Ep. 53 BREAKING NEWS- I'm Writing (Another) Book

I'm writing a book.<inaudible> Wait. So I wanted to opt into these two groups, critical path leadership Academy. So for those of you in the membership and also the lead from the inside out group, I just posted in on Facebook and Instagram, a pretty, pretty exciting announcement. At least for me, I'm writing a book and I did write one a few years ago.

And just to give you a little bit of a perspective on that one, it was, or it is called the one, 100 leadership solution. And the premise around that one is, or was if you can improve even 1% each day, then by the end of the year, you know, 365 days, you'll have experienced exponential growth in your leadership.

And I talked about vulnerability and empathy and compassion and stress management and those kinds of things. And that was really a, an articulation of the four pillars of the solution that I felt were important for leadership. But that was a few years ago. And I don't remember it was probably 2017 ish when I really sat down to, to write that now over,

you know, in, in that period of time, I've done a whole bunch more work, both, you know, outer work in terms of, you know, continuing to lead and, and those sorts of things, but also, but also really honing in on my message and talking to two whole bunch of other other folks, and this is going to be very meetup,

but thinking about what I thought about things and 2020, one of the most common means, or comments that I saw was, you know, use 2020 to evaluate what you're going to go back to. And I really took that to heart. And as a lot of, you know, just on a personal side, pretty shitty year, for sure, like so many people,

so I'm not crying the blues by any stretch and saying that my situation was better or worse or anything like that. I often say that 2020 for me was, it was all about growth. It was about stress, frustration, plenty of WTF moments and a whole bunch of gratitude and all of that could be experienced in one, one morning. So I think that's,

that's something that a lot of us can, can acknowledge and, you know, hitch our wagon to for sure now, but this book, well happy new year, happy new year to everybody that's watching. And so, you know, I've been playing with the idea of writing another book. And when I wrote the first one, it was, it wasn't,

it was important to me, of course, cause it's a lot of it really, really is, but like so many things, I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know about the book writing process about the publishing a self-published printing formatting, you know, just runs the gamut. And I did imperfect action for sure. Even to the point where I think one of the drafts that went out or one of the,

the final versions, when that went out, it had like a duplicate section in it. And a friend of mine, Dale Gardner pointed that out once, you know, the first run was printed. He's like, I don't know if you meant to put the same section in two different spots, but FYI. So luckily through the magic of technology, I was able to,

you know, edit that and figure that out. But anyways, it was like, but, but this, this, the book I'm, I'm embarking on is different in that this one is, it feels really visceral. And by that, I mean, like I can actually feel it right here and that, and that maybe sounds really woo or crazy or,

you know, whatever. And frankly it is what it is. I'm just being clear and transparent and vulnerable for that matter. And I've really wanted to, you know, a lot of people are, have asked, like, how do you, how do you get through some of the things that you've been going through? Not again, because it's any different or worse than anybody else,

but there's a real need to figure out how to navigate the challenges that have arisen from 2020 and just in general, around leadership and, and personal growth and all of those other things. And as a lot of, you know, I'm all about leading from the inside out and any situation, any leadership situation I've been in, whether it be in the 30 plus years of emergency management crisis leadership,

most recently I've been embarking on a project with a large multi national agency that is assisting that agency with some COVID related projects. And it's been very, very, very interesting, very challenging. And so I'm continuing to be a practitioner in it, but it still causes me to, to reflect that every single leadership situation I've ever been in and ever will be in it all starts with me.

It starts from the inside. So my ability to self-regulate my emotions, my thoughts, how I communicate with other people, the leadership presence that I, that I have around me, the, the building, the team rapidly and people that are working virtually the list goes on and on and on, you know, decision-making those sorts of things. And so,

but with that comes a heavy dose of your not only is it leading from the inside out and self-control and all those other things, but it goes beyond that, it goes around, how do we, how do we think about things? You know, how do we adopt a growth mindset when we're stressed out pissed off and, and all seems lost all of those other things.

And so the book I'm embarking upon will encapsulate a lot of those things. And to me, why am I doing it? Well, one sucker for punishment, I suppose, but also for me, writing is therapeutic like a journal often and so on and so forth. And so for me, it's, it's a, it's going to be a good process.

It's somewhat selfish in that regard, but I don't think I'm unique. I'm not alone. In fact, I know I'm not unique and I know I'm not alone. A lot of people are struggling with the same things I've been struggling with on the personal side and professional. And so the what's going to be different about this rather, you know, versus the thousands of other titles that you can see at chapters or Indigo or Amazon or whatever.

Well, this is all about a practitioner's guide. It's all about minimum viable effort. Having the most impact with the least amount in the least amount of time with the least amount of effort. Because to me, leadership is about the moment, you know, those difficult moments, navigating those leaderships easy when everything's going well. And the road is straight it's daylight,

your, your lights are working. Your windshield's clear, no problem. Oh. But to me, what leadership is really about is being able to navigate the turns in the road, figuring out how to drive the car, or have somebody drive the car with you, looking after it, when the lights aren't working as well, or the windshield maybe's pretty cracked,

or you're building the car as you're driving it, or the road conditions are bad. There's potholes, there's turns. There's all sorts of things. And that to me is what leadership is all about. And I don't, when I'm in those moments, when I'm leading a team, when I am embarking on a leadership journey, there's no time for me to talk or think about the,

the, the academia around leadership and influence and all those other things. And I think that that's a big gap in the market. It's a big gap in our knowledge base. It's a big gap in, in our awareness and consciousness, frankly, and leadership, doesn't, it doesn't have to be Really, really hard if we know the rules Around it.

And that's really what I want to do it. So I want articulate, what are those rules? What are the, the, the, the methods or method around navigating those, those tight turns and avoiding those potholes, or if you get a pothole, you know, how do you recover from it as quickly as possible? All of those sorts of things.

So it's going to be based around my critical path leadership method, and it will be, it will be a practitioner's guide. Again, it will be something that is useful in the moment. It's something that you can read and take away and apply right away, much like any, everything else that we're learning, whether it be in the membership or just,

you know, on my pod podcast or whatever the case is. So one to, to let you know that. And so it's December 3rd, one 18 mountain standard time. I do have a timeline in my head in terms of when this thing will be released. I'm not to that bold or crazy to publicize that yet, but yeah, I want it To let everyone know how,

how excited I am And just basically this can be a piece of personal accountability. So feel free to hold my feet to the fire and, and that sort of thing.