2.03.2009

Profound wisdom from a profound place

I am on a mission this year.  Not so sure it could really be called a mission, but more likely called a goal.  I have a goal to read 35 books this year.  I love the way that sounds, the way it just rolls off my tongue.  I love reading and have always been challenged from leaders and other various successful people that one of the habits of successful people is reading.  So this year I am upping the anty so to speak and really challenging myself.  I love the process of reading a great book and wrestling with the ideas and complexities it brings to the surface.  I think I am enjoying just learning how to ask the difficult questions rather than demanding answers to my own requests.  So far I have read 4.

One book I just recently finished is a book reccomended to me by a dear friend.  It is called Tribes by Seth Godin.  One such idea I have been wrestling with lately comes from this book and I want to share a portion of it here.

The Easiest Thing

The easiest thing is to react. 
The second easiest thing is to respond. 
But the hardest thing is to initiate. 

Reacting, as Zig Ziglar has said, is what your body does when you take the wrong kind of medicine.  Reacting is what politicians do all the time.  Reacting is intuitive and instinctive and usually dangerous.  Managers react.

Responding is a much better alternative.  You respond to external stimuli with thoughful action.  Organizations respond to competitve threats.  Individuals respond to coleagues or to oppertunities.  Response is always better than reaction.

But both pale in comparison to initiative.  Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that's what leaders do.  They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it.  They cause the events that others have to react to.  They make change.

I just love those last two sentences!  For that to be said of me!  Wow.  Despite this book being mainly a business book I find it to be extremely timely and having a great message needed by the Church.

Anyhow, feel free to comment and give me your own reccomondations for other books I can add to my list for this year, its growing pretty fast!