Strategic Serendipity

Did you put together a list of New Year's Resolutions?  When you were putting it together, did you think "if I can just achieve this, I will be happy?"  Have you felt that enthusiasm start to fade as "life" takes over and those resolutions get pushed to the bottom of your to do list?  Already thinking about doing a New Year's Reboot (no, really, from here on out I will do X.)?  Are you willing to consider a slightly different approach? Here's my recommendation to you… Download the unabridged Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh from iTunes or Audible.com, order the book from Amazon.com or BN.com, or pick it up from your favorite books store.  Whatever you do, don't put getting the book on your list of things to do later.  Do it and check it off as an item complete.  Print this article and keep it with you while you are reading.  For extra credit - grab a notebook and start your professional development journal with your reflections.  (Discl...

From Dan Rockwell @Leadershipfreak (well actually from his wife via his blog)..." People who already know can't be taught ."  The whole blog piece is hilarious but I wanted to focus a bit on the serious side of the message. Let's start with the big question I hear so often.  "Are leaders made or taught?"  My opinion is that some people have an innate understanding of leadership concepts in the way that some people have an innate understand of how to throw a baseball or play a guitar.  It is easier for them to learn and master but they still have to practice if they want to make it to the big time.  For the rest of the world, there are thousands of models, books, courses, blogs, podcasts, etc. (if not millions by now) to help them learn what the others seem to innately know.  But it is like going to a piano lesson, if you don't go home after the lesson and practice, you might as well not go at all. In other words, true leaders master their craft thr...

I recently had the extreme honor of speaking to the Truman State University Academic Honor Award recipients.  These young men and women were honored as the outstanding students in their respective disciplines.  I was asked to tell them what my liberal arts education has meant to me. Now let me be perfectly clear here, this was the first Academic Honor Award ceremony I have ever attended.  Most of the winners had minors and/or double majors.  Some of the winners were honored as the outstanding student in two majors!  If statistics prove right, most of them will go on to earn advanced degrees.  I wondered for weeks what knowledge I had that would ever be of any use to them. And then it hit me, for most of them, the career at which they will excel and be on the leading edge of, probably doesn't even exist yet.  So I gave them advice that would prepare them to spot and to act on the opportunities I can't even comprehend that will take them on their jou...