The Good Life Rules: 8 Keys to Being Your Best at Work and at Play - Hardcover

DODGE

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071508384 ISBN 13: 9780071508384

Verlag: McGraw Hill, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Learn one of the most life-changing messages in the world from one of its most dynamic speakers.

Bryan Dodge’s message is spreading from coast tocoast--and transforming lives day by day. With 600,000radio listeners at Dallas’ WBAP--and hundreds ofspeaking engagements each year, Dodge definitely hassomething to say. Something that could change yourlife . . . in 48 hours.

His message is this: the good life is within our reach--once we know how to find it. His simple but powerfullessons show us the way to find more satisfaction atwork and at home, how to embrace change, createupward growth, and focus on the things that really matter.These are The Good Life Rules.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bryan Dodge is one of today's most celebrated experts on personal and professional growth, with hundreds of thousands of fans across the United States and Canada. Renowned for his spirited delivery, down-home wit, and common touch, Bryan makes more than 300 appearances each year for corporate clients like IBM, Dell, American Airlines, and Bank of America. He hosts the popular “Build a Better You” radio show on Dallas WBAP, and his monthly newsletter reaches more than 20,000 people.

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THE GOOD LIFE RULES

8 KEYS TO BEING YOUR BEST AT WORK AND AT PLAYBy BRYAN DODGE MATTHEW RUDY

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Bryan Dodge
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-150838-4

Contents

Chapter One

Rule 1 The Fundamental Rule: Be Willing to Change

You're here to have The Good Life. That's why we're all here. That's the reason we have careers and build families and try so hard—or at least it should be. But too many people think they can't have it—that they aren't smart enough or talented enough or lucky enough, or that there isn't enough time in the day.

That's just not true.

You can have The Good Life, and I'm going to show you how. Over the course of these pages, I'm going to introduce you to the eight rules for The Good Life—a systematic combination of strategies and techniques that have been working long before you and I were on this earth. I'm just a guy who is helping deliver the message in an organized, inspirational way. I've lived these keys in my own life for more than thirty years, and I've been fortunate that thousands of organizations have trusted me with their most precious resource—their people.

Getting Ready for The Good Life

My basic message for you here is the same one that has inspired sales staffs and reassured employees whose companies were going through tough times. It's the same one my kids have been hearing from me since they could understand my words. Anybody—and I mean anybody—can have The Good Life. You just need to learn the right rules.

Are you tired of feeling like you're just putting in time at your job?

Or maybe you've got some exciting, positive opportunities in front of you, and you want to learn how to better prepare for the changes that are going to come with those new opportunities.

Do you want to feel inspired by what you do again?

Are you just starting out in a new job, and you want to begin with the right attitudes and habits so you can be successful?

Do you want to feel excited when you get home and see your family and have them be excited to see you?

Do you want your energy back?

Are you weighed down by feelings of uncertainty in your job or with your family?

All of these situations and feelings are completely normal and common in a world where our schedules are so crowded with responsibilities and obligations—both the ones we pick and the ones that are picked for us. The thought of wrestling life into a manageable system can certainly be intimidating, especially if you don't know where to start.

That's where The Good Life Rules come in.

And what are those rules? Let me give you a quick look at the map of our entire journey, chapter by chapter. When you see it, I think you'll be excited about where we're headed, and the journey won't seem so daunting. And you'll see why the first rule, the willingness to change, is the battery that makes the entire process work:

The Good Life Rules

1. The willingness to change. Recognizing the need to adapt to what's going on around you. Nothing changes until you change. Once you change, everything changes.

2. The willingness to learn. A step-by-step guide to expanding your knowledge base. Nothing new in, nothing new out.

3. Getting to the why in life: the EAT plan. Training your-self to see new opportunities and understanding how to find the inspiration behind them.

4. The diminishing intent key: getting to why. Learning to act decisively on the important things. Those who focus on the how in life always end up working for those who focus on the why.

5. Choosing to be faithful. Appreciating what you have before you lose it. Good people appreciate what they have before they lose it. Average people only appreciate those good things once they're gone.

6. Creating new habits. Breaking the cycle of bad habits and replacing them with good ones. We're not looking for New Year's resolutions. We're looking for a new way of living life.

7. Sharing knowledge. Become an effective leader in your life. Don't think you're a leader? You are if somebody's relying on you.

8. Streamlining your life. Learning how to say no. You can't grow in life until you learn to say no.

Once you have learned these rules, you need to put them all together, turning your new changes into lifelong traits. The greatest asset a company has is its people. So if the people grow, the company and the industry will become better places for us to be.

I want to make one promise to you right up front. For each one of these rules, I'm going to give you more than just a bunch of empty words. When people call me a motivational speaker, I wonder what they're talking about, because I don't think that describes me at all. I'm not here to motivate you. Take an idiot and motivate him and you've got a motivated idiot—somebody who's full of energy and activity, but none of it is directed at the tasks that are most important. My job is to inspire you and help you get to where you want to go. I promise to help you understand the why behind each of these rules and to give you concrete, specific methods for implementing the keys in your life. Focus on the how and you'll be motivated. Focus on the why and you'll be inspired.

One basic truth about change is that allowing comfort, procrastination, and fear to convince you to avoid change will leave you with less tomorrow than you have today. You can't stay still on a bicycle. You'll fall over. The easier you are on yourself when nobody is around, the harder life will be on you. The flip side is true, too. Work harder on yourself and life gets easier, and your job starts working for you instead of the other way around. You learn new skills, change the way you make choices—get The Good Life. Change where you're looking and the motivations for what you're doing. Let that anger and those grudges go, so you can grow.

Are You Willing to Change?

Let's start with the willingness to change rule, and I'll show you what I mean.

I think the word change is unsettling for a lot of people—especially in business—because it's been used as a code word for things nobody would want to hear. "Changes" in market mean we have to make some "changes" in the organizational structure. Even when the word doesn't mean the potential loss of a job, it can cause some fear. You hear that you have to change because it's good for the company, or change for your career, or change because the world is changing.

In this chapter, I will show you how to take the fear and uncertainty of change and turn it into optimism and enthusiasm. Once you embrace this new attitude, you'll understand that becoming open to change and willing to do things differently puts you in position to choose the direction of those changes. It's the difference between buying a specific ticket for a certain place at the airport and getting on the right plane, or getting shoved into a random Jetway and onto a plane that's going to a place you didn't pick—and didn't pack for.

Deciding What's Important

Let me tell you about an eye-opening experience in my own life to show you what I mean. When I was a kid, growing up in Colorado, my mother kept a house that made the Cleavers' house look completely disorganized. Everything had its place. Of course, when I got married, I just assumed that that was the way things were supposed to be. Early in our marriage, my wife and I both worked,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw Hill
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0071508384
• ISBN 13: 9780071508384
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: McGraw-Hill Education; https://www.mheducation.co.in/; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italien