Current Book Reviews

Check Out the Book Reviews posted on The Book Coach:

 Who Killed Change?  By Ken Blanchard, John Britt, Judd Hoekstra, and Pat Zigarmi

Helping People Win at Work  By Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge

Tribes   By Seth Godin  

The Noticer   By Andy Andrews 

The 5 Most Important Questions   By the Leader to Leader Institute and Peter F. Drucker 

How Full Is Your Bucket   By Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton

The Greatest Stories Never Told   By Rick Beyer

Today Matters   By John C. Maxwell

Strengths Finder 2.0   By Tom Rath

H. Res. 397-Spiritual Heritage Act

The purpose of the bill is:

 Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as “America’s Spiritual Heritage Week” for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.

Taken directly from the text of the act introduced before congress, I have placed just a few of the references to a spiritual national heritage.   In addition, you can view the video of Congressman Forbes discussing the act before congress.

 

Whereas the first act of America’s first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;

Whereas in 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence with its 4 direct religious acknowledgments referring to God as the Creator (‘All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’), the Lawgiver (‘the laws of nature and nature’s God’), the Judge (‘appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world’), and the Protector (‘with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence’)

 Whereas President Abraham Lincoln declared that the Bible ‘is the best gift God has given to men . . . But for it, we could not know right from wrong’

Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt not only led the Nation in a 6 minute prayer during D-Day on June 6, 1944, but he also declared that ‘If we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction’

Whereas President John F. Kennedy declared that ‘The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God’

These are just a few of the many supporting comments.

You tell me- If these are direct quotes take from some of this nation’s most important leaders of all time recognizing the hand of God on this nation, do we not have a spiritual heritage?

 

The act ends with:

Whereas the first week in May each year would be an appropriate week to designate as ‘America’s Spiritual Heritage Week’: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives–

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation’s most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America’s representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation’s public buildings and educational resources; and

(4) expresses support for designation of a ‘America’s Spiritual Heritage Week’ every year for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.

 

Latest Major Action: 5/4/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Read the entire text of the bill at: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr111-397

Watch Congressman Forbes:

 

The Noticer List: People who influence my life

I write to encourage you to read The Noticer by Andy Andrews.  What a wonderful treasure!  Read more about it here.

The noticer project at http://www.thenoticerproject.com/ asks us to recognize the top 5 people who influence your life.  As I sat down to do this, I releaized that my list was growing and that I wanted to “thank” and “notice”  alot of people who have impacted my life.  I plan to respond to the Noticer Project by picking my top 5 current influencers and posting to the website, but what follows is a list of those people who have in the past or currently influence my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, my life.  I choose to Notice you all:

My wife, Kelly. I love you.  You love and I know that you want to be loved through spending quality time. I must do this more.

My son, you bring a smile to my face every time I see you.  Thank-you for the privilege of being your father.

My family, direct, extended, in-laws:    all of you provide deep purpose and support for this life.

Andy Andrews, Thank God for his wisdom expressed in this book.  To quote him, “By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great.” You are a great person, Sir.

Rick, my friend at work.  A true friend speaks to you honestly. Thank-you for being that person, Rick.

My team at work.  You work so hard to make things happen. 

My brother for just being himself.  This is more important that listening to what the world thinks of you.

John C. Maxwell- a level 5 leader.   If you know him through his books, then you know.

Peter Drucker- The smartest business thinker in the world.

Gallup, Tom Rath, Marcus Buckingham- You provide encouragement for my input and intellection talents.   

The owners of my company: Craig, Tim, John, Robert-for meeting my basic needs and allowing me the opportunity to get closer to learning  about my capabilities and talents through the freedom provided in self-management.

Rich Pullen for bringing inspiration back into my life.

My friends from Tallahassee and Houma, you bring laughter and fun to my life.

Ardella Baptist church for having a place to belong to.

John Hanks for teaching me that some things are worth doing even if most people don’t believe in them.

Coach John Wooden, you are an inspiration for teaching the right way to Win.

Eric Pugh, a childhood of adventures, trouble-making, and fun.  Thanks for your friendship during our growing up years.

AMC, for giving me my first real job and teaching me the basic fundamentals of the complexity of management and the hard-knocks of learning through mistakes. 

Mom, you took care of us and gave us so much as kids.

Dad, Thanks for teaching us to love others no matter what.

To my God, who expresses his love to us in so many ways and who notices everyone.  Him who values quality time with us and invites us through prayer, Him who speaks to us words of love through his great book, the One who uses human contact to express his love, and Him who ultimately showed us what love is like through one astounding deed for all human kind.

Positivity: Seeking What is Right

Positivity-  Seek Out what is Right

 Something I have been inspired to do is see each moment and each day in the best possible positive manner.  I find that the industry that I work in celebrates cynicism and is at times difficult to remain positive when there are brick walls constantly being built in our path (who doesn’t have these issues).  It is easy to find many ups and downs (peaks and valleys, perhaps) during most people’s busy lives.

 The daily news constantly highlights what is wrong, our friends and families are the first to criticize our behavior (This, by the way, is an age old issue -  Read the oldest book in the bible-the book of Job, whose friends enormously criticize him for the wrong things that are occurring in his life), our education and training systems focus on what we fail on, our management systems focus on improving weaknesses, we are disappointed when our co-workers, employees, and bosses perform poorly, and our customer’s are quick to point out the errors that we make.  Wow- lots of negativity.

 

Here’s a quick plan to add more positive in your life:

 

• Stop reading and listening to all of the news, scan for what is important only, skip the nonessential negative.
• As far as friendly criticism goes, turn it back on them, only in a positive way.  Accept their feedback and then find ways to point out what they do well. If friends don’t catch on, persist in finding only what is right with your friend.  If they still don’t catch on, then you may eventually want to seek out new friends.
• Never give up on family.  For every criticism given to you, return 2 positives.  Talk with them about the negativity.  Your positive return will make an impact in some way.
• At work, focus and build your strengths.  Explain to your co-workers, employees and supervisors which areas you excel in most and then seek out opportunities to utilize your strengths.
• Accept your bosses feedback, even if it’s negative.  Improve what you can.  Outperform expectations in the areas that you have capability in. This can make a huge impact.
• Customers- feedback from your customers is absolutely essential.  The positive spin for your negative customer feedback is to take each negative comment as another opportunity to win that customer over by quickly fixing the issue.
• Rely on your faith in God’s greater plan to see you through the negative moments which can ultimately carry you back into the good times as you focus on choosing positivity.

 

Have a great day.

Watching Noggin Cartoons at 11 p.m?

My son loves watching Noggin.  From Dora and Diego to Blue’s Clues, Wonder Pets, Lazy Town and the Backyardigans, the shows are actually some of the more educational programs for Kids.  However, in all honesty, I find them the most boring and annoying of the cartoons.  I personally tend to enjoy the Disney Channel’s line-up of morning Cartoons, or the ever dim-witted SpongeBob, but the Kid loves all of the programs on Noggin.  The only thing he will watch on Disney is Mickey Mouse Club House.  Why am I spewing all this nonsense at 11 pm on a Sunday night?   That would be because my son has decided that he can’t go to sleep till he finishes watching Yo Gabba Gabba.  Alas, I am too much of a softy to deny him this request; A tired Father who loves his son.  Ready to sleep, Son?

Hello world!

The purpose of this blog is to post random thoughts and notes. 

I maintain a business, inspiration and success book review site at: 

 http://bookcoach.wordpress.com

Deepest Regards,

Jamie