A New Year's Challenge for Your Leadership Growth. I dare you to...

Hey leaders, I got one for ya. I challenge every leader reading this right now to take this personal growth challenge in 2011. I call it a "Thinker Saturation."

Here's what it is:

When you find an author, leader or communicator that you admire in some area (finance, leadership, marketing, team-building, etc.) make a decision to "saturate" yourself in how they think for 3 months.
For an entire quarter of your year, dunk yourself in everything that leader writes, says, blogs, records, or tweets.

This information is so easily available on the internet and costs next to nothing to acquire.

Over time, you'll start to pick up on themes in how they think, how they make decisions, etc. You'll also pick up themes of how you listen to them.

A Real-Time Illustration:

I did this recently with Author and Thought-Leader, Seth Godin. (SethGodin.com) For several years now, I've really admired the thoughts & writings of Seth Godin. Seth is what I consider to be the premiere mind in the marketing world today. Brilliant.

So, for 3 months, I decided to saturate myself in how Seth thinks. I did a google search for "Free Seth Godin Audio" and then spent an hour downloading every podcast and interview I could find, putting them in a file on my iTunes that sync's to my iPod.

Then, for the next 90 days, whenever I would work out, or was in the car, I listened to those audios. I'll end up listening to each one 2 or 3 times. Sure, it is redundant, but repetition is a phenomenal teacher.

In addition to listening to Seth, I subscribed to his blog and read or re-read several of his key books. After 90 days, here's what I learned:

1.  How Seth processes information for decision making.

2.  How Seth sees ideas everywhere.

3.  Seth Godin is Courageous. The main reason I love Seth Godin is because he is courageous. He breaks all the rules & succeeds at it very well! I need more influencers in my life who do that!

Now It's Your Turn:

So, here's the challenge... pick 4 thought-leaders and saturate yourself in each one for 90 days next year. I'll even give you the homework for the first one (if you want to use Seth Godin) click here. That's all the audios I downloaded in an hour.

Imagine what your personal leadership growth could look like a year from today if you saturated yourself in 4 premiere thought leaders this year.

I dare you to take the challenge. It could be the most valuable decision you make this year.

How I think about Discouragement - Part 3

#3: Discouragement is a Choice.

I gotta be honest with you, I don't like this one, b/c it hits me square between the eyes but it's no less true. Discouragement really is a choice. When discouragement knocks at our door, we ultimately choose to let it in. Here are a few ways I've found to not let discouragement get the best of me...

• Focus on What IS going right. Everyday somethings go right. We just choose not to see them or celebrate them. Learning to celebrate the right things is a discipline of leadership that we must develop.

• Get back to what makes you feel strong. Nothing breaks discouragement off my life like doing something that makes me feel strong. For me it's writing, reading, speaking or coaching another leader. When I do those things, discouragement melts away! I feel useful again.

• Find a place to win. Sometimes the best thing you can do is find a place where you can win. Again, it doesn't have to be a huge win, it just has to be a win. When you feel discouraged, stop, look around and find a place where you can win.

Where do you need to make a different choice when it comes to feeling discouraged?

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt