By: Jenny Dooley on February 14, 2023
Reading Leadersmithing, by Eve Poole took me down memory lane and sent me to my basement storage room searching for copies of Aesop’s Fables and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The mere mention of these books brought back delightful memories of reading these stories to my children and sobering moments of clarity about myself and…
By: Pam Lau on February 14, 2023
Annie Dillard, in her beautiful book The Writing Life, says, “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.”[1] Every time I begin the process of writing this blog I pick up a book and hold it…
By: Tim Clark on February 13, 2023
When I was 15 years old my Grandad and I got into an old manual transmission pickup truck and drove to a very steep hill where, without warning, he pulled the emergency brake, got out of the vehicle, and told me to get into the driver’s seat. He was determined to teach me how to…
By: Jennifer Vernam on February 13, 2023
Poole’s Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership [1] endeavors to provide a resource to leaders in all stages of development. This is a lofty goal, as the topics reviewed were broad and would be difficult to completely cover in 232 pages. I found it helpful to review it as an index and appreciated it…
By: John Fehlen on February 13, 2023
I’ve been reading, nay, freebasing (that’s the only drug term I know) leadership books, conferences, resources, consultations, seminars and symposiums for decades and decades. Like a “user,” I couldn’t get enough. If you put me in the business section of a bookstore I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I can quote John Maxwell…
By: Kim Sanford on February 13, 2023
I admit that I was not looking forward to reading Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership by Eve Poole. I figured it would be yet another book on leadership that doesn’t really apply to me because I don’t hold a traditional leadership role. Then Poole opens with a reference to Goya and his portrait…
By: Shonell Dillon on February 12, 2023
The War of Art I did not read the books in any specific order but it was fitting that I read “The War of Art” last. When I learned that the author was talking about resistance, I knew that it was quite a familiar topic. Instead of tackling the things that were important I decided…
By: Travis Vaughn on February 12, 2023
“I have a hunch that if we were to repeat our research in ten years’ time, networking would feature more prominently.”[1] Yes! Networking. Better yet, networks. While reading Eve Poole’s Leadersmithing, I was already pondering mental comparisons to Michael Lindsay’s View from the Top,[2] published just a few years before Poole’s work. After all, the…
By: Daron George on February 12, 2023
“The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” by Steven Pressfield is a book aimed at helping creatives overcome the resistance they experience in pursuing their artistic endeavors. The book says many things about “resistance,” such as “Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be…
By: Russell Chun on February 12, 2023
رهبري د ژوند وخت نیسي – نو یو کومان شئ، نه خر. In Pashtu, رهبری یک عمر طول می کشد – پس یک لاک پشت باشید نه خرگوش. In Dari/Persian. Leadership takes a life time – so be a tortoise, not a hare. (Poole,p.182) [1] As some of you may have noted, my subject titles…
By: Noel Liemam on February 11, 2023
‘Even one glass of wine a day raises the risk of cancer’ ‘Hate crimes have doubled in five years’ ‘Fizzy drinks make teenagers violent’ “How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News.” (Tom Chivers & David Chivers) I was not able to get my book in time for the readings therefore, I…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on February 11, 2023
While the contents of this weeks reading were not entirely new, the combination of the components that Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder in Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits of Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead provided me a new lens in which to view leadership and how I choose to steward…
By: Chad McSwain on February 11, 2023
Resistance is a funny thing. It comes in all shapes in sizes as it stands against any effort of true meaning. Like the crushing weight of the Titan moon hurled by the Infinity Gauntlet, is resistance to the one who seeks to put forth enough effort to materialize that which didn’t exist just a moment…
By: Audrey Robinson on February 11, 2023
I have always enjoyed the creative process of developing a new course, training seminar, or workshop. So, this book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield, spoke to many of my experiences. Two key topics from this week’s assigned readings provided insights into why it…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on February 10, 2023
This Could Change my Life… at Least my Writing “How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that for this day, for this session,…
By: Sara Taylor Lattimore on February 10, 2023
There always seems to be one thing that freezes me in place, that is the reason I get stuck, and the reason I fail. The fear of failure in the same thought process of perfectionism paralysis! Comedic irony, isn’t it, that the thing that freezes me in place is a fear of failure and it…
By: Mary Kamau on February 10, 2023
Warner is the president of Deeper Walk International. He is a former pastor and college professor who has authored several books on topics ranging from studying the Bible to spiritual warfare, emotional healing, and leadership. Wilder is a psychologist and theologian. Their book, Rare Leadership, looks at leadership from the right-brain perspective.[1] They use their…
By: Denise Johnson on February 10, 2023
The educator in me has been struggling with church practices that are so focused on the analytical understanding [1] of the word of God. Even though, most of the churches I have been in talk about the importance of relationships, how they interact with the scripture take the form of an expert talking at the…
By: Dinka Utomo on February 9, 2023
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” – Goodhart’s Law – Living in a Swirl of Measure and Target Human life is filled with the process of “measuring”. Measuring the extent of achievement, how much income, how smart thinking. The greater and higher the achievement of man and…
By: Jana Dluehosh on February 9, 2023
I find myself surrounded by numbers…I try to get away from it, and yet I land smack dab in the middle of numbers. I’m in the business of people and yet I recognize that this book is going to be crucial to my studies and surprisingly is one I am glad I purchased, and I…
