Notes from Leadership Seminar

Well, I am packing up and I've got quite a few papers I want to throw away -- but a few things that I would like to remember.... so I'll be transcribing a few things into here.

Below are some notes I took at a leadership seminer put on by Zig Ziglar and others in the Fall of 2007.

Spearker: Peter Lowe

• Using words alone, he improved our performance. To change your future, change the words you use
• Believe what you say has happened
• To practice, envision where you want to be -- Simulate it! (pratice before you go out and do)
• Had a lady break a board with her hand -- lesson was that it is easiest to break a board in the center (don't pussy foot around the edges)
• If you think you can't breakt the board, simulate it
• "All things are possible to those who believe" (.... Walt Disney? :) )
• Waht you believe is more important tahn how much. A winning belief system is knowing you've won even when down @ half time (some sort of football analogy (Canadian Football no-less))
• See the whole background, not just what you're focused on.
• "Quickest way to change your life is to change your relationship w/ God" (... he was preachy, but I think there is logic in this)

Speaker: Rudy Giuliani

Leaders are Made

1. you have to know what you believe in
   Leadership about ideas. You have to have them! Knowing public opinions and following it is not leadership!
2. To be a leader, you have to be an optomist
   Got to be thinking success in order to obtain it (on a side note, congrats to the Pittsburgh Penguins! wininning two nights ago)
3. Courageous People can manage Fear.
   They also reduce risk
   Eon't let intimidators break your spirit
4. Relentless Preperation -- Practice & Rehearse
   If you prepare for everything you can think of, in that prepration you'll take care of what you can't (said in reference to 9/11 and how nobody saw that coming, but handled it pretty well)
5. Teamwork -- you can't accomplish on just your own. E.o. accountable... even you.
6. You have to love people. More important to be there for people when they are more wrong thatn right.

Speaker: Tom Hopkins

• Need ot change your attitude toware the word "no" (it's now so bad to hear it)
• Think of failure as a learning experience or change to change
  * develop humor
  * practice
  * gam to play to win
• when someone quits, they eventually become a negative person -- want to be a positive comittied achiever!
• -- In sales, ask questions requiring a "yes" (isn't it?, don't you agree?, doesn't it?)
• Alternate force -- 2 options for agreement
• Procupine response tactic
• You're not judged by how often you fail, but how often you succeed (& they are directly proportional)

Speaker: Dr. Robert Schuller (some minister)

• When you have an unsolvable problem, you just need to talk to more people
• 5 ways to turn good inda into a Dynamie Achievement
  1 - Nesting
  2 - Testing
  3 - Investing
  4 - Arresting
  5 - Resting
  ..................... yeah, I have no idea what this is talking about
• ......... I'm done with this guy... my notes aren't making sense.

Speaker: John Stockton

He and Rudy were my 2 favorite speakers at this. He was pretty funny

• Competition is a school
  you learn from everybody
  you learn what not to do
• Let kids take their bumps... don't protect the whole way
• Outcome is secondary to the effort to change that outcome
• Put whole heart & sould into everything you do and you will be a success
• Talks about how success takes a whole lot of repetition
• To be a good teammate:
  Enjoy your teammates' success
  Be on the same page as teammates
  Know the rules
• It's amazing whatt you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit
• Be energetic, don't be a drag

Catapulted by Dr. Dave Jennings (review)

Last Year, all first year MBA Students at BYU had to take a communications course from Dr. Dave Jennings. This year, he quit to promote his new book: Catapulted.

So I ordered the book and then Amazon posted to my account that they delivered it to me... only I never got it. I called Amazon to inform them I didn't receive "Catapulted" and they sent it again. I still didn't get it, but a few hours after they said it was delivered the guy that is now in my apartment at Wymount showed up on my door step delivering me both boxes. So, I hope this one extra book helps Dr. Jennings out :)

And now for a review
The book was pretty good. It is told in the form of an alegory -- I'll admit I don't like leadership books like this because the stories aren't real and I feel there is too much "theory" in it all. The only book I've ever liked in this form has been "The Greatest Salesman in the World"

That said I did like a lot of the advice in the book. It talks a lot of leadership and finding where you want to lead someone. It also puts a very necessary focus on people and relationships.

I don't want to give away the "meat and potatoes." I've heard similar things from Zig Ziglar, but "Catapulted" gives the reminder that we can't just follow money and we can't just chase promotions, we really need to focus on accomplishing the goals our values would let us have, and we need to lift others not climb over them as we do.

Short review I know. But he book is not expensive and its a quick read. I really suggest reading it and noting down the advice. There are conversations between the protagonist and a few supporting roles. Again-- very fictional, but you do pick up on some good insight from Jennings. Doing it over again, I would definitely buy the book.

My one complaint about the book is that Dr. Jennings did not focus on his "pit of despair" or "pit of opportunity" that he would talk about in class (and which I assume were his own invention). He hints at similar principles to what he taught us in class (about overcoming challenges.) These were my favorite lessons in his class and I think he'd be well served to write another book on these subjects--and to do it using more anlaytics and logic instead of one general allegory.