Book Reports and Other Stuff

I cannot believe I say I am swamped when I am between gigs. Lots of speaking, teaching Time Management Seminars, advising on buying companies, negotiation assistance. I am still considering though if this is where my future lies and if this is where I can have the greatest impact.

Catching up on my guest blogging. I wrote an article - Sales - Its All About Relationships.

I read a great book by Steve Sisgold - "What's Your Body Telling You? Listening to your body's signals to stop anxiety, erase self-doubt, and achieve true wellness." Of course when I saw the title, I assumed it was for older runners who need to be careful of what is happening to not injure themselves but no - it is about gut instinct as opposed to over thinking things.

Like all good books - he points out simple and obvious truths.

He speaks of the evolutionary advances that took us from processing information only through gut feel to speaking and "advanced" thinking that has moved us to processing information only in our head.

We know what is right but we tend to ignore it. Partly because we have trained ourselves to ignore it. Schools tend to train us that "thinking" is the highest power so we lose our instinct.

The book has a number of exercises designed to still yourself long enough to be able to see what your body is really telling you is right. Doing this helps you to do what the heart knows is right even though the brain says otherwise.

It is a good book - highly recommended.

I also read a book - more of a manual on Selling called "Winning Sales Advice - Sales Secrets from The Decision Maker's side of the desk" by Mike Schell from Thought Leader. His challenge to me came from a blog entry I wrote where I said one Speed Reading Tip is to not read it. So how much would I read. (I read the whole thing - it was a quick and easy book to read)

This book is not written in normal book format. It is much more interview snips, a short gem, then some examples.

The gist of the message is "research more - win more sales". And with the internet today, there is not excuse not to win with this one.

He also had a concept of a 10 minute meeting. The theory is that getting a meeting for only 10 minutes should work with almost anyone. Being a Time Management guy, I loved the concept. I cannot count the number of meeting I have had with sales people which took twice as long as they should have.

I also liked the sales approach of always looking at it from the buyers' view.