The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Jim Randel’

The book list is comprised of books that profoundly influenced interviewees, desert island books as well as the books that I have reviewed. There is a lot of books on the list so I do not expect you to read them all.

Books That Influence

The Bible

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

Gone with the Wind,  Margaret Mitchell

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

Desert Island Books

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth

Fall On Your Knees (Oprah’s Book Club), Ann-Marie MacDonald

The 1001 Arabian Nights

Don Quixote, Miguel  de Cervantes

Short stories by Alice Munroe

A Summons to Memphis, Peter Taylor

New Hart’s Rules

The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, edited by Charlotte Moseley

Books Reviewed

The Skinny on Time Management, Jim Randel

The Skinny on Success: Why not you? Jim Randel

If you have read any of the books on the list please let me know what you thought of them. Choose at least four books from the list. Find ways to connect them even if they appear to be unrelated. Remove all barriers and let your creativity flow. What are five takeaways, and five great ideas that you can immediately apply?

Keep the conversation flowing. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

Note: All book links are affiliate links

I received a complimentary copy of the Skinny on Success: why not you? If you are new to this blog, I reviewed a copy of The Skinny on Time Management on Monday (four days ago).

Reviewing the interview responses for my book Tales of People Who Get It, to become successful requires focus, passion and continuous learning. Most of us are looking for “the formula” for success, so we are always on the hunt.

The author of the Skinny on Success: why not you? Jim Randel states the goal for the Skinny On books as, “to do the reading for you, cull out what is important, distill the key points, and present in a book that is both instructive and fun to read.”

This book does not give you a formula for success, but gives you many explanations on why some people succeed and others don’t. It’s not going to tell you how to attain personal and professional success, so if that’s what you are looking for, this isn’t the book that will deliver.

The book is very inspirational, and if you do not know the stories of  many well known successful people, you’d be surprised to discover the hard work they put in to attain success. You seldom find overnight successes, you find more overnight successes, that were 10 years or more in the making. After you read about the deliberate practice and persistence of some of these people, you’ll realize that you too can achieve success if you’re willing to put in the hard work.

Randel looks closely at many books on success, and gives a bit more focus on Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated and Daniel Coyne’s The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Talent isn’t enough to become successful, persistent practice is essential. (Click here to see my article, “Creating Your Signature – Journey to Becoming a Master, which includes the steps to take to become an expert.”)

He mentions research by Professor K. Anders Ericsson referenced in Outliers that states that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, which equates to 10 years. To support that figure, Michael Masterson, an uber successful entrepreneur, internet marketer and copywriter suggests that, “To achieve mastery, you will have to continue to practice that skill for a total of 5,000 hours. Virtuosity is extremely rare. You can’t get it simply by practicing. You must also have a natural gift. Even then, you must practice at least 10,000 hours to achieve it.”

Five Great Ideas

1. The key to success is deliberate practice and repetition
2. The potential for greatness lives inside all of us
3. Every successful person has experienced setbacks
4. People, even the ones who love you, have their own dreams so you have to go after the life you want, with passion
5. The more you persist, the better you get

Characteristics of Successful People

1. Willingness to act
2. Prepare for adversity
3. Take steps to maximize probability of success
4. Take action
5. Combat fear of failure
6. Develop mental strength
7. Optimistic – see the glass as half full
8. Hardworking
9. Persistent
10. Believe in right and wrong

When I read the title of the book, The Skinny on Success: Why not you? I wasn’t sure of what to expect. Having written a book that includes information on success, I could relate to the information in the book. One of the questions that I asked the 34 interviewees for my book Tales of People Who Get It, was, “In your opinion, what is the formula for success?” And for the interviews for this blog I also ask for the definition of success.

I recommend The Skinny on Success: Why not you? and I suggest that you also review some of the interviews on this blog, and focus on the responses to the questions about success, including the one about the steps people took to arrive at success in their careers. How do the responses relate to the information in the book. Remember, do not ever read in a vacuum, connect what you’re reading to what you already know.

I also wanted to mention that I appreciated all the books that Jim Randel referenced to write this book because I learn about some books that I otherwise would not know about.

Books Mentioned

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live, Martha Beck

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Ken Robinson

Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham

The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, Scott Peck

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck

Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Geoff Colvin

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How., Daniel Coyne

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson

Life You Imagine: Life Lessons For Achieving Your Dreams, Derek Jeter

The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp

The Principles of Psychology, William James

Wake Up and Live, Dorothea Brande

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

Note: All book links are Amazon Affiliate

Photo Credit: via Apture

I received an advanced copy of The Skinny On Time Management: and other life challenges and a regular copy of  The Skinny On Success by Jim Randel in the mail to read and review. I had never heard about the Skinny On series until someone contacted me to find out if they could send me copies in the mail. Proper time management is critical for personal and professional success, and most of us are looking for that magic bullet that catapults us to success.

Today, I am reviewing The Skinny On Time Management, and on Friday,  The Skinny On Success. I have been keeping up with the interviews but have not done as many book reviews/summaries as I’d like, so this is an attempt to correct that. One of the objectives of The Invisible Mentor blog is to present interviews of highly successful people and to do book reviews/summaries.

The stated goal of the books in the Skinny On series “is to do the reading for you, identify what is important, distill the key points, and present them in a book that is both instructive and entertaining.” Randel’s definition of time management is simply, “how you use your time” and he adds, “if you are using your time to create the life you want, you are practicing effective time management.”

The author honored his commitment as stated in his goal for the book. In The Skinny on Time Management he conducted extensive research, distilled the key points and presented them, which is evident in the many books and other resources he mentioned and summarized. The book is structured as a one-hour presentation with slides that often look like comic strips to be entertaining. It is packed with tons of information that will assist you to manage your time and be more productive. He includes tips on how to stop procrastinating as well as tips on how to improve your memory. You get information that you wouldn’t expect in a time management book.

The book doesn’t have a Table of Contents, though it is divided into two parts which are essentially:

Part I: How You Spend Your Time
Part II: How to Effectively Use The Hours You Have for Maximum Benefit

He recommends that you keep a time journal for a week so that you can analyze it and see where you can make adjustments by spending less time on unproductive activities, therefore creating time for more important tasks. I appreciated the idea of Batching, where you combine or aggregate similar or complementary activities to save time. He did a good job of summarizing the salient points from many books that he thinks are germane to better time management. Two such summaries are important techniques for effective time management from Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity and  teach yourself to speed read from Triple Your Reading Speed.

Here is Jim Randel’s summary for improving what he calls your effectiveness and time potency:

1. Discard (practice decluttering and do not hold on to stuff unnecessarily)
2. Make immediate decisions
3. Create filing systems (when working on a project keep all resources related to that project in one place)
4. Select specific times to respond to calls/emails
5. Use a watch with a second hand display
6. Carry a note taker
7. Learn to scan
8. Ask for help
9. Finish a task in one sitting
10. Move on (let go) – what’s done is done

5 + 2 Great Ideas

1. Time is your most valuable commodity
2. Time management is about choices
3. Be aware of how you use your time, decide what you need to accomplish, choose the most important actions to take to achieve your goals, prioritize them and complete the most important activities first
4. Practice the 80/20 Rule: Figure out which 20 percent of your actions yield 80 percent of your results
5. When you try to do more than one task at a time, you do none well
6. Create routines so time is not wasted (Have a place for things so that time is not wasted looking for stuff, plan the menu for the week so time is not wasted everyday deciding what’s for dinner, have an exercise schedule so you do not have to decide each day if you are going to the gym)
7. Be proactive instead of reactive: take actions that move you closer to your goals instead of activities such as reading emails and checking voice messages.

Books Mentioned

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, Alan Lakein

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Brian Tracy

The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life, Leo Babauta

The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, David Rock

Triple Your Reading Speed, Wade E. Cutler

Jim Randel also recommends a YouTube video of Randy Pausch‘s presentation on time management. For those who may not know, Pausch is known for The Last Lecture, and he died from pancreatic cancer. To view the video click here.

Though I did not like the way The Skinny on Time Management was presented, I heartily recommend it for the reasons why I did  not like it. You can tell from the information provided that it is well thought out and researched. Jim Randel distills the information and presents what he thinks is important and holds the reader’s hand every step of the way. I felt like the author was spoon feeding and thinking for me. I am very detailed oriented and like to think for myself. Now having said that, I appreciated that he included the books that he used in his research so that I can go back and sink my teeth into them.

Hey what can I say, I am a square peg and have my share of quirks.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content.

Note: All book links are affiliate links
Photo Credit: Yahoo via Apture

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• Randy Pausch – The Last Lecture (myventurepad.com)