The Song of Achilles
Winner of the Orange prize for Fiction 2012
Madeline Miller
A breathtakingly original rendering of the Trojan War - a devastating love story and a tale of gods and kings, immortal fame and the human heart => http://bit.ly/ScW9xS
As flight cancellations and delays wreak havoc on weary travelers, and planes are fuller than ever, the Wall Street Journal has managed to find a bright spot - United Airlines Captain Denny Flanagan.
On a flight headed your way, there is a pilot who is literally a gift from the heavens. For 21 years now, Flanagan, a former navy pilot, has put the friendly in friendly skies.
With his sense of humor and personal touch, he individually welcomes aboard every passenger on his United Airlines plane.
A father of five, Flanagan has also been known to buy food for planeloads of passengers on delayed flights. He snaps photos of dogs in the cargo hold to show owners their pets are safe and calls the parents of children traveling alone.
"I want to treat them like I treat my family and it works. It's like hospitality. You stand at the door and you greet people when they come in and you say goodbye on the porch and wave to them," said Flanagan, who is 56 and lives in Ohio.
His unique brand of hospitality includes sending handwritten notes to frequent flyers and raffling off bottles of wine.
"How 'bout that? A bottle of chilled chardonnay from a pilot," said a delighted Paul Schroeder, a lucky United passenger.
He has developed quite a following in the air and online. One of the many posts on FlyerTalk.com about Flanagan read: "His effort rubbed off on the crew too, they were great."
Attitudes are truly contagious, and Captain Flanagan's is certainly worth catching!
Denny Flanagan is a wonderful example of customer love. In the book, you can read his, and 24 other great customer service stories. Its goal is to have you read them, have your team read them, and talk about them together. In fact, you may be inspired to write your own customer love stories while making your service culture all it can be.
For more information or to look inside the book, just click here.
"Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction."
~Unknown
Change is not easy. But it is simple. Things will always change. We don't have a choice about that, but we do have a choice on how we react to change; and as a leader whether or not we choose to create change. The choice really boils down to this...either we manage change or it will manage us.
As a leader, however, deciding to make changes is the easy part. Getting your people on board is much more difficult. Why is that? Quite simply, change is an emotional process. We are all creatures of habit who usually resist it and welcome routine. Uncharted waters are scary!
In the long run, however, sameness is the fast tract to mediocrity. And, mediocre companies won't survive. Tuli Kupferburg said it best... "When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge." And, that is your challenge...to convince your team that the new world you are trying to create is better than the one you're in. Is it easy? Of course not. It takes planning, commitment, patience and courage.
The truth, of course, is that change can be a wonderful gift. In fact, it is the key that unlocks the doors to growth and excitement in any organization. And, most importantly, without it...your competition will pass you by. A big part of success, as a leader, will be your ability to inspire your team to get out of their comfort zones; to assure them that even though they are on a new path, it's the right path, for the right reasons.
That's what this book is all about....ideas, to inspire, to motivate, and to encourage your team to move forward and to embrace change.
I'd like to share one of the chapters titled: "Learn from Old Warwick". Enjoy!
Excerpt from: Change is Good...You Go First
By Mac Anderson and Tom Feltenstein
Learn from Old Warwick
Fostering a spirit of teamwork is critical in times of change. The key element is trust. Trust for the leader and trust for each other.
There is a wonderful story from the play, Some Folks Feel the Rain; Others Just Get Wet; and I think it's worth sharing again to shed some light on how people think about teamwork...
A man was lost while driving through the country. As he tried to reach for the map, he accidentally drove off the road into a ditch. Though he wasn't injured, his car was stuck deep in the mud. So the man walked to a nearby farm to ask for help.
"Warwick can get you out of that ditch," said the farmer, pointing to an old mule standing in a field. The man looked at the decrepit old mule and looked at the farmer who just stood there repeating, "Yep, old Warwick can do the job." The man figured he had nothing to lose. The two men and the mule made their way back to the ditch. The farmer hitched the mule to the car. With a snap of the reins, he shouted,
"Pull, Fred! Pull, Jack! Pull, Ted! Pull, Warwick!"
And the mule pulled that car right out of the ditch.
The man was amazed. He thanked the farmer, patted the mule, and asked, "Why did you call out all of those names before you called Warwick?"
The farmer grinned and said, "Old Warwick is just about blind. As long as he believes he's part of a team, he doesn't mind pulling."
To watch the movie or to look inside the book, just click here.
Between Shades of Gray
Winner - Fiction - 2012 Golden Kite Awards for Children's Books
Ruta Sepetys
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl, in 1941. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Between Shades of Gray is a riveting novel that steals your breath, captures your heart, and reveals the miraculous nature of the human spirit.
Includes discussion questions and a free excerpt ... => http://bit.ly/S31j0u
Winter of the World
Ken Follett
Berlin in 1933 is in upheaval. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. On its own or read in sequence with Fall of Giants, this is a magnificent, spellbinding epic of global conflict and personal drama. => http://bit.ly/VgvAFE
The difference in success, or failure, is not how you look, not how you dress and not even how you're educated. It's how you think. One can't overstate the importance of being able to maintain a positive attitude but let's be honest...it's not easy.
That's why there's so much to love about this book, Attitude is Everything...10 Rules for Staying Positive. It breaks down the #1 key to success in a simple, but unforgettable way. The bottom line is that no matter what you do in life, the wisdom in this little book will help you succeed!
Today, we have an excerpt from a chapter titled: "Wait to Worry," which is great advice for everyone we know! Enjoy.
Excerpt from Attitude is Everything
by Vicki Hitzges
The excerpt is only available to PIVOTAL Members. Log in to access it or join now (membership is free)
This beautiful little book makes a treasured gift for any occasion
and offers a great reminder to be self-less.
For more information, or to look inside the book, just click here.
There's an old saying that says...
"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.
In Eat That Frog!, Brian cuts to the core of what is vital to effective time management: decision, discipline and determination. In 21 practical steps, he will help you stop procrastinating and get more of the important tasks done...today!
Brian is one of America's leading authorities on development of human potential. He speaks to over 250,000 people a year and has written over 25 books. Eat That Frog! is an international best seller, with over 500,000 copies sold.
We're pleased to say, however, that Simple Truths has taken a great book, and well...made it better! How? They have made it a little shorter; a little more engaging with great graphics; a little more "giftable" with an embossed hard cover, and of course, packaging that can create a "wow" effect! In short, they have turned a great book into a great gift for employees, customers, friends and family.
Here's a small sampling in Brian's chapter titled: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything. Enjoy!
An excerpt from Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the "Pareto Principle" after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.
Number of Tasks versus Importance of Tasks
Here is an interesting discovery. Each of the ten tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value of any of the others.
Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
Focus on Activities, Not Accomplishments
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Motivate Yourself
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?
~Marina Tsvetaeva
There's no doubt about it now. The holidays are in full swing and it's easy to get caught up in the trappings of the season—the decorations, the shopping, the parties, the endless to-do lists. Your refrigerator is filled with leftovers and the mall beckons with the promise of great bargains.
But, I invite you to take just a moment in all the hustle and bustle to be kind to others this season and to share with those who may be less fortunate. Sometimes, just a simple act of kindness can change a life forever.
That's what The Simple Blessings of Christmas by Mark Gilroy is all about. This book provides 30 reasons to celebrate the season. Here's a sample that'll make you think about kindness—the most important gift of all:
An excerpt from
The Simple Blessings of Christmas
by Mark Gilroy
Norman Vincent Peale, noted minister and author from the previous century, tells the story of a young girl from Sweden spending Christmas in big, bustling New York City. She was living with an American family and helping them around the house, and she didn't have much money. So she knew she couldn't get them a very nice Christmas present—besides, they already had so much, with new gifts arriving every day.
With just a little money in her pocket, she went out and bought an outfit for a small baby, and then she set out on a journey to find the poorest part of town and the poorest baby she could find. At first, she received only strange looks from passersby when she asked them for help. But then a kind stranger, a Salvation Army bell-ringer, guided her to a poor part of town and helped her deliver her gift. On Christmas morning, instead of giving them a wrapped present, she told the family she served what she had done in their name. Everyone was speechless, and everyone was blessed—the girl for giving, the wealthy family for seeing others with new eyes, and the poor family for receiving an unexpected gift.
All of us have opportunities both large and small to show kindness, especially at Christmastime. We can help strangers by delivering gifts to needy kids or serving homeless families at a soup kitchen. Or we can simply look for everyday ways to be kind, like allowing someone to go ahead of us in a lengthy line at the department store, or giving that bell-ringer a little change and a few encouraging words.
Maybe it's because we're in gift-giving mode anyway that giving to others becomes so important at Christmas. Or because we're more aware of our families and friends and communities. Or maybe it's because two thousand years ago, the earth received the most perfect, most loving gift of all, helping us to understand true kindness.
Whatever the reason, don't let Christmas pass you by without showing kindness to someone. Because it is truly more blessed to give than to receive.
Make kindness a habit during the holidays and you'll double your joy as you start 2013. I guarantee that reading The Simple Blessings of Christmas will be one gift you'll want to unwrap again and again.
For more information, to look inside this great book, or to view the 3-minute inspirational movie, just click here.
Enjoy every moment of the holidays!
The Little Coffee Shop in Kabul
by Deborah Rodriguez
A heart-warming novel about a little cafe in Kabul, and the five extraordinary women who meet there ...
" ... kids function best when they're real clear about exactly what's expected of them ..."