Reading4Champions: December Book

Hello Champions!

The November book, "A Setback is a Setup for a Comeback" by Willie Jolley, gave us great tools to effectively handle the bumps in the road of our championship journey.  (if you haven't finished reading it, keep going until you do!) I don't know about you, but no more "awfulizing and catastrophizing" for me.  As Mr. Jolley says, "you cannot control what happens around you, but you can control what happens in you."  Remember, the purpose of the book club is not only to fill our minds with champion thinking, but also to implement champion behavior in our lives.  So don't forget to take one or two of Mr. Jolley's tools and start using them right away.  

Our December book is also about effectively handling the setbacks of life.  This book was recommended to me by a mentor and was the first book I read by this gentleman who has become my favorite author of self-improvement books.  My library is now full of his books.  I even use his Leadership Bible which highlights the leadership principles found in the Bible.  I have had the privilege of hearing him speak, or teach as he would say, on several occasions.  He is known as America's expert on leadership.
 The December book is "Failing Forward" by John C. Maxwell.

This book is a great companion to the November book because "Failing Forward" focuses on changing your perspective on failure so you want to get back up after a setback.  At the beginning of the book, Mr. Maxwell explains just as he once feared, misunderstood and was unprepared for failure because of unrealistic views of success and failure, so do other people today.  He then states the purpose of "Failing Forward" is to train people for failure so they can "learn how to confidently look the prospect of a failure in the eye and move forward anyway."

In Mr. Maxwell's training course, you will learn fifteen steps and implementable actions to failing forward.  The step that graped me was the second step - Learn a New Definition of Failure.  In implementing this step, you are to give yourself a mistake quota (20, 30, 50, 90) at the beginning of a project or task and try to hit it before bringing the project or task to completion.  By having a mistake quota, you relax, view mistakes differently and begin to learn.  I like this tool.  I have put it in my toolbox and will be using it .... daily.

Enough from me.  Time to start your failure training.   I will check in with you in the middle of the month.


Question for Comment:  What is your definition of failure right now?  What is your definition of success right now? What shaped your definitions? Feel free to share your comments.  Thank you.