This week’s blog is a book review: Executive Toughness: The Mental Training Program to Increase your Leadership Performance by Dr. Jason Selk published by McGraw Hill. Why am I adding this to my blog site? My objective in addressing sales leadership issues is to provide you ideas, tools and concepts to increase your professionalism. I like to read a business book focused on some aspect of my profession, then I will switch to another form of book for personal fun. I believe your sales teams and you should have a personal development plan. You need to add this book to your library!
After writing four books myself, I found “Executive Toughness” a terrific read that a new manager or any experienced business leader can find something new or an aspect of their life to improve upon.
As I was reading this book I realized my next blog would contain a brief review and it should be a must read. As each page flew by, I found myself underlining sentences, circling ideas and folding over pages as concepts and tools were introduced. Dr. Selk opens each new idea with a story of a person that defines his message, I liked the way he personalized the concepts that the reader could relate to. His conversations and stories with the famed Coach John Madden were terrific. Before I cover the topics, the one aspect of the book I really thought was a great concept was at the conclusion of each section where Dr. Self was making a point, he included tools where the reader could begin to build their own personal “training” program. This allowed the reader not only to read and understand the topic, but to put the information into their Personalized Action Plan!
The topics of the book that I really enjoyed were:
- Accountability: The Process of Achievement (readers of this blog know my feelings on “accountability, discipline and control”.
- Self-Evaluation: Look into the mirror everyday
- Improving Execution and Consistency: in our sales leadership workshops I discuss that execution is the key element that in high performance sales organizations…
- The Mental Work: “100 seconds a day keeps failure away.” This section pays for the book!
- Optimism: Overcoming All Obstacles: Becoming relentless and unremitting action.
And to make the book even better, the last 12 pages gives you the Handbook to move forward with your personalize program. As in my keynote program: Gourmet Living: a recipe for personal and professional success, Dr. Selk hits the point, you must be personally in balance and know what you want and you must take action to achieve high performance.
Buy it, read it and take action, you will be a better person because of it.
