So Many Idea's, So Little Time

If you are like me, you probably have at least 4 or 5 business and personal development books lying around that you intended to read, but just can't find the time for.

We all know how important it is to learn new ideas and pay attention to our personal growth, but we can barely squeeze in 15 minutes for ourselves at the end of the day before we start it all over again in the morning.

I want to introduce you to a tool that will allow you to learn the best ideas from the best business and personal development books in the world, in less than 15 minutes. It's called Readitfor.me, and they take those books and turn them into interactive 12 minute videos that you can watch anywhere, anytime. I use it personally, and I love it.  Some of the books that I have listen to over the years can be found on the site.  They are:

•         Getting Things Done by David Allen

•         Good to Great by Tim Collins

•         Do More Great Work by Michael Bungay Stanier

•         Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

•         Delivering Happiness by Tony Hseih

•         Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan

•         Drive by Daniel Pink

They have a 7 day free trial that you can sign up for here:

No Obligation 7 day ReadItFor.Me free trial.

Enjoy and please let me know if you find any new and interesting books.

Ice Breaker - My Noble Cause

This week I finally stepped up and completed my first Toastmasters speech.  I felt really good about the speech.  I am know inspired to keep moving forward with the others speeches.  Here it is:

Introduction
Welcome Toastmasters. Thanks for being here to listen to my Ice Breaker initial toastmaster speech.

My Twitter profile states, “I am a Husband, Dad, Consultant, Coach, Skier, Runner, Cook, GTD’er, Learner, Adventurer and hungry for more......”

Husband/Dad
My wife Elena and I have been married for over 11 years and have 3 young boys Kurt, Von and Dean. My family is my life and I am thankful every day to be part of their lives.

Adventure
I love going on adventures. In the early 90’s I had an opportunity to travel to Asia for a month. At one point I was in Chiang Mai Thailand riding a motorcycle around the mountains of Northern Thailand, "Easy Rider". The experience of eating sushi in Tokyo Japan with a high school friend and when I took a bit of the shrimp and the tail moved. The adventure to see “The Great Wall” and eating “Peking Duck” in Beijing. The most important thing I learned from the trip is that “There is ‘America’ and the rest of the “The World”. My vision is to experience the world with my family.

Last year I was able to take my 3 boys to see one of the last 3 lift offs of the space shuttle endeavor. What an experience that they will never forget.

Skier
By answer the questions “What do I want” I had a goal to teach my 3 boys “the freedom and joy of being on the ski slopes”. I couple of years ago I was at the slopes and saw the Ski Patrol sign while skiing with my boys. I had an opportunity to sign up for the training and 2 years ago I was certified as a National Ski Patrol. Every winter I ski weekly with my family at Nashoba Valley Ski Area and we all love being on the ski slopes.

Cook
I love to cook. Food makes people happy. Being Italian and German food was part of growing up. I remember well going over to my grandmother’s house in Long Island for Sunday dinner. As we would walk up the driveway you could smell the sauces simmer on the stove. These days I enjoy passing on my passion for food to my boys.

Consultant
I’ve been a consult with Keane for over 21 years working primarily in the Boston Area. This is my second assignment at Tufts Health Plan, my first was assignment was Project Manager for the HIPAA Program. My current role is onsite delivery manager working directly with our near shore delivery manager to bring strategic business value to Tufts Health Plan.

Coaching/Mentoring
I am extremely passionate about coaching and mentoring my colleagues by sharing my experiences so they can achieve their best. Utilizing David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” productivity approach I coach individuals with techniques that I have been utilizing for the past 6 years, so they can “take control of their lives in order to achieving what is most important to them”. Think about this – “If you are having the same thought more that once you are having it to many times”.

My Core Values & Noble Cause
As an avid learning, I am currently involved in a very exciting leadership training class based on the book "Tribal Leadership" which has truly empowered me. A recent class exercise was to define my individual core values and noble cause. I would like to share mine with you.

“My core values are integrity, passion, listening and learning to server my noble cause in helping others reach their best and that is who I am.”

Tribal Leadership

A couple of years ago I listened to the book "Tribal Leadership".  I have to say that I have listened to Dave Logan's audio of the book numerous times, each time collecting a bit more information that makes me want to be part of an organization that has a Stage 5 culture ("Life is Great") (The 5 Stages of Tribal Leadership).  As a consultant and project manager within the IT Application Outsourcing business, I have worked the last 21 years within company cultures that are between Stage 2 ("My Life Sucks") and Stage 3 ("I'm Great").  As a consultant, my purpose is to continuely bring strategic business value to my client on a daily basis.  What I have learned over the last three years is that as a consultant it is extremely difficult not to get caught up in the culture of the organization that you are working for.  How do you drive your team to stay focused on the purpose and mission of bring more value to your client?  In "Tribal Leadership", they point out the you have to understand the values of people in order to move them from one stage to the next.  Can you leverage an individuals core values to bring them together so they are collectively working at Stage 4 ("We're Great")?  Starting Tuesday evening, I will be participating in a Tribal Leadership Intensive Training Program to gain further understanding of the power behind these principles.  I am extremely excited to participate in the training in order to gain more insight in how I can help my team achieve greatness.  Secondly, recently there was a connection between "Tribal Leadership" and the David Allen "Getting Things Done" works.  As a practitioners of GTD for the last 6 years I am very interested to find out how these two approaches can help me further achieve my overall purpose and mission “To bring value to people by sharing my experiences as a husband, father, consultant, adventure, athlete and coach by continuing to learn and grow and experience everything that life has to offer.”

Watch David Logan at a 2009 TEDx event speaking about Tribal Leadership

The Art of Stress Free Productivity

For those of you that know me you are aware that I am a fan of David Allen's GTD approach.  Below is a presentation that David Allen did in August 2010 that introduces the "Getting Things Done" productivity approach at the Rypple Leadership Series.  Enjoy!!!


David Allen Webinar Recording from Rypple on Vimeo.

Answer the questions "What Do You Want?"

I truly believe that the David Allen GTD approach works.  I have been using the GTD approach for almost 5 years and have found that the higher level perspective area is really where the power is.  Specifically around the "Horizons of Focus".   Over the years I have focused most of my attention on gaining "Control".  Collecting all my stuff into a "Trusted System" which I constantly review.  As a Delivery Manager and Consultant, I found myself always in the "Implementer/Micro Manager" GTD-IQ quadrant, completing my tasks and staying ahead of everyone that is pulling at me.  Years ago, I attended a "David Allen: Making It All Work" seminar and found myself asking one of the David Allen coaches (Anne Gennett), how do you define your 50,000' Purpose.  Anne told me to answer the questions "What do you want?".   This simple question spring a lot of thoughts and ideas which I have documented in a MindMap. Recently I accomplished something extremely important and exciting for me based on answering this simple questions.  What I want is to "Be an adventurer with my 3 boys".  What our family accomplished on May 14th, 2010 was to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and see the last lift-off of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. How cool is that!!!

Skiing at Nashoba Valley

Yesterday I had a great day skiing with my oldest, Kurt, at Nashoba Valley Ski Resort in Westford MA.  In 2008, I got involved in the Nashoba Valley Ski Patrol training program and became a certified National Ski Patroler in 2009.  I have always enjoyed skiing, but it brings me great joy to be able to take my kids to the mountain and teach them the joy and freedom of being on the ski slopes.  To top off our day, Kurt and I had a wonderful visit at my sisters house.   Kurt was tired but I think he too had a great day hanging with dad.  I really enjoyed hanging with him!!!!

It's Von's 6th Birthday!!!!!

Elena had a great idea tonight that we should create a short video for each of the boy's on their birthday. Well Von turn's 6 tomorrow. Happy Birthday Von!!!!!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

The Boy's

I found the Animoto Website over the summer and pulled together this video tonight. Really easy and fun.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

360° Reach Personal Branding Assessment

I recently completed the 360° Reach Personal Branding Assessment. The assessment has given me very factual insight into who I am as a leader, manager and all around person. The data from this assessment is providing me the facts that my current values and approach over the last decade is very solid, which in turn gives me the confidence and reassurance that I should reach for higher aspirations outside my comfort zone in all parts of my life. I highly recommend checking out the assessment.

The Best Shots....

I was going through our photos today and pulled together some of the best shots we have taken over the years.