Business Book Summaries

A summary of the executive business book “The Mighty Mesa”, A Tested Options Strategy Designed to Never Lose Money (and Just Might Make 36%), by author Dr. Terry F. Allen. Please visit BusinessSummaries.com.

THERE’S NO FREE LUNCH ON WALL STREET (OH YEAH, WHO SAYS?) BUT THERE’S ALWAYS A BULL MARKET SOMEPLACE

When Tech goes up, what goes down? By diversifying among sectors that zig when others zag, some investors have historically been able to get both a higher return as well as lower risk. Why shouldn’t you?

If Sir Isaac Newton had a law of motion related to the stock market, it probably would have sounded like “for every level of return, there’s an equivalent level of risk,” meaning that the higher the returns you hope to achieve, the greater the amount of risk you should be willing to accept.

It’s just like what Mom always said: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” And the same goes for sticks – generally. If you expect a high-price return, then you have to expect to experience an elevated level of risk, either in the form of price volatility or the potential loss of your original investment. And the logic for this is fairly straightforward. If you could get something for nothing, it wouldn’t take long before many others joined you in this investment.

And as more people would learn about it and buy into it, the potential to exploit any price inefficiency would evaporate. It’s the simple principal of arbitrage.

Sometimes, however, one can find an investment strategy that delivers a free lunch: an investment that offers an improved return with lower risk. Investing in sectors with low correlations to one another has actually provided investors with above-average returns – even when factoring in risk or volatility.

Sectors are said to have low correlation when the price of one zigs, while the other zags. Over the long term, sectors with low correlations have recorded advances and declines at a different rate of pace, as if they each marched to the beat of a different drummer. Highly correlated sectors, on the other hand, ascended the staircase of price changes as if marching to the same beat.

Not all investors are Fred Astaire on the dance floor. For some, it may be best to let the market take the lead. This rear-view mirror approach to investing has a time-tested track record for picking near-term winners. Ready to take a spin?

In its simplest form, the There’s Always a Bull Market Someplace portfolio for industries is merely a monthly update of the Let Your Winners Ride portfolio for industries. The intent is to maintain an ownership of all industries that have had the highest trailing 12-month price performance.

Your goal is to buy high but sell higher. In addition, the number of holdings never changes. This makes the management of the portfolio fairly straightforward. A drawback to this rule for industries is turnover. The portfolio requires monthly fine-tuning.

What this rule endorses is that instead of picking sectors, industries, or stocks by trying to forecast where we are in the economic cycle, projecting which company will win a government contract, or guessing which way the dollar will fluctuate, let the market tell you where to invest your money.

Business savvy is not something you’re born with, nor is it something you inherit. But as we believe it is the key to business success, we start with the end in mind, defining what it is.

Here’s the thing about adversity: If you can make it your friend, you may find yourself in one of the most powerful and transformative situations that life has to offer. Of course we’d never advocate going out and seeking difficult circumstances in order to develop yourself or further your career, but the fact is setbacks are going to happen – certainly in the business world. An investment can go bad. An important employee or partner could desert you. A counted-on sale may go to your biggest competitor. An important deal with these unexpected misfortunes that separates those who fail from those who attain the top levels of success.

Perhaps it’s a sad fact, but success absolutely does not provide the impetus for improvement that adversity does. Say you just sold a new client, won a promotion or pay raise, or gave a presentation that drew rave reviews. What’s the result – high fives around the office, a pat on the back at home, or a toast over dinner. Sure, you should enjoy the well-deserved accolades, but be wary: In the face of success we can become complacent. It’s far too easy to become too satisfied with our current performance and get a little lax on improving.

In contrast, what happens after a failure or some personal heartache? Ideally we immediately analyze the situation to see what went wrong and we focus on what we could’ve done differently. No one likes to go through adversity, but faced with the right attitude, a difficult setback can be one of our most powerful catalysts for change. Adversity can provide the motivation and the determination to sharpen our skills and regain our focus, and that in turn has a direct positive impact on the creation of business savvy.

You always have a choice. No matter how terrible the setback, you can make the choice to lie back and let adversity consume you, or you can face the situation head-on and work to make adversity your friend. Befriending adversity means not shying from it, but learning from it. It means not letting it defeat you, but laboring to overcome it, and even better, using what you learn from the experience to improve yourself. Those who’ve been tested by the fired of adversity and have passed the test emerge stronger, smarter, and savvier.

But for people with business savvy borne of adversity, there is so much more to the story. The business leaders who’ve benefited from the adversity paradox are the ones who use the diagnostic skill of introspection. They’re the ones with superior work character, who often arrive at the office before everyone else and leave later – and love it. These folks have found a purpose they’re passionate about and have found a way to take the work out of work. They’re the employees who nurture a thirst for knowledge that keeps them constantly abreast of the ever-changing world of business.

Want to see book summaries to help improve your business skills?  Visit BusinessSummaries.com.

Walt Disney built one of the most durable firms in American economic history. The firm is so ingrained in our culture that in 1993 Disney actually found buyers for one-hundred-year bonds, known as “Sleeping Beauties.”

It seems that Walt learned not only to look back nostalgically, but also to get half the world to look at this era wearing his rose-coloured glasses. It seems that Walt learned early on how to nurture creativity despite a hard-hearted environment. This was perfect training for Hollywood. Walt Disney was destined to invent Fantasyland.

Disney launched Laugh-O-Gram with two principles in mind: First, he did not want to be anybody’s employee. Second, Disney wanted to leapfrog current technology.

Half a century before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs tinkered in their garages, Walt Disney dragged a stopaction camera into his garage and started experimenting with more sophisticated drawings. The results were stunning. Because the figures looked like more than paper cut-outs, the characters could have some personality.

Walt Disney’s movies were stunning innovations. But Disney did not fool himself into thinking he was a creative genius like Shakespeare or Picasso. Since every major film could potentially bankrupt his studio, he knew that he also had to focus on making money – or else he would be tossed out of the turbulent industry.

Disney’s innovations did not stop at merchandising the characters on the screen. We must give him credit for teaching the business world the importance of speed too. While other companies might have produced toys based on popular characters, Disney pressed to get those toys and gadgets out sooner – before the characters burst onto the big screen.

Even where Disney had no commercial tie-in, firms often profited as “free riders.” Economists call a firm a free rider if it benefits from another firm’s activities but does not pay for their benefit. This can also be called a “positive externality.”

Walt’s ultimate success with Disneyland brings us to another lesson: The CEO should not be a snob (though Estee lauder had no trouble going after the pocketbooks of snobs). The revival of Disney studio business and the stunning launch of Disneyland in the 1950s were powered by television. If Walt had been snobbish about a new medium called television, Disneyland would not have been an international smash, and his films would have limped along underfinanced.

Television did not just make Disney. Disney made television.

Walt Disney died a very wealthy man, but he did not plunder from his shareholders along the way. Remember, his reigning symbols were a mouse and a duck, not a pig and a wolf.

Walt lived long enough to see Julie Andrews mesmerize audiences as Mary Poppins. It would be easy to wrap Walt Disney’s image up in the American flag and say he was an American saint who only brought joy to children. Was he Mother Teresa? Hell no! He did bring lots of joy to children, but creating joy in children often meant bringing some tears to his staff.

He worked hard and was quick to rip into the inferior work of another cartoonist. No doubt he was sometimes unfair and short-tempered. But he never cheated his chief clients – the children in the audience. Nor did he ever rip off his shareholders. No, he was not Mother Teresa or even Mary Poppins. But the refracted light of America’s great creative geniuses, Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin, certainly shone more than a few rays upon him.

Despite a hard and humbling youth and the harsh discipline of a father who could not keep a job, Walk Disney knew, like Edison and Franklin, that he was destined to become a symbol. During the 1920s, while struggling for an advertising agency, Disney was asked by Ubbe Iwwerks to join in a poker game. Walt declined. He said he was too busy toiling on some sketches? Walt was actually practicing his signature, that simple yet stylish script that instantly tells adults and children that creative fun waits just around the corner, just after the commercial break.

Would you like to read the full summary of Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office?  Please visit BusinessSummaries.com.

Miami, Florida, April 2, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, announces that Al Betz, acclaimed author of Outfluence (published by Silverbear Graphics, 2008), is the Author of the Month for April 2009.

Al Betz is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Outfluence, LLC. He has a nationwide reputation as a realtime reporter, an author, and a leader in the court reporting world. Major legal matters he and his company participated in include the grand jury investigation of the Clinton Administration, and the recent litigation involving alleged accounting fraud of Ernst & Young, WorldCom and Enron.

As an author, Betz has interviewed and transcribed the stories of numerous subjects, including families of 9/11 victims in an effort to preserve their loved ones’ life stories. He credits his Outfluence approach to life and to business for enabling him to attract positive people to his life and to his business.

Outfluence is defined by Betz as a way to effect real, positive change – even if one doesn’t have all the authority, money, or clout that is usually required to effect such change. Applied consciously, outfluence creates a powerful, irresistible message that promotes growth in personal lives, relationships and businesses.

Outfluence turns conventional thinking about influence upside down – making a powerful force available to anyone who chooses to use it. Betz’s book on the topic, Outfluence, introduces the power of silent communication and teaches principles and behaviors to help people become more effective in their day-to-day interactions. It will also teach them that the effort extended to show others that we care makes an impression – whether our approach is in the form of speaking, writing, listening, or practicing patience and respect. Read more about Betz and his groundbreaking book at http://www.outfluenceonline.com/Al-Betz.html

The BusinessSummaries.com editorial staff interviewed Betz about his book and the story behind it. Key excerpts from the interview are posted at http://www.bizsum.com/author-of-the-month-april2009.php. The summary of Outfluence  was released to BusinessSummaries.com’s subscribers on February 9, 2009.

Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.

Miami, Florida, March 9, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com releases its new business book “Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business”, by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, Ph.D., Jossey-Bass Books, 2009. Subscribers may now access PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, Audio, Video and Mindmap formats of “Answering the Ultimate Question”, and enjoy the book summary anytime, anywhere.

Miami, Florida, March 9, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, today releases the abridged version of one of the business bestsellers “Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business”, by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, Ph.D., Jossey-Bass Books, 2009. This executive book summary is now accessible to subscribers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and Mindmap formats.

In this book, authors Richard Owen and Laura Brooks discuss how — based on a variety of real case studies — Net Promoter discipline can be embedded in organizations of all types and industries. The Net Promoter Score is a fast, accurate, quantitative measure whose purpose is to gauge customers’ real loyalty to a company, establish a baseline and effectively track changes going forward. This discipline was co-developed by Owen, Brooks and fellow author Fred Reichheld, and was first introduced and elaborated on in Reichheld’s 2006 book The Ultimate Question.

Answering the Ultimate Question takes the topic a few steps further by re-introducing the topic and building on the link between Net Promoter Scores and business growth and profitability. When combined with an operational discipline, Net Promoter represents a potential win-win for businesses and their customers. The Net Promoter Score offers a near-real-time metric that is closely coupled and correlated with precipitating actions. Instead of looking in the rear view mirror of customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter will help effect real, positive change every day in and for those organizations in which it is applied correctly.

Drawing on illustrative case-study findings from the more companies for which the authors have helped to put Customer Experience Management and Net Promoter disciplines in place, this book is designed to help apply Net Promoter correctly, and foster growth and profitability in any organization.

Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.

Look at the most successful organizations in the world, and you find not just one leader – you’ll see many strong leaders working together to create their success. That doesn’t happen by accident. The most successful organizations possess leaders who are equipping others around them, whether that organization is a small business, large corporation, non-profit, or sports team. When a leader is dedicated to the equipping process, the level of performance within the whole organization rises dramatically.

Fred A. Manske Jr. said, “The greatest leader is willing to train people and develop them to the point that they eventually surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.” This volume, by Dr. John C. Maxwell, will help you to unlock the hidden abilities in your people by teaching you to equip them for excellence. “Success for leaders,” says Maxwell, “can be defined as the maximum utilization of those around them.” Maxwell should know. He is someone who has made equipping and developing others the primary focus of his life for over twenty years.

In this concise book, you will be equipped yourself: Not only will you learn why equipping others to lead is the most powerful method for success, but you will also learn how to identify potential leaders, equip them, and then take them to a whole new level once they’ve been released to lead. It’s a process that creates synergy in your organization for the long haul.

To access 500+ business book summary titles, please visit:  http://www.bizsum.com.

The Big Idea
With more than three million copies sold, Dare to Discipline is “a book about children and those who love them.” Revised and expanded to address parenting in today’s modern context, The New Dare to Discipline is nevertheless based on timeless and proven principles.

This book shows parents how loving discipline works and discusses methods by which it can be accomplished. Says author Dr. James Dobson, “Children thrive best in an atmosphere of genuine love, undergirded by reasonable, consistent discipline.”

Why You Need This Book
This book will teach every parent how children should be raised and what children really need from their parents. This is a book about children and those who love them.

The Challenge
Much has been written about the dangers of harsh, oppressive, unloving discipline; these warnings are valid and should be heeded. Many well-meaning specialists have waved the banner of tolerance, but have offered no solution for defiance.

They have stressed the importance of parental understanding of the child. The term “discipline” is not limited to the context of confrontation. Children also need to be taught self-discipline and responsible behavior.

They need assistance in learning how to handle the challenges and obligations of living. They must learn the art of self-control. They should be equipped with the personal strength needed to meet the demands imposed on them by their schools, peer groups, and later adult responsibilities.

When properly applied, loving discipline works! It stimulates tender affection, made possible by mutual respect between a parent and a child.

It bridges the gap which otherwise separates family members who should love and trust each other. It encourages a child to respect other people and live as a responsible, constructive citizen.

In short, one must dare to discipline in an environment of unmitigated love.

Common Sense and Your Child
Here are the tenets of commonsense child rearing:

Developing respect for parents is the critical factor in child management. It is imperative that a child learns to respect his parents – not to satisfy their egos, but because his relationship with them provides the basis for his later attitude toward all other people.

If you want your child to accept your values when he reaches his teen years, then you must be worthy of his respect during his younger days. When a child can successfully defy his parents during his first fifteen years, laughing in their faces and stubbornly flouting their authority, he develops a natural contempt for them.

The best opportunity to communicate often occurs after a disciplinary event. Nothing brings a parent and child closer together than for the mother or father to win decisively after being defiantly challenged. Parents should not dread or shrink back from confrontations with their children.

Control without nagging (it is possible). Yelling and nagging at children can become a habit, and an ineffectual one at that! Have you ever screamed at your child, “This is the last time I’m telling you for the last time!”

Parents often use anger to get action instead of using action to get action. It is exhausting and it doesn’t work! Trying to control children by screaming is as utterly futile as trying to steer a car by honking the horn.

Don’t saturate the child with materialism. Pleasure occurs when an intense need is satisfied. If there is no need, there is no pleasure. If you never allow a child to want something, he never enjoys the pleasure of receiving it.

Show your child the thrill of temporary deprivation; it’s more fun and much less expensive.

Establish a balance between love and discipline. We come now to the foundational understanding on which the entire parent-child relationship rests. The “middle ground” of love and control must be sought if we are too produce healthy, responsible children.

The Miracle Tools
Rewards must be granted quickly. If the maximum effectiveness is to be obtained from a reward, it should be offered shortly after the desirable behavior has occurred. Parents often make the mistake of offering long-range rewards to children, but their successes are few.

Rewards need not be material in nature. Anything that is considered desirable to an individual can serve as reinforcement for his behavior. Children and adults of all ages seek constant satisfaction of their emotional needs, including the desire for love, social acceptance, and self-respect. Additionally, they hope to find excitement, intellectual stimulation, entertainment, and pleasure.

Almost any behavior that is learned through reinforcement can be eliminated if the reward is withheld long enough. It is an established fact that unreinforced behavior will eventually disappear. This process, called extinction by psychologists, can be very useful to parents and teachers who want to alter the behavior of children. Parents and teachers are also vulnerable to reinforcement. The point is simple: Parents should be aware of their own reactions to reinforcement and make certain they are in control of the learning situation.

Parents often reinforce undesirable behavior and weaken behavior they value. Parents must be careful about the behaviors they allow to succeed. They must exercise self-discipline and patience to ensure that the tools of reinforcement and extinction are being used to encourage responsible and mature behavior.

The Barriers to Learning

THE LATE BLOOMER
The self-image is amazingly simple to damage but exceedingly difficult to reconstruct. The emotional pressure is often unresolvable. There is no rationalization he can give parents and teachers to explain his perceived failure. His self-concept is often wounded by this tension, and his personality will probably reflect the experience well into adult life.

The solution for late bloomers is relatively simple: instead of scheduling the child’s entrance into the first grade according to his age, the optimal timetable should be determined by neurological, psychological, social and pediatric variables.

THE SLOW LEARNER
The “slow learner” is another youngster likely to have great trouble with academic discipline, resulting from his inability to learn as quickly as his peers. The slow learner is unlike the late bloomer in one major respect: time will not resolve his deficiency.

Since retention and summer school do not solve the problem of the slow learner, we are faced with the obvious question: What can be done for these children? Listed below are the steps that could tip the scales in favor of this vast number of youngsters:

Nearly every child can learn to read, but many children have difficulty if taught only in large groups.

The slow learned should be shielded from the devastation of failure. Remember that success breeds success.  If adults in his life show confidence in him, he will more likely have confidence in himself.

THE UNDERACHIEVER
The underachiever is a student who is unsuccessful in school despite his ability to do the work. In recent years, underachievers have attained a rather high profile, thanks to Bart Simpson’s self-proclaimed “UNDERACHIEVER, AND PROUD OF IT!”. Despite this dubious publicity, underachievers are less understood (and more numerous) than either slow learners or late bloomers.

The typical parent reacts one of three ways to their underachieving child:

The first reaction is treating the problem as though it resulted from sheer stubbornness.

The second approach is to offer the child a long-range bribe.

The third parental reaction is to say, “He’s got to learn responsibility sometime!”

Children and adolescents, like people of all ages, want to be responsible. The ones who fail in school are often the most miserable, but they lack the self-discipline to overcome their own inertia.

A Moment for Mom
Here are some simple suggestions designed to help moms answer that exasperated question:

Reserve some time for yourself. The first principle of mental health is to learn to accept the inevitable.

Don’t deal with big problems late at night. Fatigue does some strange things to human perception.

Try making a list. You leave a record of accomplishments by crossing tasks off the list as they are completed.

BestSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides summaries of top self-help, motivational and inspirational books where you can learn–in minutes– what it takes to live life and live it well. BestSummaries.com sends out one book summary every week in PDF, PDA, audio and/or print formats.  For more information, please go to http://www.bestsum.com.

The Big Idea
Barack Obama has brought the power of oration back to American politics. In speech after speech, Barack Obama has “fired up” millions of enthusiastic supporters with his inspiring vision, rousing rhetoric, and charismatic presence.

Creating Strong First Impressions – Image and Body Language
The strong first impression that Barack Obama makes reminds us that body movement and image speak a language to the audience as potent as anything said out loud.

Barack Obama is adept at establishing excellent first impressions. Good eye contact has also been valuable to Obama.

Effective Use of Body Language and Voice
In the delivery of his 2004 keynote address, Barack Obama demonstrated outstanding use of body language. In short, Obama created a very strong first impression.

Obama came across as authentic. Like Bill Clinton’s story, Ronald Reagan’s story, Harry Truman’s story…” This has helped him connect with audiences; his life story is viewed as a classic story and it has endeared Obama to millions of Americans.

Practices for Earning Trust and Confidence
Given Obama’s tremendous success, leaders have much to learn from the way he uses excellent communication practices to earn the trust and confidence of others.

Charisma helps leaders energize and motivate others.

Image and body language are also important for forming strong first impressions. Notable second impressions can reinforce strong first impressions.

Strong communicators remember the importance of props and staging in sending sub-messages that reinforce key themes. Obama’s success demonstrates many best practices with regard to winning hearts and minds.

Excellent communicators use details skillfully to demonstrate that they understand the experiences and perspectives of audience members. Empathy and action – these are things the audience seeks.

Driving Points Home
Leaders have much to garner and apply from Obama’s successes. Rhetorical questions help crystallize attention on key ideas.

When leveraging the “power of three,” skilled communicators underscore key points, building momentum or enhancing a sense of logic.

Conveying Vision
Leaders also have much to learn from the way Barack Obama conveys vision so effectively to audiences. Use of dynamic imagery represents another useful communication technique.

Finally, effective communicators often offer anecdotes, providing brief narration and short tales to breathe life into key themes. A speaker can inspire others to great achievements by employing words that resonate, including words that evoke shared values, patriotic values, and cherished principles.

Outstanding orators will build to a high point and end on that high, leaving listeners stirred, inspired, motivated, and focused on key themes.

This helps to keep those themes and ideas dominant in the minds of audience members.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service.  Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States.  For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

The Big Idea
We give leis to say “Thank you” and we give leis to say “Goodbye.”

Our attitude is like a lei. If you string together a collection of dried fish, everything starts smelling fishy! If you string together old socks, the whole world has this funny odor to it.

Your attitude is like a fragrance you carry around with you. The difference is that skunks carry a bad odor while a beautiful Hawaiian plumeria blossom carries a fragrance.

Why You Need This Book
This book gives practical steps to building internal values and perspectives that will change your life!

Make Your Choice
So far too often we see the consequences of making a bad choice or walking through life with a bad attitude, and yet we choose that attitude anyway. Then when relationships fail, when we lose friends or forfeit a great opportunity, it really should be no surprise.

Deposit into your heart the necessary ingredients to develop a life-changing attitude. Make that choice right now. The new attitude may feel awkward at first, but practice until it becomes natural.

You are only one attitude away from a great life, a successful marriage and a promising future!

Your attitude is the set of your sail. You must choose the direction you want your life to travel and set your heart accordingly.

There will be storms, but it will be your attitude toward those storms that drives you in one direction or another, not the storm itself.

A poor attitude in the midst of the storm can cause the storm to rage inside for a lifetime.

You will see problems everywhere, but don’t allow your eyes to remain focused on them. Develop a new perspective – a fresh view of your problems. Don’t hang around the swamps of despair.

They will only skew your attitude and impede your resilience. Learn to bounce back quickly.

Don’t miss the ride! Don’t forget to laugh. There is plenty to laugh about in life, and we need to laugh.

Whatever it is, take time to enjoy life in its simplest form.

Make a new friend today. A great place to start is with your family.

Life is too short for that. By establishing deep friendships with your family, you’ll begin to reap one of life’s greatest promises and rewards.

Pause long enough to enjoy the ride. You will be pleasantly surprised how a new perspective will help you to develop an attitude that attracts friends, laughter, joy and success!

Raise the Bar of Excellence
We need to practice having an excellent attitude in each and every endeavor, for it will always be true that we can improve the way we see problems, people and life.

Even if it’s only 1 percent each day, improve something about yourself. If you can improve just 1 percent a day, that means over one year you will have improved more than 300 percent for your life.

Raise the bar!

Play the Right Background Music
As you dwell on these memories, experiences and thoughts, they are recorded on the soundtrack of your mind and play continuously all day long.

Whatever you play on this internal sound system affects everything about you – your attitude, your self-image, your confidence level, your relationships, the way you communicate with others and even your faith. Memories hang on for a long time if you let them.

What is your play list? You get to make the selections, so choose wisely!

Practice, Practice, Practice!
Love
Am I consistently committed to helping others develop and discover the very best in their lives?

Peace
Do I bring a calming effect to every situation, or do I stir up people’s feathers? Do I tend to fix the blame or fix the problem?

Patience
Do I give people room to fail, and then help them look for the lessons of life that can be extracted from that failure?

Kindness
When working with people under my supervision or care, do I appeal to them kindly?

Gentleness
How do I deal with others’ failures, especially if it affects me? Self-control
The more you practice these things, the more fruitful you’ll be in your attitude, business, and family. So practice, practice, practice!

Finish Well
Each of us can live an extraordinary life with an attitude of excellence, but it must be diligently cultivated. Let’s take a look at four keys to living an extraordinary life.

Aim for the Right Target.
An attitude that attracts success begins with knowing which opportunities to accept and which to reject. This way you will begin to develop not just an existence but a LIFE.

Run the Right Race.
You cannot run someone else’s race; you can only run your own. If you run the wrong race, you’ll end up at the wrong finish line.

Understand What Satisfies Your Soul.
Contentment cannot be acquired directly. Truly content people are those whose aim in life is something much bigger than attaining mere contentment alone.

Learn to understand what truly satisfies you – what satisfies your soul. Otherwise, you will never develop an attitude of true contentment.

Make Contentment an Inside Job.
Contentment is vital in developing an extraordinary attitude and, as discussed in the previous point, must be aimed for instead of instant and all too temporary gratification.

The prisoner on the top bunk was staring out the window of his cell into the night sky. The stars were spread out in a splendid array, with an occasional shooting star making the evening sky a spectacular display of fireworks.

Calling to his cell mate in the bunk below, the man said, “Hey, wake up! Look at the stars! “Aw, leave me alone,” his cell mate grunted.

The stars tonight are the brightest I’ve ever seen!”

One prisoner saw the stars; the other saw the bars. It all depends on your attitude, doesn’t it? Contentment is an inside job.

Choose a good attitude that you might experience life the way it was meant to be lived!

But it takes training, discipline and desire to develop your perspective to see what’s good. Choose, because both will be present – the stars and the bars.

Look for the stars. You’re only one attitude away from a fantastic life!

BestSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides summaries of top self-help, motivational and inspirational books where you can learn–in minutes– what it takes to live life and live it well.  BestSummaries sends out one book summary every week in PDF, PDA, audio and/or print formats.  For more information, please go to http://www.bestsum.com.

~///~