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Hi, my name is Erik. I own a B2B branding agency called Focus Lab. I enjoy writing, speaking, and coaching around the theme of movement. Whether you're trying to start moving, move faster, or move in a better direction, movement is the key. I currently have two spots available if you'd like to learn more about coaching.

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Recent writing

Some are quick thoughts, some are longer articles, and some are in between. If you like what you read here, consider signing up for my newsletter so you don't have to check the website for the latest.

Book Notes

As I read books, I take notes and capture passages that I find helpful, valuable, or challenging. I publish some of them on my site. Here's the most recent set of notes I've published.

This is one of the first books I read in the lead­er­ship or per­son­al growth cat­e­go­ry. It was a great intro to that type of learn­ing for me. For some, the teach­ing-by-para­ble approach may feel cheesy. I don’t mind it, though, so I enjoyed the book. That said, the con­cepts and lessons of this book are very easy and quick to con­sume and under­stand. That is to say, the sto­ry isn’t a neces­si­ty to con­sid­er the ideas. It’s one of the short­est books you’ll find on the top­ic, though. So I think it’s still worth the read even if para­bles aren’t real­ly your thing.

There are three main things you’ll get from this book: con­sid­er­ing and chal­leng­ing assumed con­straints, lear­ing about what the authors call points of pow­er,” and the impor­tance of being proac­tive. Addi­tion­al­ly, the authors talk about how to use these things to take ini­tia­tive when you’re not offi­cial­ly in charge.

This book is an easy rec­om­men­da­tion for me. I believe every­one has some­thing they can either learn or be remind­ed of in this short book. Ken Blanchard’s books are almost always short reads with a focus on a few key con­cepts. I’ve learned a lot from him and think you can too.

Note that I read the 2005 edi­tion of this book. There’s an updat­ed and revised ver­sion I’ll even­tu­al­ly read which may lead to me updat­ing my notes below.

Read the Notes

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