CBR17 Bingo: Using the Free block for the Red square
In the next couple of months, I’m fortunate to have some downtime as my busiest season is over. During this time, I want to try to relax, catch up on stuff I shoved to the side, and enjoy the slower pace. I also want to work on some of my long term projects. However, as these projects are daunting, I’m deciding which approach is the best. I want to make meaningful strides without burning myself out in the process. While researching how others have approached similar tasks, I came across this book.
I checked it out of the library and got about four chapters in when reality hit me.
Folks, I am not the audience for this book.
But who is the audience, you ask?
From the publisher’s website
- You’re ambitious, but feel you’ve never been given full permission to find and strive for what’s possible for you.
- You’ve achieved things in your career, and it’s now time to “climb the second mountain” and think about legacy.
- You’re unhappy with how the world is working right now, and you want to change your part of it for the better.
- You’re ready to begin, and to start doing something that matters.
The author, Michael Bungay Stanier, describes how to come up with a challenging yet achievable goal that is worthy of your time and continued focus. To illustrate how to apply the steps to “begin,” Stanier provides examples based on the goal he pursued while writing this book: a successful podcast. He already had a podcast, but he wanted to make an even better one.
Oh, and to headhunt a new CEO for the company he founded, so he can offload his day-to-day tasks and focus on what he wants to do to change the world.
Which is…a podcast.
Fine. Good. Why not?
But man, you lost me at podcast. My interest level plummeted and never recovered. It was like watching headlights fade away to blackness. I could not endure an entire book with examples of how this guy is “changing the world for the better,” and working on his “legacy” by making a podcast once he retires as CEO of his company.
I’m not sure I could think of a less engaging set of goal-setting examples if I tried. Perhaps writing about the goals of how to sell your gold to bankroll your new cult were already taken.
When the author showed his draft to his beta readers, did no one point out that these specific examples were, perhaps, not at all helpful to the vast majority of humans on this planet?
Once I saw that the podcast and entrepreneur/founder examples would be a significant portion of each chapter, I skimmed the rest of the book searching for useful bits of advice. I’m giving this two stars because, once the author finally got to the part with advice on what to do once you decide on a goal, there were a few good tips, the main one being that to narrow down what you want the output to look like, such as to mapping out what you don’t want (my output will look like X not Y).
In summary, if you are dying to make a podcast or if you are a CEO and looking to delegate and are seeking helpful tips on how to narrow your focus, reset and recharge, attract worthy guests, and gain followers, this book is worth a read. However, if this is not your focus or if you already know what your goal is, maybe find a different book.