Booked Morning Podcast

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.”