Tag Archives: Writing Skills

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Book Review – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R Covey

to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know. ~ Stephen R. Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is recognised as one of the most influential books ever written. This book has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages world wide. It must have more influence on me than I realised because I have a print and an audio copy.

So whats so special about the 7 habits?

Your habits will determine your future

You can live your life by design or default. To design the future you want, you need to be aware of the habits that take you towards and the habits that pull you away from your desired future.

Successful people have successful habits and unsuccessful people don’t ~Jack Canfield

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey starts by introducing the concept of a paradigm. Using the analogy of a map, having a wrong paradigm is like trying to find you way around the city of London with a map of Manchester labelled London. You will experience a great deal of frustration and hardship because you have an incorrectly labelled map. We see things based not on reality but on our own version of reality.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.~ Albert Einstein

Steven Covey proposes a new and deeper level of thinking that will lead to the creation of 7 habits that can and will change your life. My top three are:

  1. Be Proactive – Principle of Personal Vision. – Take responsibility for your future. You have the ability to change many things about your life and future by proactively making newer and better choices that will lead you down your desired path. Proactive people according to Covey have the freedom to choose their response to external stimulus. There are lots of illustrations in the book about how you can take control of your life and influence the outcome.
  1. Synergize – Principle of Creative Cooperation. – Simply put, one plus one is greater than two (1+1>2). Synergy is more than working together. It is thinking TEAM (Together Each Achieves More). When we work together as a team, we must value our differences and combine our strengths to achieve much more than each individual can. This is about collaboration with an abundance mindset.
  1. Sharpen the Saw – Principle of Balanced Self-Renewal. Steven Covey identifies four dimensions of renewal
    • The body needs physical renewal though exercise, healthy eating and stress management
    • The mind needs a mental renewal via reading, writing, visualising and planning
    • The spiritual dimension is renewed by our continuous value clarification and commitment to study and meditation
    • Our relationships will benefit from a social and emotional balance through our own internal security, service to others and empathy.

This book is a classic that is worth reading or re-reading to reinforce your good habit of sharpening the saw and perhaps pick up one or two new habits.

The world we live in today may have changed from the time Covey wrote this book, but the principles contained in the seven habits are timeless in its application and they will certainly change your life if you make them habits.

Why not leave a comment if you have read this book or read the book and then leave a comment.

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#3. Leadership 101 Series

#11. Risk

Leadership 101 Series

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins ~ Charles Stanley

Wikipedia describes risk as a potential for loss (due to a desirable or undesirable outcome) resulting from a given action and or inaction.

Everyday cycling on the streets of London carries the risk of being knocked down by a car on the road. Yet thousands of cyclists take to the roads on a daily basis. I couldn’t. Because it carries too much of a risk for me.

Risk therefore is in the eye’s of the beholder. The risk involved in any task is related of the skills, training and experience you have in the given task.

What you considers as safe, such as being in paid employment is probably a risky venture to the business owner.

Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back. Think of all the benefit that would come your way if you succeed, and then take one small step at a time.

#12. Courage

You must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear ~ Martin Luther King Jnr

Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage is you acting in-spite of your fears. Fear is never going to go away so stop trying to get rid of it.

Courage is like muscles that are built up with use. Learn to act even when afraid in little things and when the big one comes, you can draw from your history the courage necessary to see you through your present situation.

Courageous leaders are comfortable with making choices despite limited information, making choices within a limited time and having the grace and humility to admit that they have got it wrong rather than stick to their guns and wreck the ship.

#13. Smart

Smart

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. ~ Bill Gates

Smart is a difficult one to describe. How smart is smart or how dumb is dumb? The world is filled with smart people who have made stupid mistakes and not so smart people who have the wisdom to surround themselves with people smarter than they are. How smart are you?

Do you recognise your weaknesses and ensure that you have people who will complement you on your team? Are you smart enough to listen to them? They can protect you and your business from your blind spots. We all have them so you are no exception.

#14. Relational

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

What would the world be without people? I certainly wouldn’t want to be the only person in a world full of trees. I would rather have human beings with their quirkiness any-day.

The leader who has no follower is obviously going for a walk. You are going to have to spend time building relationships with people, some of whom will be your colleagues, your employees and your customers. And yes they may not respond as you predicted. That’s because they are human beings with a free will which is used without rational at times.

So quite being upset with people. They are not going to be eradicated from the face of the earth.

Love people, learn to understand their needs and then spend your time adding value to their lives and filling your identified needs. They will reward you with their follower-ship, loyalty and sometimes money.

#15. Communicator

First, you must realise and accept that clear communication is a two way process. It’s not enough to speak clearly. You have to make sure you are heard and understood. ~ Lee Froschhelser

There’s no doubt in my mind that communication is one of the essential skills a leader must have. Here are a few things that can help your communication

1. Have great clarity as to what you want to say and why you want to say it.

2. Keep it simple. Avoid jargon and use everyday words. No one will be impressed with your big words if they don’t know what it means. And don’t kid yourself. They will not bother to look it up in the dictionary.

3. Say what you have to say and then listen for feed back that will give you clues as to whether you have been understood or not.

4. Remember to keep the body language in line with the message.

Do you recognise any of this qualities?

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3 Things to Know before Writing your Blog

WordPress and many other blogging platforms has lowered the barrier to publishing. So you have decided to write and publish a blog post. I use the words write and publish on purpose because, many write and do not publish for many reasons.

3 Things to Know before Writing your Blog

I started writing just about a year ago. But I nursed the dream of writing for many years. I even joined a writers club and I wrote many pieces of work but published none. Until I read Steven Pressfied’s book: Do the Work If you haven’t read this book you should.

Resistance to writing.

Writing like many other art forms has the potential to change lives and you will have to overcome resistance, which comes in many forms. A few examples include:

  • Fear
  • Self doubt
  • Procrastination
  • Distractions of all sorts
  • Perfectionism

The only tried and proven way of overcoming resistance is to get on with it and write. Yes Do the Work. Write. You may want to develop a content plan to help you write.

But before you write, there are three things I would like you to know.

  1. Know Your Reader – Who is your writing intended for?

The best way to write a best selling book is to know who your audience is (and what they want) before you start writing. You should know everything there is to know about your readers in advance, and then write your book. Most people do it backwards. ~ Michael Hyatt

Who are you writing for. It is important to have a reader in mind before you write. The more you know about your reader, the better you are able to write content that will be of great value to your readers.

Here at Leading like a champion, our readers are ambitious individuals who have little time or energy to waste. He or she may be self employed, running a business or aspiring to own and run a business. He or she is an entrepreneur. Probably older than 18 and younger than 35.

  1. Know Your Purpose – Why are you writing?

Are you writing to inform, to entertain or to educate your readers? Are you writing to persuade, to inspire or to provoke a discussion.  For more on this read “Are you blogging with purpose?” . When you are clear about the purpose of your writing, your readers derive greater value from your content because you:

  • Connect with your readers.
  • Convince your readers about your purpose
  • Convert your readers to your purpose

Here at leading like a champion, we believe that you must be the leading influence in your life. We believe that leadership is a combination of skills and ability that can be learned through training and improved with practice. We use our blog posts to provide you with content that will help you the individual grow and thrive as a leader in your business and in your workplace.

  1. Know your Subject – What are you writing about?

Here is my simple take on this. You know enough about your subject to write about it. See yourself as an expert or an expert in the making. No matter how little you think you know about your topic, you know  a lot more about it than most people. So write for those people and they will reward you with their readership. Stick to what you know and what you are passionate about. Writers who are passionate about their subject are more interesting to read.

Write with your readers in mind.

Remember that you are not writing out of a passion for writing. Such writing will make for boring reading as you will will have the tendency to show off your writing skill. Your readers do not really want to know how fantastic you are at writing.

Give value to your readers.

You are writing to add value to and help your readers. You are writing because what you write has the potential to fill a need that your reader has.
So it helps a great deal to get over yourself, get over your perceived lack of experience and get over your fear that no one will read what you write.
Write and publish your work of art.
Question? How about writing for us? 
Why not get in touch? You can leave a comment or complete the contact form.

 

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Put it in Writing

Writing in is a method of recording information and ideas. Have you ever wondered how some people are able to come up with lots of ideas and get more done while you do not? Well how about you try putting down your thoughts in writing and then create the habit of writing.

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you would have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire. – Napoleon hill

Here are five things that will happen when you put it in writing.

  1. Writing will help you organise your thoughts and bring clarity to your ideas.
  2. By putting it in writing, you record and increase your chances of remembering your ideas.
  3. Writing will help you commit to taking action on your goals, vision and dreams.
  4. You can breakdown and simplify your complicated ideas during the process of writing.
  5. Writing will help you develop an idea bank or vault.

By writing down your thoughts and ideas, you free up your mind to do other things such as thinking up new thoughts and ideas or coming up with plans to implement the ones you have written down.

So how can you get the most from putting things down in writing?

  • Keep a paper or electronic ideas notebook with you all the time. It makes no difference how good your memory is. You will forget it if you do not write it down.
  • Develop a consistent filing system. This will greatly reduce the time which you spend looking for things. I have a lot of paper notebooks and I have no idea of what I have written in most of then. My life has now been made easier with my use of Evernote,  an electronic notebook available on all platforms.
  • Review your ideas regularly. It makes no sense to write something down if you are not going to read it. You will need to get into the habit of setting time aside in your busy schedule to review your ideas, modify them and possibly begin to act on some.
  • Now share your thoughts and ideas first with yourself through regular review of your writings and then with trusted alias. 

If you have an ambition to write and publish a book in the not to distant future, then putting it down in writing is a must for you. This becomes an avenue for you to express your creative flair. If you persist at it and become good at it, you could earn some money with your newly discovered writing skill by writing a best seller. And just think of the many more possibilities which could include turning your book into a movie or a television series.

Do you put your thoughts and ideas in writing?