A summary of things you should know about MOXIE: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership according to John Baldoni: Introduction In this episode, John Baldoni takes us on aRead More
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]]>In this episode, John Baldoni takes us on a deep dive into his book MOXIE, where he reveals the secrets to bold and gutsy leadership.
In his book, Baldoni shares the competence, credibility, and confidence that leaders, like Dolly Parton, Sergio Marchionne, Ben Hogan, and Nelson Mandela, use to succeed.
This book is perfect for the entrepreneur who understands leadership, but needs some help preparing to lead not only his or her self but also lead a team more effectively.
I’ve turned the word moxie into an acronym that contributes to the idea of moxie and leadership. Moxie stands for mindfulness, opportunity, x Factor, innovation and engagement. All of these things work together to prepare a leader to lead not only him or her but also lead their teams more effectively.
I would say at least read the prolog and then jump into the chapters that fits you best.
All of us have the ability to be resilient and to demonstrate determination. Don’t be swayed by obstacles in your way, look at obstacle’s as opportunity to succeed in your goals.
In the prolog I talk about moxie which is the guts, gumption and determination that leaders use to succeed. Good leaders have fire, drive and are resilient. Leaders have to have streets smarts and have real world experience.
There are three things that go into your sense of moxie which I call the three C’s – Competence, Credibility and Confidence. Leaders with moxie do all three.
The first chapter of the book is about mindfulness. In this chapter I talk about a hero of mine who is Nelson Mandela. Nelson exemplifies mindfulness which is a sense of being in the present but for a leader it’s not just enough to live in the moment. As a leader you have to be aware of your situation. As a mindful leader you want to know how your people are reacting, what to do to engage them and what the questions are that they are facing.
The second chapter is about opportunity and I begin with a story about Ben Hogan who was a famous golfer. Leaders need to be looking for what the next thing is going to be. In the book I had the opportunity to talk to Adam Grant who wrote Give and Take. Adam says that there are givers and takers and I think as a leader we must be more on the giver side of things. Leaders are those who create opportunities for others and that’s where that giving can nurture it.
The third chapter covers the X factor which is rooted in character. As my icon for X factor I chose to talk about Margaret Thatcher. She exhibits what it means to be grit and gritty. I talk about how it’s important for a leader to have compassion and empathy to understand others. It’s also important for a good leader to humorous, ambitious and curious.
The fourth chapter is about innovation. In this chapter my profile is on Sergio Marchionne who is the CEO of Fiat. I like to think of innovation as the application of creativity. We all have a chance to be creative but it’s what you do with those ideas that make sense. Sometimes we are intimidated of the word innovation because we think we have to hit a homerun with a new product but that’s not exactly what innovation is.
Our final chapter is about engagement which is how a leader gets out of his or her skin and interacts with the people around them. This chapter was a lot of fun to write because my profile was Dolly Parton. In this chapter I talk about how leaders reach across and understand the needs of their people and deliver on them.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 04:50
I am an executive coach and author. My brand new book Moxie is number 13 on my list. I am chair of leadership development at N2growth. My passion is instilling leadership in others and providing them pathways to success.
It came out of the financial crash of 2008 when we saw a lot of senior executives throw up their hands and say they’ve never seen things so bad before. These executives did not demonstrate any sense of resilience, perseverance or moxie. I wanted to talk about how leader’s gutsy gumption will help them and their teams succeed.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Buy MOXIE by John Baldoni on Amazon today
Visit JohnBaldoni.com to learn more about John and get in touch with him
Visit MoxieBook.com to learn more about the book and download the free tools
Follow John Baldoni on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Leaders Open Doors by Bill Treasurer
Managing Whole People by Mark Herbert
The Prosperous Leader by Jacob Engel
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of a Great Leader
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Hello My Name is Awesome according to Alexandra Watkins: Introduction In this episode Alexandra Watkins shares her book Hello My Name isRead More
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]]>In this episode Alexandra Watkins shares her book Hello My Name is Awesome where she teaches you how to create brand names that stick.
In her book, Watkins delivers the real insights into naming a business and clever ways to create a slogan so entrepreneurs can learn the proper techniques for branding business.
This book is perfect for the entrepreneur or small business owner who does not have the budget to hire the services of a branding agency, but has the will power to learn how to do it themselves.
There are no other books on naming. There are plenty of books on branding but these books were written in the 70’s and the rules have changed. The reason no one has ever written a book on naming is because namers are traditionally linguist and you cannot teach linguistics in a skinny little book. I don’t use linguistics in my naming, I just teach people how to name things using concepts and being clever.
Entrepreneurs will probably want to jump straight to chapter three on domain names but I would say to start from the beginning because the book is written in sequential order.
Anytime you have to explain how to spell or pronounce your name or what it means, you’re essentially apologizing for it and that devalues your brand.
Before you jump into creating names you really need to understand what makes a name good and what makes a name bad.
The book starts off with a chapter called Smile. Smile is an acronym for the five qualities that make a name great. S stands for suggestive and you want to have a name that suggests something about your product. The M in smile stands for meaningful. You want your name to be meaningful to your customers, not just to you. The L in Smile stands for imagery. People remember pictures and images much more easily than they remember words or letters. The E in Smile is very important. You want your name to make an emotional connection with people. 50% of purchasing decisions are based on emotion. Think of a time you purchased a bottle of wine that you’ve never tasted before but you liked the label, that’s an emotional purchase.
The next chapter is called Scratch – The Seven Deadly Sins and when to scratch it off the list. If your name looks like a typo scratch it off the list. If your name gets flagged as misspelled when you type it into a word document, it’s a problematic name and will drive people crazy. Make sure to be original and come up with your own new idea for a name.
After that we jump into the domain chapter. The #1 misconception in naming something is thinking you must own the domain name. Many big companies have started out not owning their domain name and it doesn’t matter. In the book I give you 30 different words you can put before or behind your name. As your company grows you can think about purchasing your domain name but until then don’t obsess over it because it really won’t matter.
In chapter four you are given a roadmap to follow and a lot of questions to answer about the goals for your name, everything from brand positioning to your target audience and your brand personality. In this chapter I give examples so you can see what I am talking about. The internet is your best source for brainstorming and I give you all kinds of website to go to.
Lastly, I give you some ideas on how to review names. It’s easy to come up with the name sometimes but it’s hard to get everybody to agree and this chapter will show you how to build consensus. I have 12 rules for building consensus and have developed these over the years by having to do it constantly with our clients and they really work. I also talk a little bit about focus groups and why you shouldn’t use them.
I am a self-taught person who didn’t go to college. When I was in eighth grade I knew I wanted to be in advertising and I was able to talk my way into an internship with an ad agency. I eventually landed at Ogilvy and Mather. I talked my way into becoming a namer at Lander while on a Match.com date. I am an interesting person and traveled to more than 45 countries including Libya, Zimbabwe and Cuba.
I did not want to write a book, my parents are authors and I know that writing a book is a lot of work for not always a lot of money. I got an e-mail from a publishing company asking if I had ever thought about writing a book. I didn’t jump on it right away. I struggled with if I wanted to take all that time writing a book. I deliberated about three weeks over it until I finally decided to do it and I am so glad I did! About 90% of people who contact my company can’t afford us and I thought the book would be something that they could get and help them on their own.
Give and Take by Adam Grant
Buy Hello My Name Is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins on Amazon today
Visit EatMyWords.com to learn more about Alexandra and download the first chapter
Follow Alexandra Watkins on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Lean Branding by Laura Busche | A World Gone Social by Ted Coine and Mark Babbitt | Digital Bacon by Alex Rodriguez
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Marketing and Branding | 5 Reason Why Your Marketing Sucks
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]]>A summary of things you should know about A More Beautiful Question according to Warren Berger Introduction In this episode Warren Berger shares his book A More Beautiful Question whichRead More
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]]>In this episode Warren Berger shares his book A More Beautiful Question which features the principle of asking the right questions. This book is perfect for the entrepreneur interested in the fundamentals of innovation and business through the relationship between asking great questions and coming up with great business ideas.
There are a number of books on questioning but I would say not too many have positioned it directly in terms of innovation. I felt like I was the first one to really position this in terms of innovation and business, to look at the relationship between asking great questions and coming up with great business ideas.
It’s good to read in its entirety in a way because it gives you a full appreciation of the significance of questioning. But I also think it’s a book you can go back to for some of the more practical tips and strategies that are offered in the book.
The most important principle has to do with the value of questions. A lot of us tend to undervalue questions because we think the real value lies in the answers. Questions may be just as important as the answers.
The first section of the book starts by making the case to the reader of why questioning is so important and why it’s such a critical part of innovation and change. I lay out a lot of evidence and stories to give the readers a great explanation of why this is so important.
In the second section of the book I step back and ask why is it that we start out asking so many questions when we are kids but ask fewer questions as we get older. I explore the idea that there is a great questioner inside all of us but overtime we may have gotten out of the habit of asking questions. I give you all the different kinds of reasons for that and also talk about our education system that really doesn’t teach or encourage questioning by students. We have lost some of our questioning skills along the way so I teach you what to do to get better at asking questions again.
The third section lays out my own system of questioning which is the why, what if and how of innovated questioning. It goes deep in terms of showing you the power of the why questions, what if questions and how questions. Each question has a different power and does different things but have an interesting relationship with each other. I explain why it’s so important to get good at asking why questions. I talk about how the what if questions help you come up with ideas and open up your imagination. The how questions are very practical action oriented questions.
The fourth section of the book I zero in on business-questioning in business. This section is all about taking some of the principles I laid out in the second section and asking how it applies specifically to business, your business and why is question so important in business. We zero in on the kinds of questions businesses need to be asking. Questions are so powerful that I think companies should think about having mission questions instead of mission statements. A mission question around a company’s goals is going to be more engaging to people than a statement.
The last section of the book I step outside of business and tie all of this into your daily life. I think all these principles of questioning apply just as much in your life as they do in business. I talk about how you can use questioning to start to deal with some of those issues in your life that maybe you have been avoiding thinking about. I show you how you can use deep and smart questions to deal with the issues in your life. I wrap-up the book by making the case that all of us should have a beautiful question, one big question, that we pursue in our lives.
“Questions are the new answers.” –Silicon Valley
“Knowing the answers will help you in school but knowing how to ask questions will help you in life.” – Warren Berger
I am a longtime journalist and author, I used to write for New York Times and Wired Magazine. I currently write for Fast Company and Harvard Business Review. Along the way I’ve written several books and the last couple of books has had to do with innovation and design thinking. The most recent book I moved from design thinking into questioning and A More Beautiful Question is focused on that aspect of innovation.
The inspiration was that I was studying a lot of entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders and one of the things I noticed was questioning. I found that a lot of great innovators and business thinkers start with great questions; they are asking the questions that no one else is asking. I wanted to see what it was about questioning, why is it so powerful and why are some people better at it than others.
The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley
Give and Take by Adam Grant
Buy A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger on Amazon today
Visit AMoreBeautifulQuestion.com for some exclusive content from the book and to take Warren’s test
Follow Warren Berger on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: Go For No by Andrea Waltz | It’s Not The How or The What But The Who by Claudio Fernandez Araoz | EDGY Conversations by Dan Waldschmidt
Relevant advice and tips: 7 Steps To Improve Networking Skills For Entrepreneurs | 7 Reasons Why Your Sales Skills Suck
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