Sunday, October 22, 2017


Years ago I was in a job where I dragged myself to work every day. I lacked challenge, and I was bored. I was not growing and felt like I had no control over my life. What did I do? You guessed it – I stayed where I was. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or what next steps I could take. It took a buyout of my company to wake me up and get me to move out. My situation would have been a lot different if I had had the book Find the Fire by Scott Mautz at my fingertips. Scott’s new book is the tool that most of us need by our side to get up motivated about our jobs and finding our lost mojo.

All of us at one time or another have lost the spark that gets us up and going to work every day. Remember when you first started your job? You were inspired, motivated, and excited to get out there and make a difference. You had new ideas and planned to have an impact. Then, something happened. Perhaps you feel like that now as you drive to work. What happened to the excitement? Passion? Confident attitude? Scott challenges us to ask “How did I lose my inspiration in the first place.” Better yet, he has some answers, strategies, and ideas to get us back on track to the days when our careers and lives were stimulating, challenging, and we had that fire underneath us.

Before discovering how to reignite your life you need to understand what doused your fire in the first place. You need to address what brings you down and win back to control. Find The Fire introduces us to nine factors, called anti-muses that steal our motivation and spark every single day. Here they are:


  1. Fear: We need to learn how to overcome our fear of change, failure, and criticism
  2. Settling and boredom: Learn how to find an open mindset, set new experiences, start learning and growing again, and make your opportunities
  3. Inundation: We are busy and inundated by too much every day from all angles. We need to control how things are coming at us and push progress forward. Start learning again, procrastinating, and find how to ask for help
  4. Loss of control: When we have control we have inspiration. Scott show us how to take back our sense of power and how to emit it
  5. Dwindling self-belief: When we are inspired we produce more, have self-esteem and are optimistic. You can increase your confidence and learn how to persevere
  6. Disconnectedness: Feeling connected is what being human all is about. Learn how to reconnect with your peers, your career, and your boss to make change
  7. Dearth of Creating: Inspiration requires creativity. If you lack creativity, then you can’t produce at your best or share it with the world. Learn how to find and unleash your creativity
  8. Insignificance: Feeling insignificant is our most deep-seated human fear. This anti-muse tries to convince us that we can’t make a difference and that what we do is meaningless. Learn how to have an impact
  9. Lack of Evocation: We need to search for an external stimulus to dial up our inspiration. Sometimes we find our best inspiration from “external sources.” Have a draining boss or coworkers? Scott shows us how to change the dynamics to bring back our fire.


Find The Fire is truly a book that we all need to keep at our side. Better yet, if you know someone who is struggling and their fire has become mere coals, light them up with this book. Once you recognize that the nine muses are not your friends and you see how they detract from your life Scott puts your life back on track. This book has humor, stories, shares the journey of others and will build you up with tools and strategies. You can find your magic again and become the excited and inspired newbie that you once were when starting a new career or stage in your life. This book speaks to both your professional and personal life. Your power will restore, and you will gain better control of you.

Find The Fire offers actionable tools to use at every stage of your ignition. The last chapter spells out how to fight the nine anti-muses in detail. Concepts like “Give, Resist, Exude,” the “Arc of Perseverance,” and self-empowerment tactics may become your best friends. You CAN get your spark back. However, you need to be willing to work at it because the nine muses are lurking around us all every day trying to pacify and control us. Take back your power, build confidence, and light that fire underneath you for lifelong change.





Sunday, October 15, 2017

It All Matters - 125 Strategies To Achieve Maximum Confidence, Clarity, Certainty And Creativity by Paul Cummings



If you are an avid reader or interested in personal growth, you are well aware of the saturated market of books in this area. I always have a tough time recommending the “best” book for someone to read if asked. I’m drawn to books that encourage self-reflection, positive thinking, and goal setting. The problem is that most books only offer a peppering of each in these areas, not actionable steps to stay on the path of personal development. The new book release It All Matters – 125 strategies to achieve maximum confidence, clarity, certainty, and creativity by Paul Cummings is a game changer.

It All Matters has something to offer everyone. It’s a comprehensive guide to developing and using personal affirmations. It encourages increased self-confidence and self-awareness. Clarity will become your friend and guide. Goal setting will become an everyday habit, and you will see success. You will undercover your strengths, and your passion will shine like a beacon.

Paul is a masterful storyteller and draws us in with his life experiences. The book follows his journey as a young man selling books for Southwestern Advantage in the 1970s. His mission was the catalyst for the self-development techniques and strategies that he shares with us. He took leaps into areas of life that most of us never would. His mistakes are our blessing because we can grow without encountering the obstacles that he did.

This book is like having a personal coach by your side every day. Paul shares his unique process U.B.U.: understand who you are, be true to yourself, and always stay unique. Paul explains how to choose our outcomes, master our mindset and goals, and live up to our life purpose and intent. His stories and experiences show how to put ideas on paper into action. It All Matters can be used every day as a journal to take on your development journey. Here are some of the tools that Paul offers:


  • Stories of failure and success that help us learn and grow. Life lessons that make a difference
  • Toolkit with ideas, strategies, actionable plans to use daily
  • MAP: My Action Plan after each chapter journaling your next move and setting following steps
  • Comprehensive goal-setting program and ideas for avoiding obstacles
  • Questions that force you to think, prioritize, strategize, and get to know yourself
  • Methods to learn and expand on your strengths
  • The power of daily affirmations, how to develop your own unique set and how to put them into motion
  • You will determine who you are, what drives you, and where you should go to achieve your goals
  • Jump onboard with a progressive mindset so that you can master the key to riches and success


It All Matters is far from just another personal development book. It’s a daily journal for becoming a better you and finding your way in the world to have an impact. The book offers everyday clarity to setting and achieving your goals. It lifts you when you feel like you are clouded with doubt. Paul encourages us to be creative and unique while making a difference in both our own lives and to those that we have contact with. If there is just one book that you need for personal development and success, this is it!



Monday, October 9, 2017

Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler, and Laurence Hawkins



I have always been a fan of the One Minute Manager books. I enjoy the art of storytelling and visualizing as I hear a story. Susan Fowler and Laurence Hawkin’s new partnership on the book Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager does not disappoint. Sure some leaders are born however, most of us acquire leadership skills through experience and mentoring. Have you ever started a new venture feeling like a superstar only to find that maybe you aren’t such a phenomenal leader? This book is for you.

I’ve never given too much thought to self-leadership but this book quickly jumpstarted my mind. We all need self-leadership in order to succeed and make a change. Our lives are ever changing and at one point we may need little more direction or support yet, we may find ourselves not pushing enough to ask for more support and assistance from someone else as circumstances change.

The book teaches us valuable lessons in business in a parable featuring Steve, a young advertising executive who feels that he is about to lose his job. He bumps into a friendly magician in a coffee shop who helps Steve realize how he needs to take the power of responsibility for his own situation and stop blaming others. The magician, Cayla, empowers others by coaching from what she has learned from the One Minute Manager. She shares 3 valuable self-leadership lessons that allow Steve to turn his situation around and lessons that we can all use in our own lives.

  1. Assumed constraints are a negative and are a belief that will limit your experience and hold you back.
  2. Activate your points of power: They include position, knowledge, task, personal, and relationship power.
  3. Self-leadership means being proactive to get what you need to succeed: The two most powerful words to get what you need are “I need”.

Stories are all about sharing and teaching. Self-Leadership and the One Minute Manager does not disappoint. The book shares valuable lessons but also provides a Development Continuum Model that illustrates the four stages people experience when they are learning to master something, like a new job or life change. The model captures what people experience and helps them to realize their competence and commitment to change as we learn something new or pursue a goal.

The book offers visual models of the four stages along with a complete list of competencies and commitments to help in understanding how to integrate the model into our lives. The book is a quick read yet offers so much information in an entertaining and empowering way. Steve was empowered by the gifts that Cayla shared with him and not only does he keep his job, but he becomes a One Minute Manager to those around him.