I must start off this review with a confession. This book took me longer than any other book to read for only one purpose: My life became very busy from the moment I took on this book. This book is an easy read and one that should keep you engaged.
Ralph de la Vega is the author of “Obstacles Welcome” and the president & CEO of AT&T mobility and consumer markets. As the tagline of the book, ‘turn adversity to advantage in business and life’ suggests this book comprises of writer’s lifetime experiences and the theories and attitude he followed to achieve his goals.
I enjoyed how every chapter of the book ends with ‘Takeaway Messages’, giving points to spark continued thinking about through our daily struggles or opportunities in life. His way of looking towards life is admirable and can provide inspiration in thought.
Obstacles Welcome outlines a simple set of strategies for people at every level of society who face challenges in their businesses, education and personal lives.
1. First, de la Vega says, when faced with a challenge we must assess the situation, examining our strengths and weaknesses.
2. We must establish a vision, what we have decided we are going to accomplish.
3. We must create a plan for success, listing the steps necessary to make the vision become reality. “Hope,” de la Vega points out, “is not a strategy.”
4. Lastly we must put the plan into effect, monitoring and adjusting it with incoming information as we progress toward the goal, keeping in mind a solid foundation of values. Ethical practice is not only “the right thing but the wise thing to do,” de la Vega declares.
As the book ends, so I want to end this the same way..
“So now my work continues…creating experiences to convince the youth of the world that life can be more than they ever dreamed if they get an education and use it to bring their own best ideas to reality.
I want this ongoing journey to be their own plane to freedom, helping to lift them above their limitations and landing them where their opportunities have no limits.”
Read this book and maybe you too will pick this heart beat of the author up.
Today I have another book review that I get the privileged to do thanks to Thomas Nelson
In Rosemond’s book titled “The Well Behaved Child”, there are some great ideas and many more where you may say, “That sounds so old school and primitive”. Well, it may be but his point early in the book is: The problem with parenting today is all of the new ideas. Everything today is a syndrome or a disorder with kids being labeled more all the time. Rosemond’s ideas stem back to “Grandma’s and Grandpa’s” time when children knew their place and it wasn’t in the center of the family. The marriage came first, then the children.
You will find that in this book he has loaded it with parenting tools of the trade, including:
1. Seven Fundamentals of Effective Parenting
2. Seven Essential Tools
3. Seven Behavior Problems Solved
4. Seven Tales of Strange and Unexpected
5. Seven Final Words of Advice
I think he has something with the number “7” what do you think?
While Rosemond provides methods and tools to correct behavior problems, he strongly believes the they are only vehicles to bring back the authority that parents have lost over their kids. He deals early on as well not stopping after you have solved and changed the “sympton”, but to keep going until you deal with the “cause”. Because just as when we get sick, often times we get over the symptoms and go back to our every day life, to only have that sickness come back and stronger than before. It s the same with discipline and wrong attitudes.
Overall, I think if you have children in your life you will enjoy the parenting ideas in this book. And as he claims in the end that his mission is to help parents to: (a) understand that they have been mislead by the psychobabblers and (b) get back on the right track, that he does just this inside this book.
What are your thoughts concerning this? Primitive or right on?
In their book Leading With Kindness offer several comments about goals. I will then follow these goals up with questions and comments of my own.
1. Communicate them. It doesn’t make sense to hold someone accountable for objectives that are ill-defined or poorly communicated.
How do you do with this in your ministry? Do you often hold your volunteers responsible for things that maybe you just think they know or understand? It amazes with the hiring process that many churches go through that once they bring on a new staff member they don’t have any manual to give them that may define these expectations or goals that they will (unknowingly or not) be held accountable for. Often times because many of us are on the side responsible for creating new goals, policies etc we think everyone else has been in the same meetings as we have over the last few weeks or months deciding on these. That all of our volunteers have been spending all their waking time thinking through how to make things better, more efficient etc. But, listen closely—They have not!! That is our responsibility, and to further that responsibility it is our responsibility as well to make sure we communicate them and communicate them over and over and over again. Then to make sure they are not just heard but understood. Without understanding it is not communication it is just talking.
2. Make sure they matter. Important goals to which people are committed have motivational force. They can energize people to work persistently toward something they want to achieve.
Often times I have seen when people try to move things along, or begin the journey of setting goals and all they over complicate things. Gals get set up because they sound good and they become extremely numerous and overwhelming. Keep this simple, keep the main things the main things. The more you begin to have the harder it becomes for people to feel they can even strive to be successful. By keeping goals simple, few, and directional to allow the right movement toward the right goals it will help people stay motivated. Goals are stepping stones and will change as times change and goals get accomplished.
3. Do it! Setting goals is often mistaken as the end in itself. Employ motivational leadership and kindly reminders of what is most important and what must get done.
Not much to say on this other than, remember, Goals are not the final destination but stepping stones to the bigger picture.
Here are the rest of them. I would be interested i reading and hearing how you think these below should be lived out? So go ahead and post your thoughts to any of them or all of them.
4. Think big. Leaders who have grander ambitions and ask for more from the staff invite them to participate in a bigger story than the one to which they are accustomed.
5. Watch out for the group. Make certain that individual goals do not impair group performance. Most companies temper the potentially detrimental effects of personal pursuits by giving greater weight to group goals.
6. Make sub-goals. Avoid the trap of setting long-term goals without specifying intermediate goals, so you can celebrating improvement and make continued effort secondarily reinforcing.
7. Watch for other wins. Don’t lose sight of the many accomplishments that occur outside the formal goal-setting process. Because it is impossible to identify everything that will be needed in advance of a year, it is essential to recognize meritorious achievements beyond the call of duty.
Larry Crabb in his book of Real Church discusses his idea and opinions through all 153+ pages of his book. Larry Crabb does some great exploration and defining why he doesn’t care for church in the way that many have come to know it today.
In this book I have to admit I had a hard time getting started as it appeared to me that it was going to be a book of complaining and nit-picking on the church. I actually laid the book down and took a few days to a week or so sabbatical from it and I was only in the first couple of chapters. But once I came back to it and tried to see his views as not ones that are trying to tear the church apart but wanting to challenge the church to come back to a true north then I found myself resonating with more of what Larry Crabb was questioning.
As far as reading, once the reader understands the motive of Larry and his questioning it really is an easy read. Larry does a great job of bringing the reader along if the reader gives Crabb a chance to do so. At the end of reading regardless of if you agree with his journey and assessment or not, you cannot deny the legitimacy of his journey. You may even find yourself agreeing so much in his journey and questioning along with his interpretation that you will realize that you are not alone.
Pat of the core of the book for me was in Crabb’s discussion of what the church does need to do for it’s community. Here are some but by no means an extensive mention of all of them. For that you really do need to buy the book. Again it would be a good resource to have.
Briefly some of the core concepts: Real churches will send it’s community out to serve the community and end up expanding Gods message, practice forgiveness, grace and love, explain in more fullness the Character of God, the grace we have in the Gospel, and our proper response through the Holy Spirit.
I am not saying if I agree with or disagree with Larry Crabb and his book “Real Church”, I am only saying it could be a good resource to own.
Michael Franzese does a great job of keeping this book of only 149 pages light in reading but filled with several gems that can be used regardless of what business you are in. Michael draws upon the wisdom of Solomon as well, and as he does that you just know it is going to be good. Michael talks about in his book (and I must say that I agree as well) how many mob executives who succeed in the business of organized crime would have been equally successful in the boardrooms and business offices of corporate America. Michael spends some time making it clear that he is not for crime, he actually says: “..Crime at any level has no place in our socisety, and I know better than most. It’s destructive, immoral, and harmful to innocent people. And don’t fool yourself: You cannot get away with criminal activity in this country. Not in the long run.”
There were a few areas and advice or insights that stuck out to me such as:
1. Give up the thought of a magic formula that will guarantee your success. There are no shortcuts to success. All the infomercials that promise to give you the 10 steps to wealth beyond your dreams are false advertising. When some claim to give you their top secrets to their fame and success, do you really think that let’s say Trump would give away his secrets? Or Bill Gates?
2. Having a clear focus plan for your business is crucial-one based on a simple organizing principle and purpose…Have measurable, specific outcomes, and determine the route you must take to get there.
3. “Cut to the Chase”. Eliminate the clutter.
And there were many more as well. But as you can see from above any of that advice minus his personal stories of how it relates to mob bosses, this could and should be followed by anyone in any business. And as it leaves you with some parting advice, I want to use part of that advice to close this off as well.
” Don’t allow you business to infringe upon the quality of your life-yours or your family’s. The continuous pursuit of wealth and prestige always adds a sour taste to life….There is no secret. There are no gaurantees. You know the drill. Get a plan and work a plan around it. Get the right sort of people to help you execute your plan. Play smart and play it ethically. The rest is up to God and the market (and don’t confusing those two).
