Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
In theory this should have been just the book for me at the moment, with my goal to become more confident. There is undoubtedly a lot of good stuff in there and some techniques that I’ve read elsewhere and taken onboard.
However, for some reason I just couldn’t enjoy reading it. Over the last few years I’ve become much more open to ‘personal development’ but in my mind there is a distinction between personal development and self-help. I would say that this book definitely falls into the category of self-help. It put me off because it seemed to be for someone with very low self esteem who needed help in all aspects of their life, rather than for a reasonably confident businesswoman who needs a bit of help with confidence in certain situations (which is how I see myself). Maybe I need to open my mind a bit more and not cringe away from ’self-help’.
If you really do feel that you have a self-esteem/confidence problem then you may well find this helps you, but if you’re looking for something to help you feel more confident at meeting new people when networking then I would look elsewhere.
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Moose on the Table
Over the last couple of years I’ve become very familiar with the concept of eating your frog/toad in a time management kind of way, and have been coming to terms with eating elephants (a bite at a time if you’re dealing with project management). Now, in the words of the woman on my yoga video, “we’ve got another animal on our hands”. This time it’s a moose, but thankfully we don’t have to eat it. Any other animals we need in a business context?
Moose on the Table by Jim Clemmer has the subtitle ‘A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work’. I didn’t realise until I started reading it that that is exactly what it is - a novel. What a fun way to approach a serious subject! It’s the story of how Pete sorts out a frighteningly bad leadership problem to turn the company he works for around. It’s a nice, easy read with a lot to take away and apply to your own situation. I certainly know a lot more about leadership (and moose) than I did before.
To be honest, if I had sat down to read this as a novel rather than a business book then I may have come away a bit disappointed. As far as a work of fiction goes it’s probably not the best bit of writing I’ve ever read. But that’s not the point is it? As a refreshingly different approach to providing advice on leadership and communications this is a huge success. It certainly ticks all the boxes of being easy to read and conveying the information in an easy to absorb way.
If you’re interested in learning more about good (and bad) leadership or have an in-house issue you need to tackle this would be a good place to start.
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The Total De-stress Plan
She covers relaxation, covering the different techniques you can use and making your workplace and home much more amenable to it; diet and how you can reduce stress by eating sensibly; exercise, giving details of different types of exercise that are particularly good for stress-relief (i.e. yoga); and pampering, treating yourself well to aid relaxation.
The final chapter gives some ‘fast-track alternative solutions to stress-related problems’ if you have particular issues you want to deal with more quickly.
The book is a very comprehensive coverage of the subject of stress-relief. I’ve come away from it with a list of things that I can put into practice straight away and a few things that I plan to read up on further. I particularly like the idea of making my home and office a more relaxing place and will be following up on this in the coming weeks.
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The Confidence Plan
I was immediately absorbed by it and made the mistake of starting it without a pen and paper to hand and then found myself champing at the bit to start writing my thoughts down. Now that’s a sign of a good book! I was impressed with how it started with laying the groundworks - encouraging you to start taking the smallest actions as taking action in itself can help build your confidence. The chapter on increasing your energy was also an eye-opener. The idea of dealing with the energy drains in your life - things that might seem insignificant but that drain a little bit of energy every time you notice them (like my leaving things piled up on the sofa - if I just tidied them away I’d feel so much better). Brilliant!
To be honest quite a bit of it is stuff that I’ve read elsewhere but in a ‘getting things done’ or ‘improving your effectiveness’ kind of way. Applying it to building my confidence was an interesting take. And of course the more times you read something the more it reinforces it in your mind. If you feel like you could do with working on your confidence I would highly recommend reading this book.
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Confident Networking for Career Success and Satisfaction
The book easily passed the ‘easy to read’ test - it grabbed me straight away and kept me interested throughout. I liked the way that it didn’t jump straight in with the ‘you need to talk to as many people you don’t know as you can’ kind of stuff that usually goes hand in hand with networking advice. It acknowledges that not everybody is comfortable in networking situations and offers practical advice for how you can feel less daunted by it. I was also pleased that the authors recognised the value of online networking and offered some advice specifically about that (though best to ignore their description of ‘forums commonly known as blogging’).
What I wasn’t so satisfied with is that I didn’t feel like I came away from the book with a solid plan of action. I could go back through it and work through the different pieces of advice to slowly increase my confidence and skills, but the book doesn’t offer a particularly structured approach to this. Maybe I’m wanting to have my hand held a bit too much, but I do like it when practical books set you particular goals to achieve.
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Manage Projects
It introduces the subject of project management in easily understood language and provides many useful tools. It’s made me feel quite inspired to try out the process on our projects.
The one criticism that I have is that I would have liked a checklist bringing together all the different parts of the process in one place. I was hoping to be able to put one together myself but going back through the book found it difficult to extract the flow. However, it’s definitely worth persevering with and I plan to do some further reading to help me achieve my goal.
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How to Be a Complete and Utter Failure
It doesn’t have such a structured approach as How To Be Brilliant, however you could easily note down the various steps and devise your own plan from it. What I really like about it is that it makes you look at things differently and pushes you to try things that you might have dismissed otherwise - I have to own up to being a bit too comfortable in my comfort zone at times, but this book reminds me that I need to push past it.
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Five Star Service, One Star Budget
Some of the advice may seem like it’s common sense in a ‘I already knew that’ kind of way, but as the author points out - it’s not the knowing, it’s the doing that counts. If nothing else the book acts as a reminder of what you should be doing. You can use it to dip into when you feel your business needs a boost, or as a manual for transforming your customer service if you work through it a chapter at a time. Well worth a read.
A truly brilliant business book.
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Project Management for Dummies
Part of the problem is that it’s obviously aimed at someone working in a large organisation but I’m not lacking in imagination so much that I can’t apply the examples to our small-scale setup. For example, I can easily substitute ‘go and see a solicitor’ for ‘consult the legal department’. However, I’m still don’t feel like I’ve been getting much benefit from it. It annoyingly combines a considerable amount of detail with very little in the way of practical examples, so half the time I don’t have a clue what the author is going on about.
Do I sound too harsh or just incredibly whingey? Either way the book will be winging it’s way back to the library tomorrow and I’ll be on to something (hopefully) more enjoyable.
Anyone know any good project management books?? Suggestions gratefully received, especially if they take into account that not everyone works in a large multi-department organisation. Even projects run by a two-man band such as us need some form of management.
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Get Clients Now!
The book acts as a kind of cook book for putting together your own tailored program. You choose what you want area you need to work on (filling the pipeline, following up, getting presentations or closing sales) and the ingredients you’re going to use and then form a plan to follow daily for 28 days. Brilliant! There’s nothing like having a solid written plan to follow.
I’ve read the book twice and put it into practice once and would highly recommend it. In fact I’m gearing myself up to have another go. Marketing is one of those activities that keeps getting pushed to one side while I tackle the day-to-day running of the business, but I find having a defined number of tasks to complete each day really helps me find the time for it.
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