the foundation for our billion dollar ideas to flourish, and have the patience to wait for the right timing for our ideas and then push to act on them when we see the opportunities are ripe.

Our careers today have become more demanding than ever before. We have access to information in real time. In my line of marketing work, leading a global brand presence, it is important for me to be able to take in data from the world, both positive and negative and make intelligent decisions to move us towards our goals. In order to not only survive but thrive and succeed in todays overwhelming work life, and still feel the energy and accomplishment to spend our time with our families or our other passions. We need to understand how to optimize the way we use our brain. David Rock is amazing because he is able to take such a complex concept such as how our brain works and make it accessible for us to understand. This book is told in Acts like a play where he tells the story of a couple living their life with the wrong point of view and then tells us with the understanding of how the brain works, they are able to affect their lives positively. We follow the day to day life of Emily and Paul, a married couple with two teenage kids. We see how they react to the normal stresses and occurences in life. Emily is promoted as an exec of an event planning company and deals with a variety of stresses that come with her new promotions, that add to her normal day to day stresses in an information driven world. We see her jumping in to her emails, meetings, being thrown into unfamiliar situations and working with her team members, Paul on the other hand is a software consultant who tries to handle everything, clients, suppliers, budgets and pitches. We see his pain and he try to weave his way in the world and keep his business running. We learn in the book that even with all the advances in technology, our brains remain the greatest business asset to any team or workplace. But the secret to efficient and productive performance is to first understand how we think and improve at directing the way we think instead of just letting our default survival driven brain control our lives. If we truly understand how our brain works in detail, then we will be enabled to enhance our effeciency and performance at work and at home. David talks about being a director of our stage, which in our brains case, the stage is our Pre Frontal Cortex. And the things we store in our PFC are actors who we need to direct so that they don’t default to their pre evolved settings to our detriment. We all know the concept of a director in the theater, so keeping with the theater theme in the book. “The director” is our ability to take a step back and observe our own mental functions. It helps us develop the ability to alter our mental states and reactions to achieve the best performance that we can. Allow me to leave you with this. It is very common for us today that if we are not performing at our best, we simply have to work harder. But we need to understand that our brain requires more fuel and rewards to function optimally. This is simply because our brains get tired like any other muscle in our body and is very prone to distraction. It gets is rewards from status, certainty and control. We need to remember that the Pre frontal cortex of our brains have a limited capacity to deal with distraction and process the rest of our brain power because it can only work on one thing at a time, so it then defaults us to getting stressed to try to deal with things and thinks we are in danger of getting attacked by a lion, even if its just a small problem. In order for us to perform optimally and eliminate day to day distractions, we need to find out what it takes to have more choices and autonomy in our lives and the most important of all, to train our brain to be able to stop and reflect, change label of situations so that our fight or flight response does not default to flight which causes our stress levels to jump up.

We are all born with gifts and a purpose in life; we are all here to make an impact and a difference in the world. But very often, we lack the confidence, commitment, and the drive to apply ourselves. We question our abilities in life and feel we are just living day by day without any purpose. We need to realize that we have inside us the potential to change the world and touch the lives of those around us. This takes self-mastery, which will allow us to take control of our lives and live up to our full potential, shape our destiny and achieve everything we’ve ever wanted. This is a very special book review for me, as Tony Robbins really touched my life years ago, when I took his course Personal Power, when I was 15 years old. I graduated HS younger than most, and my mom was a single mom and did not have the finances to support my college education. So I started going to college full time and had to work a full time job plus 2 part time so that I could be able help my mom out and go to college. It was a struggle as my classes would often end at 11 and I had to be at work the next morning and take the bus to Downtown LA because I did not yet drive at the time. One late night as I was studying, I had the TV in the background and saw an infomercial by Tony Robbins and I was intrigued by the stories of success that he help touch. So I took the plunge and used by Debit Card with my last money to buy his program. That was the day that changed my life and set me on a journey and help me find my inner power to start my own business in my bed room, failed, started another one, and failed again, and continued getting back up because of the lessons I learned from him and putting my mindset in a position to learn from my mistakes and get back up. I eventually graduated and received Highest Honors and started a full-time job while building my company on the side. So reading this book today, which is pretty hefty at over 500 pages, seems like a summary of all the books I have done in this podcast over the last 47 previous episodes. I have 2 special books lined up for Episode 49 and culmination with Episode 50 which I am very excited to share with you. The lessons in this book has helped me commit my time, even with my busy life with a demanding career and 3 kids with the support of my beautiful and amazing wife. This podcast is a passion project for me, and is my way to be able to inspire others to find their inner power and Awaken their Giant Within. So let's dive into my four main takeaways from this amazing book by Tony. Allow me to leave you with this. We need to understand, that one small decision or change in the way we behave can have a dramatic effect on how we live our life and impact others. To become the person we really want to be in life, we have within us the power to make the change, we just have to recognize our own power. So decide what we want, take the necessary actions to achieve the desire, figure out what isn’t working and change our approach until our desires come to fruition.

Our lives today are consumed with goals, plans and thoughts of wishes and wants in life. We are often a victim of time. Constantly trying to figure out what we need to do tomorrow. Or even dwelling on our past, and regretting what could have been or should have been. How often do we actually enjoy our work? Or do we get caught up thinking about getting things done and meeting deadlines, and not give our self the chance to actually enjoy the process. We get stressed out trying to impress others with our work that it keeps us in a cycle of worry and not be able to perform to our fullest potential. As a father with a very busy life, I sometimes get distracted thinking about tomorrow that it keeps me from enjoying the quality time I am actually spending with my family. I remember listening to a speech by Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, tell a story when they were a young, up and coming startup, they were packing their orders on the floor, and their knees hurt so bad. And then he came up with an idea, which he felt was the stupid, that they needed Knee pads. One of his employees laughed and said, no we need Packing tables. Which he often credits as brilliant. When he thinks back to those days. He remembers, those long days and weeks as one of the luckiest experiences that had ever happened to him. Not the surge of orders, but the challenges they faced itself, which they learned to accept. He said “It formed a culture of customer service — in every department, every single person in the company — because we had to work with our hands so close to the customers, making sure that those orders went out.” “It really set up a culture that’s served us well, and that is our goal to be earth’s most customer-centric company.” And he did this by being present in the moment for those customers they were serving at the time. That is what the author Spencer Johnson tries to address in this book in a form of a parable. Similar to his other best selling book, which I love, Who moved my cheese. Which I did a review on Episode 4. This book, tells us to live in the present moment. Our past is already done and we can’t redo while our future is hard to predict. The Present is a story about a young man who discovers a way to live. The man didn’t understand life and became bitter and was letting his life unravel. Then a mentor gets him going in the right direction.

Often as parents, leaders, and entrepreneurs, we are afraid of happiness. Or we don’t fully understand it. Because we feel if we become happy, our pursuit of success will change. We think that if we are happy, we will become complacent or not have the hunger to push ourselves to achieve our goals in life and in business. Modern society associates happiness with pleasure, but pleasure is fleeting. This is what Shawn tries to open our eyes on. At a very young age, we are taught to study hard, find a safe secure job and be successful, and then we will find happiness. But every time we achieve something in life, we move the goal post, because of this mindset, tells us to keep pushing forward. This rat race never ends, because we are always in pursuit of happiness that seems unattainable. And when we attain it, we feel temporary pleasure, before the goal is moved again, and the cycle of unhappiness continues. Shawn Achor the author is from Harvard and is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. What he found in his research was that Figuring out what makes us happy, pursue it and we’ll find happiness and success will follow. His research shows, that happiness is one of the primary tools we can utilize to increase our performance, which helps us move faster toward our goals. He tells us that “Happiness is not the belief that we don't need to change; it's the realization that we can.” We wants us to consider that Happiness is the joy we feel in striving after our potential. He offers seven (7) principles to help us to do just that. So lets dive right in. Allow me to leave you with this final thought Success does not equal happiness. On the contrary, our success, depends on our level of happiness. It starts in our brain, and radiates outwards and jumps to another person, then to a group, a community, and beyond. While the investments in happiness can be small, the dividends of happiness are enormous. Discovering happiness does not mean big changes in our lives, in fact, all we have to do is adjust our mindset, and notice positive things that are there already there and build on that to start living a more positive and happy life.

As entrepreneurs and leaders in organizations, we come up or are presented with many great ideas. We’ve all had those products, or business startup that we sank our time, money in and ended up being a black hole, draining our motivation, resources and more importantly our time. Eric says “A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” ― Eric Ries, Imagine if there was a way for you to semi-scientifically avoid that, and find a sustainable business model and a product that our target audience clamors for. That is exactly what Eric Ries presents in this book. He came up with this, through his own personal struggle in a Start up. In 2004, he was a part of a Startup called IMVUm which was a 3D social communication platform to chat and meet other people. Being a part of the founding team and was its CTO, they all believed their idea. They spent almost a year developing their platforms. They integrated all know communication and popular chat engines of the time. They put their heart and soul into building all the best features they could think of in their platform. And were excited to launch. When they did, to their surprise. CRICKETS were what they found. Very few were interested in their platform. And they were demoralized. I am sure we would be too if we experienced this. So they then talked to their customers and found that their main assumption of integrating exisiting social chat platforms was completely wrong. Users preferred a whole new platform and did not want to use their existing chat networks. If they knew this ahead of time, they would not have wasted time building all those features and focused on what their target audience really wanted. That is how the Lean Startup Methodology was born. Today IMVU is the #1 avatar social community in the world with millions of users. Allow me to leave you with this final thought As entrepreneurs, we often rely on our guts and intuition for our businesses, but we should consider utilizing The lean Startup methodology to test the core assumptions of our product or business. Our goal should be to develop a viable business model based on validated and actionable metrics, instead of solely relying on our guts. We should employ the build, measure and learn loop in order to put our ideas to the test. This will allow us to test and validate our ideas as fast and as often as possible to know when to pivot or persevere. By applying the Lean Startup Framework, we can ensure viability, profitability and create a growth engine we can semi-scientifically bank on before sinking our entire life on an idea that may or may not work.

Today’s modern life is a constant battlefield. We fight with ourselves to extract the best versions of ourselves, we compete with others in business for market share, we are constantly problem-solving in order to be successful. Sun Tzu advised the King of the state of Wu, Ho Lu, and eventually becoming his most trusted military strategist and general. Using psychology, deceit, strategy, and diplomacy, he developed these principles of warfare that we can learn from today. It could be our war on procrastination, unhealthy habits, the war against complacency and even a war against our own mind. We need to understand that everything we do to achieve a positive change is a constant battle or war. One of my favorite quotes from this book is this. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu The lessons of this book talks to us about the universal laws of war and its how we can apply these strategies to our modern life that will what I took away from the lessons So let's dive into my key takeaways. My favorite quote from Sun Tzu is this. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. Allow me to leave you with this. We can apply the lessons taught by Sun Tzu in our business and in everyday life, in order to win our modern wars today. We need to understand that meticulous planning and preparing is critical. To be the best leaders or generals, we need to choose to fight only when we know we can secure victory for yourself and team and prepare when we are not ready to fight. We need to be observant, resourceful and adaptable in our strategies to overcome obstacles. And impose our will on our enemies, irritate him to drive him to make fatal errors so that we can use our weapons and information to overcome him, even if this enemy is our own self.

Whenever we hear about the NAVY Seals, what comes to mind, is that they are one of the highest performing teams in the world. Another thing SEALS are well known for is producing great leaders. I remember when I was young, watching, Undersiege with Steven Seagal, playing US Navy Seal Captain Casey Ryback. Even if that was fictional, I had been fascinated and admired SEALS in their determination and character to lead and win and to sacrifice themselves for their team. Yesterday’s book review “Leaders Eat Last”. I felt was the right lead into this book. Focusing on the Marine Officers lesson of leaders sacrificing themselves. Today’s book, focuses on extreme responsibility or 100%, not 95 or 99. 100% responsibility. The two authors, Jocko Wilink and Leif Babin, both decorated combat vets who fought in one of the toughest war zone of the 21st century, in Ramadi Iraq. By using their experiences as a SEAL leaders, they share lessons that can aid any leader in any role. Jocko wrote in the book that he realized during his 20 years as a SEAL that, "Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another." By being aware of these seeming contradictions, a leader can "more easily balance the opposing forces and lead with maximum effectiveness." There are so many lessons and inspiring stories in the book, but let us focus on my main take aways and lessons from Jocko and Leif. So lets dive in. The Dichotomy of Sucessful Leadership presented in the book. Leadership requires a balance between seemingly opposite traits: - We Must lead but also be able to follow, its important that we put aside our ego to follow better ideas and those who take charge. - Remain Calm, but not robotic.We need to be Logical but not devoid of emotions. Team members must know we care. Leaders who lose temper, also lose respect. People do not follow robots. - We Must be Brave but not reckless. We must Mitigate risks that can be controlled. - Be Aggressive but not overbearing. Courageous but not foolhardy. Strong but also with physical and mental endurance. - Close with subordinates but not too close. Know our people and their motivations. But not so close than one member becomes more important than another, more important than the mission. - Confident but never cocky. Confidence is contagious. Overconfidence causes complacency and arrogance. - Have a competitive spirit but also be a gracious loser. Push our team to perform at the highest levels but never put their own drive for personal success above mission success. - Attentive to details but not obsessed by them. A good leader does not get bogged down in the minutia of a tactical problem at the expense of strategic success. - Quiet but not silent. We are expected to Speak up when it matters. - Humble but not passive. Act with professionalism and recognize others for their contributions. The leader is in charge. Able to execute extreme ownership while exercising de-centralized command. - Finally, Exercise Extreme Ownership. Recognize limitations. Admit mistakes and take ownership of mistakes.

Have you ever wondered why in our society, there are people who wield more authority than others, and some of us that follow them, even to our detriment? There are those people who run towards danger to serve and protect others, sometimes without regard to their own well-being. Simon Sinek the author, while working as a consultant with the US Marine Corp, posed this very question to a Marine General, when Major William Swenson received the Medal Honor, the highest honor given to those who distinguished themselves with acts of gallantry and selfless service for the country. He wanted to figure out why some individuals, had that selfless determination, to lead and save others. The general said, our "officers eat last. " Eat Last meant - Leaders, sacrificing themselves for others. We all know the story of the 300 Spartans lead by King Leonidas. Sparta a relatively small city state was a “warrior society”, they had a small army, but were among the most feared in the ancient world, because of their courage and discipline. They also had this very strict custom from the lowest rank to the king that losing a sword or helmet was acceptable. But, reserved their toughest punishment, which was to lose their Spartan citizenship, which was their most prized possesion, to those who lost their Shield, because it meant, they would not be able to protect the man to their left or to their right. Spartan mothers would popularly say. , "Come back with your shield - or on it”. Simon drives home the idea that an organization is only as strong as the trust its team hold for each other. To relate this to today’s modern society, Simon shares why some people hate their work and why some people love it. And he finds that work satisfaction is directly related to the culture that we, leaders establish. As a leader, we must not be too concerned about our title and importance, we must focus on making our organizations culture, a place where our team members feel safe and belong, he introduces us, the concept of the Circle of Safety, which empowers our teams to grow, learn and become real contributing assets to the organization. We are informed that true leadership – is the ability to infuse those who we lead, with an unshakeable trust in our intentions. Giving them zero reasons to believe we have anything than their best interests in mind. So let's dive deep into some of the roots of human biology and psychology to find out what make us great leaders.

We’ve all had that one idea or multiple ideas that we thought were going to change the world, and when we shared them with others, they thought we were out of our minds, and despite how awesome they were in hindsight, if we were just able to make them stick, we could have been successful. I remember during the early 2000s when dot-com days still had some traction. I had the idea to start up a free TV website called Tuby that would play TV and movies, not unlike how Hulu, Netflix, and cable on demand is now, and I would sell ads locally to small businesses. The concept of each computer having a local address attached to the internet connection called IP, was new to everyone, and it would revolutionize the quality of the ads, which was at the time dominated with Spammy banner ads and popups that would open 15 screens when you closed them. This would drive quality viewerships to ads just like how it is today on Youtube. But of course, I sucked at presenting my idea and couldn’t make it stick and it just went into my many piles of unsticky business feasibility studies. If only I had known the principles of why things stuck, presented by Bestselling authors Chip and Dan Heath in this book. I could have pitched it correctly, and who knows, it could have eventually become the platform we know today and use to consume video contents. The authors talk about the concept of the "Knowledge curse" as the main reason why ideas don't stick, Please allow me to read you an excerpt about this: "And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can't give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience render him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can't follow. And we're all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise. Here's the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas--new insights and novel solutions--in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That's why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said "unnatural," not "impossible." Experts just need to devote a little time to apply the basic principles of stickiness.” So how do we overcome the Curse of Knowledge and make our ideas, or messages easier to recall? Chip and Dan present key strategies to defeat this and how we should present our ideas, with a mneomic, SUCCES (single S in the end) = Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. In school, our teachers and professors filled us with formulas, tables, and theories, only for us to forget them. Even today, in my line of work, as a Leader in an organization charged with marketing and brand, I have to constantly communicate our ideas to the rest of the exec team, clients and others. This tells us that our ideas are only as good as the effectiveness of how we are able to communicate them and have others understand our concepts in order to buy in. Yesterday’s podcast, we talked about one of the 5 dysfunctions of a team, is the lack of buy-into our plans and strategies. This book helps us understand how to get our ideas to stick. Sticky is that idea that breaks through the noise and gets remembered, but more importantly, helps to shift attitudes and behavior towards us, our ideas and our organizations. Let's dive into the 6 strategies to help make our ideas stick.

We all have to work with other people in every facet of our lives, whether it be in our careers, business organizations and even at home. We can all agree that this is no doubt is incredibly challenging but important to achieve something. Great teamwork is not born out of luck but requires specific strategies and effort. This is simply because of our human nature, we are imperfect individuals with egos and self-centered goals in life. This is my second book by management expert and best-selling author Patrick Lencioni in this Podcast series. In this book, Patrick presents a fable that peels back the veil on the basics of teamwork, a story of a technology company that struggles to grow and finds customers. A new CEO Kathryn sees the potential of the company and its people. But the management team is having a hard time accepting its role and agreeing, which results in negative feelings around the organization. As Kathryn finds this, she begins to immediately review the situation and implement an aggressive team building effort to turn things around. in this process, she discovers and works to understand 5 dysfunctions of a team that holds it back. And how she can address them separately to achieve the growth and greatness they all desire. Patrick says “Organizations fail to achieve team - work because they unknowingly fall prey to five natural but dangerous pitfalls.” Let's dive into these 5 pitfalls and learn some of the strategies we can use to overcome them in our teams today. Allow me to leave you with this final thought. As a leader and entrepreneur, having a great team is a powerful competitive advantage to have on our road to success. But achieving harmony and teamwork is an ever increasing challenge we face on a day to day basis. With workforces of today comprised of Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millenials, it’s become more and more difficult to avoid the natural dysfunctions of a team. What we need to do is to acknowledge, recognize and practice the small set of principles in overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team, which allows us to develop a truly cohesive team that. 1. Trust one another. 2. Engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas. 3. Commit to decisions and plans of action. 4. Hold each other accountable for delivering against those plans. 5. And Focused on achieving collective results.

In our lives, we always find ourselves thinking of what others are saying or thinking about us. This not only bothers us but often keep us from things that actually matter in our lives and in our journey to success. Those of us who are constantly trying to please the world around us, and cater to its needs and want, and end up disappointed and frustrated. But what we need to realize is life is full of failures, trivial stuff, and even rejections. The more we learn to accept these uncomfortable realities, the less we’ll feel burdened over time. That is, of course, easier said than done. The Title of this book definitely reflects its personality. Let me warn you, there will definitely be profanity in this review as the title makes it, inevitable. The book is unapologetically profane but certainly, works to drive the point and idea of the book across to us. Mark Manson is an author and prolific blogger on personal development focused, on things that don’t suck as he calls is. It’s pleasure to read as Mark takes us, his readers to a different kind of journey explaining why we shouldn’t care too much what others think. He introduces us, to the ideas of positive psychology and other notable philosophies to create a powerful and practical guide in determining what exactly is worth giving a Fu*ck about and what isn't. Let’s dive into the nuggets of wisdom taken from the book. A Final Excerpt from this book I want to read you is this “Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame. Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable." Allow me to leave you with this. Let's not just admire Mark and others about their ability to not “Give a Fuck” and not care about what other people think. This does not mean not caring, but about having the honesty and integrity in times of challenges in life. We need something bigger to care about than the obstacles and adversity we face. When we realize and accept that other’s don't care what we do as much as we think, we can empower ourselves to be free of these judgments and not give a Fuck.

This will be a life changing book `for anyone who wants to get out of the Rat Race. It teaches us that in order to be wealthy, we must increase our financial IQ. Understand how the rich look at money and how we should change our paradigm about it. Robert Kiyosaki teaches us how to become rich. He is a wealthy multi-millionaire with an estimated net-worth of 80-million dollars. This book is an all time best seller and has sold over 26-million copies worldwide. Robert Kiyosaki shares the lessons his two fathers taugh him, his real father was poor as he went to school, earned good grades, obtained his PhD and after various years of service, retired due to differences with Government. His Second father, was his friend’s father and was a rich father who was a businessman. Rich Dad Poor Dad is based on advices given by Robert’s ‘rich’ father on how to get out of the Rat Race and live a wealthy life. So what is the rate race.” we are informed that it is the endless routine of working for everyone else but ourselves" Growing up, we are taught to Do good in school, study hard and find a safe secure job. Does that sound realistic in today’s time? Not all of us get lucky to find a great job. Most of us work a 9-5 job, living paycheck to paycheck. And can still get fired or laid off tomorrow, for many reasons that are out of our control. Our employer are the ones getting rich from us, that’s way the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Because we simply lack the financial IQ to think like rich people. And we get stuck in the rat race, thinking and accepting that, thats just the way life is. But it is not. Robert says that often growing up we are told “The love of money is the root of all evil.” but he believes that The lack of money is the root of all evil.” Let’s dive into the lessons presented by Robert in this mind blowing book. Allow me to leave you with this. Our current education system nor most parents are not equiped to teach us financial literacy. It is up to us to develop this ourselves. We are more likely to achieve wealth and financial independence when we combine a strong ambitious mindset with a high financial IQ. In the end, like this podcast, its what you invest in your mind that prepares you to achieve success. Our mind is the most important asset we have in life.

We all have our own goals in life. What stands in our way is that we hesitate and before long, we’ve talked or thought ourselves away from taking action. This powerful book by best-selling author and motivation expert Mel Robbins shows us How to enrich our lives and destroy doubt in just 5 seconds. This book was inspired by her TEDx talk that More than 8 million people have watched, and executives from the world’s top brands are using the tool to increase productivity, collaboration, and engagement. Mel shares a powerful quote in the book by GEORGE BERNARD SHAW It says. “The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. “ end quote In life, we can all agree that we only do the things we feel like doing. And not necessarily the things we need to do. Ever remember a time when you are driving and then all of a sudden, we get to our destination, without us remembering how we got there. Pretty scary right? but it does happen. Our brains are so powerful that it can run on autopilot through routines, which we learned about the power of Habit by Charles Duhigg in an earlier podcast. Throughout our day, because of the habits we have made, we go through life on autopilot. But sometimes, our auto mode is exactly what stops us from doing the things we need to do to achieve the success we want. We need to hack our brains to recognize this and act before our own brain gets into auto pilot. How long does it take to make a change? Changes happen in micro-moments Our brain is so powerful, it is our #1 bodyguard, it is there to protect us from danger. Mel says that the physical manifestation of fear and excitement are the same, our hands get clammy, we get butterflies in our stomach, we start to sweat. Such as when we have a near miss accident, our fight or flight response kicks in and we feel rattled. But our brains know and can recognize that the danger has passed because the car that almost hit us, is moving away, so we calm down. This is because our brain searches for context. That's why our minds races to find this. If we don’t act when an instinct to do something we don't normally do or fear exists, after 5 seconds we already have a whole reason to not do it, because our brains are trying to protect us from getting hurt. In our lives, we’ve had had our parents, coaches, teachers, friends, and mentors who push us to be better than our excuses and bigger than our fears. The secret to having the confidence and courage to change our lives and work is simply knowing how to push ourselves. Mel says in her book. “In all of modern history, no single invention has so perfectly captured the perverse power of the mind to defeat its own best intentions as the snooze button.” We have become so wired to snooze our alarm and in turn our lives. Mel shares that “Hesitation is the kiss of death. You might hesitate for a just nanosecond, but that’s all it takes. That one small hesitation triggers a mental system that’s designed to stop you. And it happens in less than—you guessed it—five seconds.” Allow me to leave you with this final thought. As parents, leaders and entrepreneurs we need the language of the mind and the language of the soul as Mel calls them to succeed. The language of the mind consist of the bookings, sales, analytics, product development and planning etc. The language of the soul is for your dreams, relationships, curiousity, innovation and inspiration. Great leaders do both. That is where we can apply the 5 second rule to turn things on. Don’t let the simplicity of this method fool you. Its a mental model that will push us to stop procrastinating on our dreams. We are all 5 second away from changing our life. 5 4 3 2 1 GO. Change your life today.

Today I am excited to review this book on Raising Men, that was put together by a decorated Navy Seal Eric Davis who served our country and has been recognized as one of the premier sniper instructors in the U.S. military and has served as a Master Training Specialist at the SEAL sniper school in Coronado, CA. Since departing from the SEAL teams, Eric has worked in corporate performance, sales and leadership training bringing an unprecedented amount of innovation, efficiency, and structure to the domain of business and personal performance. And he now brings us powerful anecdotes from his days as a seal and how he has applied those lessons into his parenting life which we can learn from and apply in our parenting styles. He doesn’t say, this is what we should do, but he shares his and others' experience and expertise and invites us to consider them as part of our parenting strategies. Before we begin, I would like to read you an excerpt from the back cover of this book Eric says. "Fatherhood is not for the weak. Its a long game fought in the trenches, and in order to lead our children through the arduous and sometimes dangerous routes of childhood, we have to knuckle down and man up. We must have expectations not only of our children, but of ourselves, and take on every challenge as if their lives and ours depended on it, because they often do." This book read like a Father’s how to guide in raising children. So Lets dive in and get some of the key takeaways from this amazing book. Allow me to leave you with this. Ultimately, we want our kids to lead a happy, healthy and sucessful lives. Unconditional love is great as part of our parenting, but is only a part of successful parenting. If we just let our kids do what ever they think is right, because that is what we believe unconditional love to be, then we are doing them a great disservice as parents. Because we may not be training them, but someone or something else will, wether its the Internet, what they see in others, games etc. If we want to pull all the lessons together from this book. from leading from the front to growing, we need to be fully invested in the success of our children so we can both become a contributing member of the community that need our help. Important Tenets To teach our sons to produce mental toughness Respect Responsibility Communication Honor Perserverance Innovation Courage Confidence All of these are like a muscle that we can develop in us and our kids.

As someone who works with a team mostly composed of women, and also have the chance to lead my team with women. This was a very eye-opening book as I too have a small little girl in my life who I want to Lean In and seize the opportunities she has in life and be strong enough to stand toe to toe with the rest. It sheds light on how even in today's modern society where 57% of undergrads and 60% of master’s degrees in the US from are women, gender inequality exists, at home and in the workforce. Sheryl shares anecdotes from her own life to bring attention to this fact as well as solid data to back it up. She informs us as a top Exec at Facebook, that career progression depends on taking risks and confidently advocating for ourselves, which girls are discouraged to do starting a very young age, because, for some odd and weird reason, we think that success and achievement are reserved for the men in society only. Her goal for writing this book is that she contends that in her lifetime, data shows that this inequality will not be corrected, but she hopes to bring this to our attention so that we the younger generation can have a better effect on it and as we raise our little girls to be women. As both a father of a daughter, husband to my wife and leader to some women in the workplace. I took away powerful lessons I can share with them and also how I should act to empower them to be the best versions of themselves. My favorite quote from this book is this. “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” The book presents so many great lessons. I will focus on the 5 main key takeaways from it. So let’s dive right in. A final quote I would like to share with you is this “A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.” Allow me to leave you with my final thoughts. Women today are still taking a backseat in leadership positions despite the ardent push for gender equality. This is caused by the still existing gender biases and stereotypes, as well as women’s lack of confidence in themselves and the anxiety of trying to balance raising a family and a career. In order to change this for the future of our children, we must start today, from our current dealings with women and the way we raise our daughters. I will definitely keep my awareness up to help my daughter feel empowered to take a seat at the table and step up for other women, only when we do this can we correct these issues and benefit our entire society as a whole.

Throughout our lives, we make decisions from the simple things we buy to the car and house. Even down to the clothes we wear. As marketers, leader and an entrepreneur, have you ever wondered what were the factors that went into these decisions as for how we can utilize them to influence positive outcomes. Dr. Robert Cialdini explains this in this powerful 1984 classic book, Influence. He carefully lays out 35 years of evidence-based research that it is not luck or magic, but has science behind it. He started this research because he wanted to find out why others influenced him so easily. Before we dive in, the information contained in his book is extremely powerful and should be used very very responsibly. As leaders, we must be honest and maintain integrity in applying these influence hacks. So let's dive into our psychological principles and discover the science behind our “Yes”. Robert tells us that “All the weapons of influence discussed in this book work better under some conditions than under others. If we are to defend ourselves adequately against any such weapon, it is vital that we know its optimal operating conditions to recognize when we are most vulnerable to its influence.” Allow me to leave you with these final thoughts As we try to achieve our goals in life, a prerequisite to success is relationships and working with people and encourage them to be receptive to the positive message we bring. We should employe these 6 influence principles, of Reciprocity, Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority and finally Scarcity. To protect ourselves from the negative influences, me must be fully aware of the mental triggers and when we make our decisions, we musth examine these triggers to make sure we are not acting emotionally. We need to be aware and carefully consider the intentions of those trying to persuade and influence us.

Sometimes in our lives, we find ourselves in a life that we didn’t set out to live in. From a dead end job we currently hold to the hobbies we are passionate about but don’t engage in. We think, well my current job pays me enough to live, and I don’t really have time for my hobbies, I don't want to be selfish. But these ideas are exactly the problem with most of the choices we make in life, we find ourselves living a life prescribed by someone else, or do what we think we’re supposed to do. But what we really want never enters our mind. This eye-opening and best-selling book by Jen Sincero shows us that this has to change. We need to live the life we want and engaging in activities we love and be a Bad Ass. Allow me to read you a quote from Jen in the book. “You are perfect. To think anything less is as pointless as a river thinking that it’s got too many curves or that it moves too slowly or that its rapids are too rapid. Says who? You’re on a journey with no defined beginning, middle or end. There are no wrong twists and turns. There is just being. And your job is to be as you, as you can be. This is why you’re here. To shy away from who you truly are, would leave the world you-less. You are only you there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the world its one and only chance to bask in your brilliance.” ― Jen Sincero, We are already winners, we just sometimes don’t realize it yet. And that is the aim of Jen, for us to achieve our potential and be the best person we can be in life and realize we are a Bad Ass. So Let's dive in. Allow me to leave you with this We all want to be a bad ass, but in order to truly live this, we need to first identify all the baggage that are holding us back and make the necessary adjustments to our lives and address these issues. We can’t let distractions get in the way of doing what we love, soon after we will realize we are living the life we’ve always dreamed of.

Throughout our personal and professional lives, we encounter times when everything just seems to go bad, which makes it very challenging to motivate our selves especially our team to overcome obstacles. This book by Best Selling Author Jon Gordon was certainly extremely entertaining to read. Similar to the FISH Book and also Who moved my cheese, it tells a compelling parable that the key to success is positive attitude. This concept is not new to us, but Jon broke it down into 10 simple steps that are thoughtful and entertaining, making it easier to digest and implement on a practical level for our lives and our business. The parable is about George who through a series of unfortunate circumstances is forced to ride the bus to work over the course of two weeks. And on this bus, he meets a very unique bus driver (Joy) and very interesting fellow passengers who share with him 10 Rules to Fuel his Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy that George implemented in his work, his marriage and life. The lesson tells us that it all starts with positive energy. We all go through struggles and no one passes unscathed, what we need to get passed is positive energy. Positive Energy produces, Positive people, teams and Results. Let’s dive into the 10 Lessons presented. Allow me to leave you with this final thoughts We need to follow these rules to “fuel your life, work, and team with positive energy.” - First, be aware that this is your life. Assume responsibility. - Second, create a firm vision for our life and focus on making it real. - Third, Our life must have purpose, - Fourth, always radiate positive energy. - Fifth, the more enthusiastic you are about what you do, the better it will go – always. - Sixth, surround ourself with people who share our vision and can help us attain it. Seventh, demonstrate our love to the people who matter in your life. - Eighth, don’t worry about naysayers who don’t support you or your vision. Direct your energy toward people who believe in you and will help you reach your goals. - Ninth, avoid “energy vampires” If they’re on your team and won’t change their attitudes, get rid of them. - and Finally you get only one bus ride in life. Savor each and every day of your life.

As we pursue our journey towards success, we are faced with both mundane and seemingly impossible challenges. Who better to learn from than a Adm. William McRaven, former US Special Ops Forces commander to overcome these. Someone who has been to some of the most difficult parts of the world, but it all started with the 6 month extreme training as a Navy Seal that gave him the necessary tools and strategies that would allow him to lead our Special Operations forces in the most dangerous fights of modern military history. This book was based on a graduation speech at the University of Texas Austin which he gave to the graduating class. We all know the Navy SEALS are one of the toughest military force in the world. He offered 10 key life lessons he learned from his SEAL training. Before we dive in, allow me to read you a quote from Adm McRaven “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward—changing ourselves and the world around us—will apply equally to all.” “Changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it.” Allow me to leave you with this. We all want to change the world in our own way. If we want to change the world. start off by doing the little things in life, find people who will stand by us in times of struggle. We need to keep moving forward in life and not be afraid of those trying momments, instead we need to be at our very best in those times of darkness and never ever throw in the towel if life no matter way. Only by living up to these lessons, will we have the drive to achieve what we truly want in life.

Modern life today sometimes to me, resemble a food tasting event instead of and enjoyable full and hearty meal. We engage in shallow things and not put in the time to apply deep work and focus on something meaningful, and yet we expect great results and to be successful. I for instance, over the course of the day, dealing with my teams, constantly get distracted from accomplishing things during the office day. Having to deal with challenges and problems which take us away from engaging in deep quality work that creates value and significance and is hard to replicate. This book by Cal Newport builds on the lessons from his other book, So good they can’t ignore you, which I reviewed earlier in this podcast. He defines deep work as: "Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capacities to their limit.” Like the book the One Thing, we know that multitasking cannot be done. We assume when we switch rapidly between tasks, we are multi-tasking, but we are not, we are simply switching rather than actually doing both at the same time. Cal Introduces us to the Value of Deep work. In today’s distracted economy, those of us who will thrive are those who have the ability to rapidly master hard things and those with the ability to produce at an elite level in terms of both quality and speed. Both of these require the ability to engage in deep work. Cal provides us a formula to this. High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus) To be able to learn things quickly, we need to apply intense focus without distraction. This will enable us to acquire the necessary mastery to perform at peak levels of quality and quantity. Allow me to leave you with this We are constantly distracted in todays modern world. Our work has rewarded us for multi tasking which has killed our ability to be ultra productive. It will not be easy, but we need to commit and take back, control of our time by removing distractions and letting our brains focus deeply and immerse in complex and deep work. Only by doing this, will we allow ourselves to really maximize our value in todays economy and thrive.

We all have experienced being put down or shamed in our lives, our work and sometimes, even by the people closest to us. In this book, we find how harmful this is and how it can prevent us and others from living up to our full potential. Dr. Brene Brown, the author is a research professor who is a foremost leader on the topic of shame and vulnerability. Her book aims to open up our minds about being willing to open ourselves up to vulnerability as an antidote to shame and as the title says, Dare greatly. Brene opens the book with an excerpt from Teddy Rosevelt’s speech in Paris in 1910, often known as “The Man in the Arena” he says. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” To Brené, this is a vulnerability and its what it means to Dare Greatly. A quote from her say’s, “Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection”. We often get stuck and paralyzed by waiting until we or something is perfect before we jump into the arena. We put opportunities and relationships on hold and waste valuable time just because we are waiting for perfection. Brene shares her finding that we must seize the opportunity by walking into the arena, may it be a difficult conversation, relationship, an important event, business opportunity or as simple as our day to day lives and have the willingness and courage to be present and engaged. Instead of staying on the bench and simply looking in from the outside throwing our judgements and advise, she dares us to stand up and show ourselves. This is what Daring greatly is all about.

Often we find ourselves in non ideal situations or challenges in our career. We are faced with the tough challenge of motivating our team to achieve extraordinary results together with us, especially in the most toxic environments. This book presented a parable to teach us this concept and quickly became a go-to book for modern leaders from the day it was first published. It has become well known for encouraging us leaders to promote certain practical strategies in our workplace to boost the morale and motivate our teams. Fish imparts very empowering yet simple lessons through the story of a Woman (Mary Jane Ramirez) who had been put in charge of a chronically toxic department in a company and tasked to turn it around with her own job on the line. After moving to this new place and with her husbands sudden death, she was forced to take on this un-ideal challenge due to her need to provide for her family as a single mom. She was stuck in what felt to her like a Hell situation, before she stumbled upon an inspiring leadership secret from The unlikeliest of places, the Pike Place Fish market by her office in Seattle. And this parable introduces us to the “Fish” philosophy, which recognizes that sometimes our work or certain things about our work are not that exciting, but the people are. A quote from the book says “Imagine a place where everyone chooses to bring energy, passion, and a positive attitude every day.” This philosophy presents us 4 secrets to energize and rejuvenate a stagnant team. Secret One: You always have a choice about how you do your work. Secret Two: Play! Secret Three: Make their day. Secret Four: Be present.

No matter where we are in life, we can all agree that we have a finite amount of time in this world. When leaving this world, and we are eulogized, what legacy would we want to leave? That we are the most hard working person? We were willing to sacrifice time away from our family to work. In today’s technologically connected world, more and more of us are constantly in on-call mode, juggling life, work and all the challenges inherent to that. An excerpt from this book says. “it is very telling what we don’t hear in eulogies. We almost never hear things like: “The crowning achievement of his life was when he made senior vice president.” Or: “He increased market share for his company multiple times during his tenure.” Or: “She never stopped working. She ate lunch at her desk. Every day.” Or: “He never made it to his kid’s Little League games because he always had to go over those figures one more time.” Or: “While she didn’t have any real friends, she had six hundred Facebook friends, and she dealt with every email in her inbox every night.” Or: “His PowerPoint slides were always meticulously prepared.” Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.” Arianna Huffington, the founder of The Huffington Post, structured her life as we all do, around the pursuit of success and she was. In today’s terms, success is defined as the accumulation of money and power. Arianna certainly was not stranger to this as she earned more than her share of both. However, in 2007 Arianna almost died from a stress-related physical collapse that led to a possibly life-threatening head injury. This was a dramatic wake-up call about the dangers of pushing herself too hard and also led her to write this book. Given that money and power are two metrics of success, which she has definitely achieved. She proposes a third metric: a life well spent. It stands on four “pillars”: “well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.”

We all face times of uncertainty in our life, careers or business. Throughout our journey of achieving success, we are constantly faced with these situations. This was a very grounding book by Amy Cuddy. She took us, her readers on a journey of accessing our personal power and bringing out our best self in the most challenging moments. This book was a TED-Talk inspired book by, Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy that developed the idea of “Presence”, a concept that can help everyone achieve the results they want in life. She discusses several factors that contribute to developing Presence, including body language, excitement, confidence and boldness. Allow me to read you a quote from the book: “Presence stems from believing in and trusting yourself – your real, honest feelings, values, and abilities. That’s important, because if you don’t trust yourself, how can others trust you?” So lets dive in on some of my key nuggets from this amazing book.

I am very excited to present you this book. I am a big Fan of Ryan Holiday, he has written several best-selling books that I have enjoyed and I have applied to my work and life. For someone like me who lives a very busy life, juggling multiple things in my life as a father with 3 kids with a demanding career and someone who has plenty of extracurricular activities and projects, I felt he wrote this book for me. I often think about the results of my work initiatives and strategies, and life challenges. Ryan presents us an ancient philosophy of Stoicism to conquer obstacles and gave it a modern twist. These Stoic philosophies have been applied by ancient success figures like Marcus Aurelius which was the main inspiration for this book all the way to modern presidents, actors, and athletes, who have turned adversity into success stories. We learn that sometimes we must stand our ground, or move sideways or even go backward in order to overcome obstacles in our way to success. As you know, with this podcast, I have committed to studying new books on a daily basis to improve myself and leave something for my kids to study, which itself has been very challenging, and then documenting my process with podcasts. With almost 30 books into this, Sometime’s I have not been happy with the results of the episodes, I have not been sure if I am giving too much information or maybe not enough. Maybe the ideas are too complicated or maybe not presented well enough to offer value.  This book came just at the right time for me because it deals with 3 keys that I need to adjust in my life. My perception, or how I look at problems and my attitudes, also Actions, the energy, and creativity I need to exert in order to convert problems into opportunities, and My Will, to maintain an inner will to help me push through some difficulties. So Let’s dive in.  So Let’s dive in.  Allow me to leave you with this  Let us all  Stay objective and tweak the way we internalize things. Don’t get stuck in the past or dwell on the future, we need to always find good in the bad. We also need to Learn from every failure, we need to stay “in the zone” with deliberate focus, even when we don’t win, we need to keep boldly moving ahead. And when the world tries to knock us off our path, we must exert our willpower through resilience, humility, and flexibility.

In life, we often wonder, what important lessons our failures teaches us. And what part of our failures gives us the best life lessons to take with us and how can we have the mindset to not focus on the negatives but learn from them.This inspiring book by John Maxwell teaches us exactly how to learn and cope with our falls. On our way to achieving our success, we fall, but if we put just winning ahead of learning, we will never be able to move forward and realize that failures are a part of the process and actually learn from them. WE ALL HATE LOSING But the reality is, life is about falling and getting up, from the time we are children all the way to our death bed. It's the things that we learn along the way that allows us to overcome future obstacles, including the more complicated problems. My favorite quote from this book is very short "Mistakes can often be our best teachers." Allow me to leave you with this. It doesn’t matter how many times we fail; what matters is how much we learn from our failures. Life is hard and often unfair.The most important question is not “What am I getting?” but “What am I becoming?”To achieve our potential, we must be willing to say, “I am responsible.” Success comes from making a persistent effort and performing several small steps daily.Each time you confront what you fear, you get stronger and closer to achieving success.

In order for our organizations, businesses, and selves to get ahead, we must be and work with ideal, strong team players. Bestselling author Patrick Lencioni returns with another insightful book where he presents one of the most effective teamwork approach, used by leaders and companies around the world. He says. “The most reliable way to ensure that teamwork takes hold in an organization would be to hire only ideal team players.” Think about this, based on our experiences, if we were asked today, what an Ideal team player may be like, what would we say? We would probably get a list of 15-20 different things that we feel work best for us. We are all trained from a very young age by schooling, that in order to be successful, we need to be really good ourselves. But when we are in the real world, we find that in order to be successful, we need to work with a team. Even the top individual performers and athletes, have a team around them to keep them at their best. What this tells us is that it is hard for us to identify key values of an ideal team player. We normally value ourselves, prideful in our abilities and have some sense of entitlement. Patrick, Based on his years of corporate and consulting experience, he and his team narrowed the characteristics of an ideal team player down to three virtues that can be learned and cultivated. This is what is called the Ideal Team Player Model. The author says “For organizations seriously committed to making teamwork a cultural reality…‘the right people’ are the ones who have the three virtues in common – humility, hunger and people smarts.” To be Ideal team players, we must practice genuine “humility” and place the team above our own interests. Be self-motivated and “hungry” enough to work hard. • And are “smart” about other people. Let's dive into these virtues further. So that we can find them in future teams and develop within us and our current teams.

This was an extraordinary book, combined with Grant Cardone’s 10X Rule Book. My gosh, with these 2, you can accomplish anything. The ONE Thing book presents us an exciting but very simple approach to productivity, based around a single question to help us declutter our life from stress, distractions and provide more focus and energy to achieving our success.  What's the ONE THING I can do right now – which will make everything else easier or unnecessary? The first thing that is presented in the book that really best summed it up was this Russian proverb.  IF YOU CHASE TWO RABBITS…   ... YOU WILL NOT CATCH EITHER ONE.  The ultimate key to achieving more in our life, our business and career are to concentrate on the One Thing which will deliver us the most value and extraordinary results.  An excerpt from the book, I would like to read to you is this.  "The way to get the most out of your work and your life is to go as small as possible. Most people think just the opposite. They think big success is time-consuming and complicated. As a result, their calendars and to-do lists become overloaded and overwhelming. Success starts to feel out of reach, so they settle for less. Unaware that big success comes when we do a few things well, they get lost trying to do too much and in the end accomplish too little. Over time they lower their expectations, abandon their dreams, and allow their life to get small. This is the wrong thing to make small." – Gary Keller and Jay Papasan It might sound counterintuitive, but the key to achieving more is to consciously try and do fewer things, not more.  This allows us to be certain that the things we are focusing on are the things that count the most towards our goals. We need to find ways to eliminate all the unnecessary busy stuff which eats up our time and attention this will lessen our stress and give us more time for what really counts.  Achieving more, means think big but go small. We need to figure out what the One Thing which delivers the most bang for our buck and do that alone.   Let's talk dive in and talk about The ONE THING System For Getting More Done  My favorite quote from the book is “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” -George Bernard Shaw The author says Put yourself together, and your world falls into place. When you bring purpose to your life, know your priorities, and achieve high productivity on the priority that matters most every day, your life makes sense and the extraordinary becomes possible. Allow me to Leave you with this Success can be achieved by focusing on ONE thing, not many things. When we journey towards our ONE thing, we need to avoid the obstacles that prevent us from realizing our goals. And finally, we need to break through the noise and chaos and do our best work and effort towards where it really counts.

This was a very a powerful book that presents Psychology Hacking ideas. It was filled with scientific studies and anecdotal stories that most of us who want to make our life better by positively influencing those around us can relate to. Lots of you that are into marketing may have heard his first book, Influence. In this book, Robert Cialdini builds on the lessons and strategies from his Influence by going deeper into the idea of persuasion, and that the secret is not the content or message itself but the key is the moment before the message is delivered. Robert sheds light on how the creative diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.” Some interesting finds from this book I wanted to share before diving in. - When we are exposed to French music, we are more likely to purchase French Wine. - By covering a website with pictures of pennies, we are more inclined to buy inexpensive furniture. - We will likely be more in an analytical mindset if we viewed a picture of Rodin’s The Thinker. - When someone hands you a hot chocolate, you are more likely to feel warm to that person. Very interesting stuff. So what separates good communicators from truly successful persuaders? By building on the same combination of lessons that made his Influence an iconic bestseller Robert explains how to take advantage of the essential window of time before the sale or message delivery. He calls this the “privileged moment for change” which prepares people to be more receptive to a message before they experience it. He says "Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion." In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” Let’s dive into the psychology that allows us to take advantage of that privileged moment.

Zero To One is an inside dive into billionaire Peter Thiel’s mindset for success by looking at the lessons he learned from founding and selling PayPal, investing early in Facebook and his journey to become a billionaire. The lessons may be geared for startups and tech but the overall mindset can be applied to any business that wants to achieve long-term sustainable success. Peter Thiel is considered by many an anomaly. He was A chess master under age 21, received his doctorate in law by age 25, and sold his startup for $1.5 billion by age 35. Zero To One aims to show us the way he thinks, his business approach, and what we can take away in growing our organizations and have our hand in shaping the future of the world in the process. The book was from a start-up course that Thiel was teaching at Stanford. One of the students who attended, Blake Masters, took detailed class notes, which were reworked with Theil to form this book. I was amazed at how many useful big ideas, examples, anecdotes and success stories of companies such as Paypal, Google, Facebook and many others were present, Which helps us see Thiel's perspective and contrarian truths through his eyes. Let's dive in, A final quote from the book. “Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better—to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.” Allow me to leave you with this. Zero to One’s key message is that success can’t be left to chance. We can apply this lesson not only to our organizations but also ourselves. We need to innovate or we’ll die. We should Dominate and not merely compete and industries profits away. Pursue the future we want as long as we’re able to challenge the status quo. Then once we obtain a monopoly by being better than everyone else, at something, success will follow on its own.

Starting in the 1940s the idea of Find your passion came about and started to really become prominent in the 80s..Where we were told that to be happy we have to find our passion and match it to our work. We find out from Cal that this mindset is juxtaposed by the fact that starting in the 1980s, job satisfaction started to drop as this idea of Happiness comes from finding your passion took up. And in a recent US Job board survey, we find that 20 — 30-year-olds have the lowest job satisfaction recorded. The conventional wisdom on career success - follow your passion - is seriously flawed. But that does not tell us that we shouldn’t find our passion. It's to be aware that happiness does not only come from finding our passion but from other factors that play a major role in this and our success in life. And that is what this book discusses. The author says If "follow your passion" is bad advice, what should I do instead? Passion is a by-product of well lived working life. We shouldn't just follow your passion, instead, let our passion follow us in our quest to become so good they can't ignore us. The author tells us to clear our path from finding the right work, to working excellently and build a love for what we do. He tells a story about Steve jobs, how he loved western history and dance and was on a path to become a Zen expert, which was his passion when he was younger, before the Apple days. He references to a 2005 Speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford, wherein he advised graduates to follow their passion, he argues that if Jobs followed his own advice, and only pursued worked he loves, he would have become a Zen Master. But in the end, he did not follow this advice, Apple computer was not born out of passion, it was a result of a small-time scheme that turned into a massive payoff. Allow me to leave you with this. Instead of searching for that perfect job, business or life. We should be aware that a foundation to a remarkable life is finding something interesting to us that gives us interesting options, we then put in the time to build career capital or experience through deliberate deep practice by demanding a craftsman mindset instead of a passion mindset, and in the end, this will result in a life of value and happiness that we can truly be passionate about.

This was an exhilarating book to read. It presented me with stories, skills, and insights to disrupt not only myself but my work. For those that feel stuck on something, a project, or life and looking for a different perspective or ideas, this book overflows with creative ideas to affect change and be ready for changes that may come to shake up our lives and our world. The author Jay Samit is a serial disruptor, a change agent, an innovator, an educator, and best selling author. For over three decades, he has been at the forefront of global trends. He has pioneered breakthrough advancements in mobile video, Internet advertising, e-commerce, social networks, eBooks, and digital music used by billions of consumers every day. According to Forbes, only 13% of the world’s billionaires were born into money. The vast majority of today’s most wildly successful individuals changed themselves in such a way as to make becoming a billionaire possible.

In life, I don’t know anyone whose goal in life is to be average. But one day, we just wake up and are in the Average treadmill… But we often wonder, what separates the average people from the awesome ones. I read some time ago that one of the regrets of people when dying is that they wish they had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected them.   Most people end up living an average life because of decisions they have in life, or a missed opportunities, and then we just accept average. We know somewhere along the road to success, the destination shifts to accepting an adequate life. This was the question that Jon tried to answer in his book.  He found and studied that over the last 100 years, there have been 5 stages that all successful people go through in their life. Most average individuals take the easy road because it does not require us to do anything, but just wake up and live life. The Awesome life, on the other hand, is full of challenges, fear rears its ugly head to try to derail us as we are trying to take the road less traveled to live an extraordinary life. In his study, he found that almost every ultra-successful individuals went through these 5 stages of life. 20’s–Learning 30’s–Editing 40’s–Mastering 50’s–Harvesting 60’s–Guiding This is the path that most people take and this is the average life, as it takes your entire life from Learning to Guiding. By understanding this cycle or journey, it will allow us to flip the switch of our lives anytime from average to an awesome life, and live with purpose one stage at a time.  The author says. “You don't need to go back in time to be awesome; you just have to start right now. Regretting that you didn't start earlier is a great distraction from moving on your dream today, and the reality is that today is earlier than tomorrow.”  The awesome news is that it’s no longer about when we were born; it’s about when we make the decision to live.   We don’t have to be in our 20’s to learn, and we certainly don’t need to be in our 50’s to harvest. To start our journey, we need to know where we are realistically and then dream big, and based on these 2 factors, it will help us figure out define where we want to go to have an awesome life. To put these all together.  At any time in our lives, we can stop being average and start being awesome. First, we need to identify where to start, overcome our fear and live with purpose. Cycle through the 5 stages of success, by continually learning a new skill, editing our lives to find our passion, master every aspect of our lives, harvest the results of our work and then give back and guide others through this cycle.

This book was from Jim Collins, he was the best-selling author of another book, Built to Last, which explored what made companies great companies and how they sustained that greatness over time. He then wondered, there are many companies that never make the leap from good companies, while others turned their long-term weakness into long-term domination. This is how he got the idea to make this second book.  The author and his team studied companies for 15 years from 1965 to 1995, the goal of the study was to weed out the short success and focus on the companies that thrived. Out of about 1400 companies, only 11 great companies stood out and took the leap from good to great.  From these 11 great companies came the 7 distinct patterns that he presents in this book which found leadership, disciplined teams, thought and action were what allowed good companies to make the leap from good great.   Putting all the concepts together, I want to leave you with this.  We can lead our businesses and organizations to make a leap from mediocre to great by following specific strategic concepts with the right leader and people working in a culture of self-discipline.

In today’s life, we are all bombarded by stuff… we face challenges in today’s modern lives that older generations didn’t have. Technology that was supposed to make our lives easier has made life almost a 24/7 challenge. It’s become harder and harder to disconnect from our email inbox, rushing to commute, and people who simply drive us insane. The lessons shared by Dr. Carlson aim to keep us from letting the little, stressful things in life, take over our peace and happiness. and he aims to help us find peace and calm in a stressful world to get the most out of our lives. Dr. Carlson offers 100 meditations crafted to keep our emotions in check, cherish family and friends, and deeply appreciate our lives. A favorite quote of mine from the book is "The first step in becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you’re creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don’t go according to plan.” Allow me to leave you with this... Our life is a reflection of our thoughts. Let's Ask us: Is there any way we can become even more loving than we already are? Can we fill our heart with more loving kindness? Can we, despite the fact that there are less than perfect people in our world, think loving thoughts about ourself and about others? Staying calm, even in the most challenging situations, think positively and take the time to appreciate the important people in our lives and let go of our animosities. Live in each moment, When we learn not sweat the small stuff, we will find real happiness and peace of mind.

Being a leader today has become increasingly challenging. We sometimes find ourselves, leading others older and more experienced that us, or sometimes people with different set of values and even different workstyles altogether. Most Americans today including modern day public servants, from both sides of the aisle, would argue that Abe Lincoln was one of the greatest and most celebrated Presidents the United States has had. My personal favorite, I remember growing up, my Grandfather whom I lived with in the Philippines when I was growing up, would tell me fascinating stories about him. How he was a self-made man and grew up from a poor background, even using the back of a shovel to learn to write, my grandfather could relate as he also came from a poor life and with both parents dying as he was a child, he used the lessons from Lincoln to better his life and eventually becoming and University President. Both men whom I admire were well known for their Honesty, Courage, and Integrity. Only 10 days before President Lincoln took office, the US was split in two, the confederate states seceded from the US. If Lincoln was not the leader he was, our country today would probably be split into 2 countries. He kept the country together by leading people with principles that seemed to be ahead of his time. Shortly after Lincoln’s election as president in 1860 a journalist by the name Henry Villard said: “The path he is about to walk on may lead to success, glory, immortality, but also to failure, humiliation, and curses upon his memory. " While it’s hard to define an exact science to leadership, there are not any set formulas or rules that tell us a clear cut way to lead. So we rely upon guidelines, concepts and principles we learn from role models, successful leaders and those who have shown an ability to lead people to tangible results. In this book, the Author sub-divides Lincolns leadership strategies into four categories, how he was with people, his character as a leader, what he applied daily and his mastery of communication. So let's dive in and listen to the episode

Do you ever wonder makes the difference between winning and losing? Success and Failure... The book presents the philosophies towards achieving our goals in life and says that success is our duty and obligation. For those who haven’t heard of Grant Cardone. He is a NY times bestselling author, speaker and a renowned business and sales, expert. Grant Cardone was recently named the #1 marketer to watch in 2017 by Forbes Magazine and if you ever heard him speak or read any of his other books, he sure packs a huge personality. In this book. Grant says that 1) We should set targets for ourselves that are 10X greater than what we believe we can achieve and 2) We should take actions that are 10X greater than what we believe are necessary to achieve our goals. The biggest mistake we often make in life is not setting goals high enough. 3)and lastly Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill our true potential.

What makes things go viral? What makes us talk about certain products and ideas more than others? We remember some stories and rumors more infectious? Most of us think advertising, but thats not the case. We’ve learned to tune out advertisements, we listen to our peers. Jonah Berger a Wharton Marketing Professor spent the last decade answering these questions. Jonah researched why New York Times articles are some of the Most E-mailed, why products gets spread, and how social influences everything from cars we buy to the clothes we wear to the names we give our children. Jonah peels the curtain on the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission. Contagious combines groundbreaking research with powerful stories. He outlines six basic principles that drive all sorts of things to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives, even workplace rumors and YouTube videos. And the principle are brought together by the mnemonic STEPPS: • S for Social Currency • T for Triggers • E for Emotion • P for Public, • P again for Practical Value • S for Stories Lets dive into each to learn more about how we, can make our ideas and products spread like virus.

I'm so pumped to give you my takeaways from this amazing book. I want to Thank you, Katie Donnelly, for gifting me this book. She’s my co-host on another podcast “Lingerie Success" and she is awesome. This book has become on of my favorite business books. This is going to be a permanent item on my top book collection. Gary vee for those of you that don’t know built his reputation in the Wine Industry, he took his fathers business from a liquor store and grew it into a 60million dollar empire and is now a rock star in the marketing world and consults with some of the top 100 companies in the world through his agency VaynerMedia. Like Charles Duhigg from my last review, I had a chance to meet with Gary at Inbound 2016 in Boston and he packs an ultra energetic punch, he is like a human energizer bunny. This book is an extension of that. He presents case studies and observation both present and future of real-time businnes, to really recognize the extreme importance of lifetime customer value and simply out-caring our competitors in business.

Im so excited to bring this fascinating book to you. It was written by Pulitzer prize wining reporter Charles Duhigg and was a New York Times best selling book. Last year I attended the Inbound Conference in Boston, and was fortunate enough to meet him and listen to his talk about this particular subject and reading this book puts everything together. If we understand how habits work, the we can change them. Habits are choices we make at one time and stop thinking about but continue repeating them.

When we talk about or hear about success its often attributed to genius, talent and hard work. This his third thought provoking book shines a new perspective on success and how unseen factors contribute to someones success and some beyond what we can control. He is challenging everything we think we know about success and some of the best and most successful individuals. Malcolm presents that external forces, like birth years, where we were born and advantageous opportunities contribute to our success, and not just sheer power of will. The previous episodes I’ve had in this podcast dealt with books about specific things to be successful. Those who have read this Outliers book, may or may not agree with the ideas presented by the author, but being aware of this possibility will allow us to be open to other factors and take advantage of certain opportunities that are presented to us. A talk that Grant Cardone - one of todays top sales coaches - once said, that we the middle class have a big disadvantage.. because we have had just enough to be comfortable, but not enough to make a difference in today’s world. We go to school, graduate with a burden of debt thinking we will find a dream job as we were told by our parents, it rarely does that really happen and we end up living paycheck to paycheck, hoping something better comes along, but as middle class, being use to comfort does not motivate us to work hard or put in the time to hone our craft. Outliers are those people/groups who break the norms.This book presents to us several anecdotes and stories to explain the points the author is trying to make and these are my takeaways.

Many of you listeners must be thinking. Win Friends? Like bribe them? or Influence them, is that the same as manipulating people to do what we want. Today’s mentality is so broken. When I tell some of my friends about this book, they chuckle thinking its a joke. But this is a classic 1936 book, a time when friends and influence meant something deeper than a Insta Friend or a FB Friend in todays time. This book brings to us timeless lessons about learning the basic rules for making a great first impression and winning people over to understanding where you are coming from. Contained in this book is 29 principles on how to deal with people and broken down into 4 parts from the techniques in handling people to becoming a more effective leader and getting buy in from others.

All of us in life, one time on another feel like a failure, or that whatever we try or to, it seems the universe is against it. I for sure have had those times in my life. With life challenges, failure is a part of the becoming successful and achieving process. In this podcast, my tag line is “a book a day keeps failures at bay.” we Cannot totally avoid failure as it is a part of our life, we simply need to learn our lessons from each failure or mistake and become better. That is the main lesson of this book. A great story of failure is from J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels She was in public assistance when she was wrote the first book of what would become one of the best selling series in history. The book was rejected by a dozen publishers. The only reason it got published at all was because the CEO's eight year old daughter begged him to publish it. JK Rowling once said.. “Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.” - J.K. Rowling Even - President FDR Sanctioned the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in WW2 When we think of success, or see succes, we often call it luck, blessing, or because family has connections, or my personal favorite, they just had an easier life.. What we fail to realize that may of the greatest successes in history were also some of the biggest loosers and failures. They just learned from their mistakes and used them as stepping stones into success. Let us learn and apply Seven Principles for Failing Forward from the Author.

I wanted to share with you the book that pretty much started the personal development and self help industry and sold over 70 Million copies worldwide. It was written by Napoleon Hill after being commissioned by the Richest Man in History Andrew Carnegie. This has been a game changer for many millionaires and biillionaires of today. There are some controversial, esoteric lessons in certain portions of this this book, but it was written for its time in the early 1900s. I will share with you the main lessons I gained from it. A key take away I want leave you is with this quote and my last thoughts about this powerful book. “The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.” In general, people seldomly succeeed with Luck or chance. It is almost ussually from key character traits and skills that can be learned and applied in life. Every success starts in our mind, and then achieved through persistance and faith. If we dont believe we can be successful or achieve our goals in life, and we stop at failure then we will never gain the success we aim to achieve.

In today’s book. I will share with you one of the most famous books in personal development. Our life is made up of our habits, and in this #1 best selling book, Stephen teaches us a framework for personal effectiveness which are formed by the combination of our habits in life. Habits - are a combination of our knowledge, skill and desire. The Author reminds us that to form a habit, we need to have the knowledge to know what to do, the ability to know how to do it and finally the motivation to do something. Stephen explains in this book that many individuals who have achieved a high degree of outward success still find themselves struggling with an inner need for developing personal effectiveness and growing healthy relationships with other people. Stephen believes the way we see the world is entirely based on our own perceptions. He shares a quote "In order to change a given situation, we must change ourselves, and in order to change ourselves, we must be able to change our perceptions."

Today’s book that I will be sharing is one of the most powerful and popular business books on how to embrace change. We often hear the phrase, “The only thing constant is change.” We know deep inside this is true, we have had so many experiences in life that have proved this concept over and over again. And yet we often forget or loose sight of this and are not always prepared for the change. Or we refuse to accept it when it does come. This book breaks that concept down for us and into an entertaining story presented as a parable where 2 mice (sniff and Scurry) and 2 little people Hem and Haw live in a maze and are presented with change.

Eat that FROG!. Most of you who are new to this concept must be thinking. What the Heck, why would I eat a frog? Well, this book is for those of us who feels overwhelmed with work, business or life and doesn't know where to start. Brian shares different methods for planning and prioritizing; he shows us how to identify the most important tasks and tips for keeping focused. I for one definitely need this, in trying to balance a family life with three kids plus a challenging career plus a packed extra curricular schedule with my family and outside of it. To get over procrastination, we need to really know ourselves and what we want to achieve. Face our limitations, organize our time and EAT OUR FROGS! When we take on the hardest and most important tasks first, we’ll train ourselves to stay the course to achieving our life dreams and goals.

m super pumped to share this book with you? I’ve read this book a few times, I’ve shared it with many.. and every single time, I am still getting gold nuggets out of it. This is one of the best books I’ve read, and should be a required reading for everyone who wants to succeed. This book is for anyone who wants to learn how successful people and organizations get others to buy into their vision, get their offering across clearly and lock in the direction of their business. You will find that this will seem like the worlds simplest idea, but despite that or maybe because it is, it is neglected or ignored. Often, I talk to my business friends, team and family about the importance of knowing WHY… Why they want to achieve something, why the chose a certain career path, and why they got into business in the first place, Knowing WHY, acts as a compass through the struggles of life and entrepreneurship. Simon’s book brings this up 50 levels higher and deeper. As a father at home and a leader in an organization, many of you and myself included, talk about WHAT plenty of times, Some talk about HOW, but very few of us really ever discuss or even know our WHY. And it is not just about the money either.

This is the inaugural episode for this Podcast and I am so excited to be sharing with you this life changing book that I just finished. Its from Best selling author Hal Elrod, and its titled… The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) Did you ever think that by Changing the start of your day, you can change the rest of your life. The goal of this book is to show you how to have a fulfilling and happy life. And this all starts with your morning routine.