Summer Chill – Ep 75

Summer time and I was going to replay one of the more popular episodes this week. However, I wanted to come on for this episode and share some books, podcasts and thoughts I’ve had as I’m enjoying the beginning of summer.

Flowers for a Summer Chill

Books I’m reading (links are not affiliate links):

The Commitment Engine by John Jantsch. It’s about finding your purpose and why behind your business. Typical John Jantsch, he provides stories and small exercises to help you implement what he’s discussing.

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault. Book on meditation. One thing this is helping me to do is to quiet the monkey mind that keeps me jumping subject to subject.

Podcasts and the episodes that have caught my attention lately:

Kwik Brain with Jim Kwik. This a memory and brain power focused cast. Short 15 minute hacks to improve the way your mind works.

The Great Work Podcast with Michael Bungay Stanier. The episode with Steve Olsher covering the topic, “Don’t Follow Your Bliss, Discover Your What”.

Gemba Academy with Ron Pereira. The title of the episode with Rick Timlick is Addressing the Human Side of Lean. I think it says it all in why I would choose it as a pick for you to listen to. I’m hoping to get Ron on the podcast soon to introduce you to him and his thoughts on lean and improved employee engagement.

As always I endorse the Read to Lead podcast with Jeff Brown because as he says, leaders read. I don’t have a particular recent episode that caught my attention, but it’s a nice cast to find a new book.

Everybody Matters, the outreach podcast of The Barry Wehmiller company. Their recent episode with Frank Eichhorn of W+D, a company that recently joined the Barry Wehmiller family of businesses. It’s a German company that has faced serious challenges in the past few years. He discusses some of the steps they’ve taken to make sure their people are as involved as possible.

Meditation

Meditation is something that has been on my mind for years. Much like someone may think about writing a book or running a marathon, I’ve just read about it without much action. In the past couple of months, I’ve moved slowly into actually trying to do it regularly.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’m infrequent at the moment. But I have started. Perhaps by putting it out here in this blog and podcast, I may move to a more regular practice. This is the goal anyway.

Why am I doing it? There are spiritual reasons I won’t get into here simply because that isn’t the focus of this blog and podcast. On the business side, I’m wanting to slow down the monkey mind. I want to limit my “dependence” on distractions. I want a more calm outlook.

I’ll revisit this as I practice more.

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