Riding the train to downtown each day gives me loads of time to think about life and read about business. Recently, I picked up a book that I have been meaning to read for a long time: The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma. Originally, I had Sharma’s book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari in my hands but LWT (Lead Without a Title) spoke to me a little louder!

Recently, I seem to have read books that have a “story” format like The Wealthy Barber, The Celestine Prophesy and Life’s Golden Ticket (each good books in their own ways.)

Short Summary

The Leader Who Had No Title follows the story of Blake who is a young Gulf War Veteran trying to find his way in the world. Through the bookstore that he works (who hasn’t dreamed of doing this one) he meets Tommy – an eccentric top performer within the organization. Tommy takes Blake to visit his own mentors Ana, Ty, Jackson and Jet who teach Blake about the LWT philosophy.

Using a series of acronyms SPARK, IMAGE, HUMAN and SHINE (see below), the four mentors and Tommy bring Blake from an individual who can’t see past the daily grind of the workplace into a true “everyday leader.”

The main point is that it’s not a title that gives you leadership ability. Specifically, you should not wait to get a leadership title to be a leader. Leadership comes from the belief that your role is important, you are proud of yourself and want to succeed.

A genius idea alone has zero value. What makes it priceless is the quality of follow-through and the speed of execution around the genius idea.” (pg 73)

Why it spoke to me

This book had a great effect on my own position within the organization that I work. Everyday, I have the opportunity to either push one step forward or, alternatively, be negative and move everyone a step back. Let’s be clear, it’s not like I don’t know the correct answer for this – stay positive! Sometimes it just takes another boost of motivation to set you back on the right path.

The second great thing that I came to realize is that being a leader is far more than just the title. Even within your own personal relationships – home, friends, colleagues – the ideas in this book apply to each of those.

Action Steps

To sum it all up, I would recommend this book as a nice easy read with great quotes and key-points. I don’t think that the story kept me as involved as some other story format books (where you learn as they learn) but I finished it in a few days and have gone back a few times to read some key points.

Here are a few action steps and key quotes I’ve taken from the book:

“If you want to win, you need to help others win. And part of that is doing all you can do to build a high-performance culture within your organization.” (pg 136)

“…become more connected to those moments where your natural genius most fully presents itself. Live for those moments and you’ll begin to experience more of them.” (pg 69) – see Marcus Buckingham for lots more on Playing To Your Strengths.

“He never caught a glimpse of the leader he could have been. So he kept on working and living exactly the same way. No reaching. No venturing. No expanding….All because he just wouldn’t dare to leave his comfort zone.” (pg 100)

“…spending even five minutes during that first hour of your day celebrating all the good things in your life will put you into an acute state of happiness.” (pg 183)

The Acronyms

IMAGE
Innovation
Mastery
Authenticity
Guts
Ethics

SPARK
Speak with Candor
Prioritize
Adversity Breeds Opportunity
Respond versus React
Kudo’s for Everyone

HUMAN
Helpfulness
Understanding
Mingle
Amuse
Nurture

SHINE
See Clearly
Health is Wealth
Inspiration Matters
Neglect Not Your Family
Elevate Your Lifestyle

I’ve also found a few other blogs who reviewed this book:

Rob Christeson of RobChristeson.com recommends this book for people who don’t believe that they can make a difference in their everyday lives. Read his book review for The Leader Who Had No Title.

Perry Holley at PerryHolley.com says that “The Leader Who Had No Title” is for each and every one of us, regardless of position or title, to develop how we lead ourselves so that we positively influence as many people as possible in our day to day life. Read his review on this book by Robin Sharma

As promised via twitter during the event earlier today – and taking a quick piece of advice from the speaker Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett or chrisg.com) – I created my own Top Ten ideas from the Social Media Breakfast Calgary #29.

During the event, Mark (@yycmortgageguy) asked me to: “Try a top 9 or 11.5 to be different and create an interesting list.”

So here it is, my Top Ten list as numbered in binary and some tweets that I liked as well.


1
Having the opportunity to share ideas by meeting a whole bunch of great Calgary Bloggers and Social Media Professionals in one place!

10
People do not like to be sold to (or should we say sold at?) Interruption marketing is an old and unpleasant way to do business. The new model is based on getting permission and then, once the interest and acceptance is achieved, convert them into a fan and customer.

@LauraArbuthnot
Instead of interrupting people, attract people. Make what you do relevant to them and then they’ll take action #smbyyc

11
People need to know your story or something more interesting than a simply fact sheet. If you’re trying to sell value, make sure that they can relate to you, your product or the company.

@that_angela
Before you start any content marketing efforts, know what your story is and know how you want to tell it. #smbyyc

100
Starting to look at everything you write or produce from the point of view of the customer. What are their interests? If they want higher Internet speed and better HDTV, don’t spend money trying to sell them on the benefit of a long distance plan.

@ssllee
“Talk to your customers. What u think they want could be different than what they actually want.”@chrisgarrett Agreed!!! #smbyyc

101
Learning more about Google’s new page rank/SEO metrics: they want to know the neighborhood you play in. That means that you need quality links (not bought – never bought!) from equally trustworthy sources.

@Hilary_tweets
Google also has trust issues (so make sure your online ‘neighborhood’ and reputation are positive ones)! @chrisgarrett #smbyyc

110
The importance of building trust with your readers and customers. It’s not just about giving them loads of text; they need to trust the information you’re providing and then want even more.

@LaurenHerschel
Not enough just to be visible. You need to establish like and trust #smbyyc

111
It’s impossible to control what people say about you. The best defense is to ensure that you’ve created the venue or a forum for them to give feedback that you can respond to. This also means that you don’t simply ignore the bad and promote the good – turn it all into an opportunity.

@oMargoto
Give people a place to air their grievances where you can hear it and respond. #smbyyc And make sure you do something about it.

1000
Getting back to basics is important for keeping your market interested. Great content can’t be purchased for $10 an article and must be created for your market. Retweets and quotes are nice to read but original material is always going to get people engaging with you.

@kailicashin
Remember- content is the bread and butter of social media- @chrisgarrett #smbyyc

1001
Having someone ask the exact question I was thinking – thus saving me the trouble: How do you show the value of a social media campaign to people who are still thinking traditional advertising? (Thanks @jennahib)

And finally,

1010
Hearing about a mankini not once but twice in 60 minutes and knowing with 100% certainty that I won’t hear about that again for at very long time.

No tweet here although I’ll give a shout out to @chrisgarrett and @kevinhayesca!

Make sure to follow me @ryanlewislive too!

Can you operate at a peak level? Surround yourself with A level people

Soaring with Eagles
A friend of mine has always had great ‘luck’ in her career. She was recruited early, ended up as a leader in her group, was re-recruited for a new leadership position and then promoted again. Next, came the transfer to a higher position and now is regularly meeting amongst some of her previous colleagues in an ongoing high-level leadership group. Wow.

I have always called her an All-Star, but I realized that it’s much more than just her skills that bring this level of success. When she was first recruited, her mentor was a person who played at an ‘A’ level and surrounded herself with ‘A’ people. The next big move up was initiated by another ‘A’ player who also gathered others with similar characteristics and drive. This type of pattern isn’t an accident and her high achievement isn’t either.

When a person is surrounded by top performers, they will almost always have a greater opportunity to shine. Although positions and careers are different, when great people gather, great things happen! (Just check out a TED event) It has a compounding effect on more than just the job output. These groups multiply ideas, motivation, drive, goals and dreams. More importantly, it helps create new grand ideas for what success means to the individual.

Make your own luck
If your workplace has this type of environment then you’re already ahead of the game. If not, then it’s you who must take the first step towards the goal. You must embrace a consistent yet targeted way of moving through a career – not only being attracted and surrounding yourself with peak performance but, even more importantly attracting other peak performers to you.

If you’re not getting to this level at work, then it’s time to do a review of your goals. Of course, another option is to get out in the community and find yourself a group of people who do great things. Volunteer or form a group of like-minded people. Remember, it’s up to you – no one will do it for you.

In a previous post Do You Know Your Strengths? I began my journey of focusing on what supercharges me. With this in mind, I can find the right people (at work and outside of work) who can partner with me in achieving the highest level of success.

Too often I have seen people that choose to follow only one of the above. When this happens, as expected, careers take very different paths.

• The first person, who always treats people with respect but is not good at what they do, will probably have many friends within the company; but, will not be invited onto the large important projects. People may like them, but it doesn’t mean that they want to stake their bonus on the performance.
• The second person is on who is great at what they do but they do not show those people around them proper respect. In this case, the person may seem to do very well at first, but over time, they will notice that things don’t come as easily from their colleagues as it does for others. Asking for favors falls on def ears and support needs to be requested rather than offered.

I’ve seen both of these in action and while it doesn’t sum up the entire working population – getting them both right will help move your career or business forward.

For those of you wondering how to fix the problem (should you be described above) here is my answer: if you’re the strong person who doesn’t respect those around you – ask for feedback from your superiors or find a good middle-person to help you with your interaction. If you’re the second example with great respect but no skills – quit your job and find something you love. You’ll never succeed in the long term at something you hate!

Aside from all the details of the “discovery”, the end of days scenario made me think about things that I would not have done, seen or experienced.

Here are 6 things that I would have been worth pushing off the deadline for all human-kind:

1. There goes multi-millionaire by thirty-five
2. I just finished my basement and won’t be able to enjoy it
3. All the time I’ve spent writing out my goals – wasted!
4. Pre-paid lawn service for the summer – also a waste.
5. I was really looking forward to the Mayan End of Days in 2012
6. I will never get to see The Hobbit book on film

For anyone interested, here is the website for the Great Prediction. When May 22nd arrives, have a visit and a laugh. If it doesn’t, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Night Owls Raise Your Hands
I tend to do my best work and have the highest motivation levels sometime between 10:30pm and 2:00am. As you can imagine, this does not bode well for my sleep patterns when I have the alarm set for 5:33am. (I choose 5:33 because it allows me to snooze 3 times at 9 minutes per snooze and wake up at 6:00am.) Trust me, living off 4 hours sleep can work for a while but only because I sleep on the train going to work. It’s good for me; not so good for the person sitting next to me.

Stay up all night reading my RSS?

I quit painting, working on websites, investing in real estate, going to seminars and simply getting out and meeting people! It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything, it just seems like I have been focused on the wrong things. I’ve continued to keep up my financial education through blogs, documentaries and a huge number of books (see my reading list here).

Take this blog for example; I’ve probably sat down at my computer a hundred times over the past couple of years and started writing something. Suddenly I stop, get caught in analysis paralysis and never publish the post. (I fact, hopefully you actually get to read this one – who knows what my future self is going to do!)

Although I’m starting out again with a bit of a rant, I need to get something posted or I’ll fall back into my same pattern. Time for a re-focus? I think so and I look forward to any comments that you can give for ideas on staying motivated!

Here’s what I want to do for the next 12 months:

1. Post at least seven updates, posts or reviews per week
2. Transfer even more of my income from salary based into cashflow/investment income
3. Dedicate more time to writing, research and publishing
4. Increase the size of my network both through social networks and personal network events
5. Increase my education by attending at least one seminar per quarter

I know, these aren’t all SMART Goals but I’ll keep them updated and add specifics soon!

A Quick Summary
Just yesterday I read an article on the Huffington Post called Why the Dow is hitting 10,000 and it really gave me a great summary of the current market conditions. With personal spending way down, the government seems to be making up the difference (and more) with cash-for-clunkers, bank bailouts, mortgage bailouts and a cool trillion on “stimulus spending.” The only problem is that the money just doesn’t seem to be trickling down to the public.

The only problem is that the article seems to be a little short on the so what? factor. What happens when the government can’t spend any more but the people haven’t paid off all of their debts and continue to save? All of a sudden all these gains may seem like another painful memory.

This site says that we are actually in a period of much larger deflation (according to the CPI) than reported and that the current unemployment rate is actually at about 20% (not the 9% reported in the media.)

Their explanation for this is in the “discouraged workers” who are those people who have simply given up looking for work within the last 30 days. Isn’t that a little scary? That means that 1 in 5 people (both looking and not looking for work) do not have jobs.

Reading these types of things gets me very nervous about the recent rally in the stock market. I’m still following some of the advice that Dent shared about an upcoming depression.

This video is an update to the forecasts in the book and it’s also a great information piece for people who haven’t (or won’t) read the book.