Category: Books

Sometimes it helps to be reminded of the need to be gracious. And what strikes me about the laws of lifetime growth (as summarised by John Moore over at Brand Autopsy) is that the laws emphasise the need for grace — they challenge us to see the bigger picture, to out-think a situation or problem and to focus on innovation as an extension of our own personal development.

And while there is nothing earth shattering in the list, the challenge as always is about how you go about implementing these things in a meaningful way. But the best thing about this post, is that it led me to the Dig Tank. I particularly like the Business Brick Yard and some of the practical things that we can do to make our customer’s experience of us better. Oh, isn’t that marketing? No, it is Law 2 — "Always make your learning greater than your experience."

S.

So he has finally done it! Noel has his own blog, and is posting copies of his creative writing … all downloadable for free. Check out the first instalment — The Death and Life of Eureka O’Reilly.

Travelling always makes me quiver. There is something profoundly existentially unsettling in moving across borders.

So as I am perusing the book shelves at the airport, I am naturally attracted to a book with familiarity. But it is not just familiarity, it is an empathy with the writing of the author that I am attracted to.

Eva Hoffman’s The Secret was a book I had never even heard about. Whenever I am in a bookshop I always look for her work, usually finding only copies of books I already have. So this came as a surprise.

I am still reading through it from the hotel room and have deduced already some of the plot. But is that a problem? It is not the story that holds me, it is the manner of its telling.

Eva Hoffman’s stories generate organically from a deep sense of personal history. The narrative she follows forms points of collision – where real and imagined histories coincide with her story. It is this depth, this layering, that makes her writing so compelling.

Again, I return to the primacy of narrative. Without the story, we have nothing to say. When we meet someone, we tell them our story (about our life, work, family) so that they can come to some knowledge of "us". What is your story? Can you tell it well? I think there is a secret to storytelling and it has something to do with authenticity. More to come on this!

S.