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Book Summary – Leadership Gold by John C. Maxwell.

November 12, 2021 In Book Summaries 17 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In Leadership Gold: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Leading, author and Leadership expert John C. Maxwell shares 26 principles and insights that he has learned in his 40+ years of leading people and teaching leadership.

“There’s only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.” – Poet Archibald MacLeish

John Maxwell said about his leadership journey:

“During the late 1970s, I poured myself into training and raising up potential leaders. To my delight, I discovered that leaders could be developed. That eventually prompted me to write my first leadership book in 1992, entitled Developing the Leader Within You. Since then I have written many others. For more than thirty years, leading and teaching leadership have been my life’s work.”

“It’s said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others’ mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others’ successes.”

Book Summary – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

November 8, 2021 In Book Summaries 23 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Everything rises and falls on leadership. – John C. Maxwell

In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, Leadership author John C. Maxwell highlights the 21 greatest principles, lessons learned, thoughts and insights he has garnered in his 40+ years of teaching and leading people. Irrefutable means impossible to deny or disprove. The 21 laws are irrefutable to become a great leader, according to Maxwell:

“The one thing you need to know about leadership is that there is more than one thing you need to know about leadership!” To lead well, we must do 21 things well.”

Nas’s Masterclass Session on Hip-Hop Storytelling.

November 6, 2021 In Masterclass 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

From the landmark album “Illmatic” in 1994 to the Grammy-winning “King’s Disease,” Nas has been exposing truth through rhymes and vivid street poetry for more than 25 years. Now he’s sharing his journey, the evolution of Hip-Hop, and a brand-new song with you. Hip-Hop, lyricism, flow—learn how to tap into the power of your own voice and turn your experiences into music with one of rap’s all-time greatest artists.

Named one of Billboard’s Best Rappers of All Time, Nas emerged as one of the leaders of the 1990’s “golden age of Hip-Hop” with “Illmatic” in 1994, which is still widely regarded as one of the greatest Hip-Hop albums ever. Drawing from his experience growing up in New York City, his lyrics and rhymes gave voice to the voiceless and helped fuel a global musical revolution.

Book Summary -You Are Awesome by Neil Pasricha.

November 3, 2021 In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

New York Times bestselling author and positive psychology researcher Neil Pasricha writes about building resilience through a nine-step guide filled with stories and research findings. Neil writes in You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life:

“It is a series of nine research-backed secrets, shared through personal stories, on how we can move from change-resistant to change-ready, failure-prone to failure-proof, thin-skinned to thick-skinned, and anxious to awesome.”

On Priorities.

November 2, 2021 In Insight 16 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

The Mariam-Webster dictionary defines priorities as something that is more important than other things and that needs to be done or dealt with first. The condition of being more important than something or someone else and therefore coming or being dealt with first. Prioritization is the activity that arranges items or activities in order of importance relative to each other ¹

Priority is derived from the old french word Priorite, from the latin Prioritas. Morphologically it contains the word: Prior + ity. It means the importance placed on an activity, item, event, person or situation. As author Robert J. McKain, once stated ” The reason most goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.”. A priority is something you do first, you do it prior to doing any other thing. It is of utmost importance, it affects your bottomline, it affects your well being etc.

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

Book Summary -The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John C. Maxwell.

November 1, 2021 In Book Summaries 18 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Leadership author John C. Maxwell writes a complementary companion to his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. In The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow, John highlights twenty-one essential leadership qualities and include “Reflecting On It” and “Bringing It Home” sections that help readers integrate and apply each day’s material.

According to John C. Maxwell, the 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader are the following :

1 CHARACTER: Be a Piece of the Rock
2 CHARISMA: The First Impression Can Seal the Deal
3 COMMITMENT: It Separates Doers from Dreamers
4 COMMUNICATION: Without It You Travel Alone
5 COMPETENCE: If You Build It, They Will Come
6 COURAGE: One Person with Courage Is a Majority
7 DISCERNMENT: Put an End to Unsolved Mysteries
8 FOCUS: The Sharper It Is, the Sharper You Are
9 GENEROSITY: Your Candle Loses Nothing When It Lights Another
10 INITIATIVE: You Won’t Leave Home Without It
11 LISTENING: To Connect with Their Hearts, Use Your Ears
12 PASSION: Take This Life and Love It
13 POSITIVE ATTITUDE: If You Believe You Can, You Can
14 PROBLEM SOLVING: You Can’t Let Your Problems Be a Problem
15 RELATIONSHIPS: If You Get Along, They’ll Go Along
16 RESPONSIBILITY: If You Won’t Carry the Ball, You Can’t Lead the Team
17 SECURITY: Competence Never Compensates for Insecurity
18 SELF-DISCIPLINE: The First Person You Lead Is You
19 SERVANTHOOD: To Get Ahead, Put Others First
20 TEACHABILITY: To Keep Leading, Keep Learning
21 VISION: You Can Seize Only What You Can See

Jeff Bezos on Regret Minimization.

October 21, 2021 In Life 12 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

If you can project yourself out to age 80 and sort of think, “What will I think at that time?

We all struggle with making tough and somewhat difficult decisions that can be life changing or altering. Decisions such as leaving a high paying job to start a business, leaving a toxic and abusive marriage for the unknown, setting boundaries with our parents, relocating to a foreign land, reducing time spent with draining and fair weather friends. All of these decisions are tough and that is why most of us never make them, hence we stay stuck in abusive relationships, toxic work environments, get enmeshed in our dysfunctional family units, get entangled with friends that are not adding value to us anymore. As American novelist and playwright James Baldwin once said “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin

Teresita Fernandez 2013 Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts Commencement Speech.

October 13, 2021 In Speech 21 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth… will also become the raw material for the art you make.”

New York-based visual artist and recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 2005 Genius Grant, Teresita Fernandez delivered the commencement address titled: “On Amnesia, Broken Pottery, and the Inside of a Form” to the graduating 2013 class at her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. Teresita served as a presidential appointee to Barack Obama’s U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, distinguishing her the first Latina to serve in that role.

Book Summary – Fear of Missing Out by Patrick J. McGinnis

October 11, 2021 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In Fear of Missing Out: Practical Decision-Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice, venture capitalist, and writer Patrick J. McGinnis describe one of the greatest scourge of our time: The Fear of Missing Out and how we can become more strategic with our decision making in the age of social media.

“We make more than 35,000 decisions a day. Some impulsive, some logical, and some complex and paralyzing. Compounded with our “always-on” society, the pressures and stresses wrought by endless access to yet another option or possibility can create an endless loop of indecision and unease.”

Tim coined the term FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), as well as the related term FOBO (Fear of a Better Option) in a 2004 article titled ” Social Theory at HBS: McGinnis’ Two FOs” in The Harbus, the student newspaper of Harvard Business School(HBS). FOMO has since appeared all over pop culture and it’s even been added to a host of authoritative dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster.

Book Summary – Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn.

October 8, 2021 In Book Summaries 16 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

it’s easy to do the little things, every day. It’s also easy not to do them.

In Leading an Inspired Life, author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn shares timeless insight on living an inspired life. Rohn distills some of the finest teachings from his mentor John Earl Shoaff and his own life philosophies such as seasons of life, law of averages, ant philosophy, visual chain thinking, snowball effect among others.

You are not Helpless.

October 7, 2021 In Life 13 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. – James Baldwin

Helplessness is the belief that there is nothing that anyone can do to improve a bad situation (such as being diagnosed with an illness). In many ways, then, helplessness is a belief that control over the situation or its outcomes is impossible. Helplessness beliefs can be either universal (i.e., there is nothing that anyone can do) or personal (i.e., there is nothing that I can do).

There is no challenge in life that you can and will not overcome. Life is not fair and it can be tough most of the time, whatever would go wrong would eventually go wrong (Murphys Law). Life is transient and impermanent, nothing in life lasts forever; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Success is not guaranteed in life but the struggle is. The bigger the struggle, the sweeter the eventual success. Life happens to us all at some point in our lives. As English Songwriter John Lenon famously said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. The storms, trials, tribulations, heartbreaks, disappointments, rejections, failures, challenges, and vicissitudes of life would always come around.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

Book Summary -Indistractable by Nir Eyal.

October 4, 2021 In Book Summaries 14 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

You can’t call something a “distraction,” unless you know what it is distracting you from.

In Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal argues that in the future: There will be two kinds of people in the world-those who let their attention and lives be controlled and coerced by others and those who proudly call themselves “indistractable”.

Being indistractable isn’t about being a Luddite. It’s about understanding the real reasons why we do things against our best interests.

Book Summary – Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski Ph.D. & Amelia Nagoski DMA.

October 2, 2021 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

The cure for burnout is not “self-care”; it is all of us caring for one another.

In Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, share strategies for minimizing stress, managing emotions and living a joyful life.

Book Summary – Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud.

September 25, 2021 In Book Summaries 18 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of the ending — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

In Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward, Clinical Psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Henry Cloud shares mindset-altering methods for proactively correcting the bad and the brokenness in our businesses and our lives. Cloud challenges readers to achieve the personal and professional growth they both desire and deserve—and gives crucial insight on how to make those tough decisions that are standing in the way of a more successful business and, ultimately, a better life.

Book Summary -It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn.

September 20, 2021 In Book Summaries 17 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

In It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, author and Director of The Family Constellation Institute, Mark Wolynn builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score.

It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health.

Unconsciously, we relive our mother’s anxiety. We repeat our father’s disappointments. We replicate the failed relationships of our parents and grandparents. Just as we inherit our eye color and blood type, we also inherit the residue from traumatic events that have taken place in our family. Illness, depression, anxiety, unhappy relationships, and financial challenges can all be forms of this unconscious inheritance.