Giveaway - Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath

Chip & Dan Heath

At a recent Conference, held here in Toronto, I had the opportunity to hear one of my heroes speak. Yes, Tony Robbins was there and was great as Tony always is, but I have to say I was more excited to hear Chip Heath. Now, the name may not ring as many immediate bells for you as Tony Robbins’ name may, but, together with his brother Dan, Chip Heath is the author of two of my favourite business books – Made to Stick and Switch. It was a pleasure then to hear him speak about their most recent book release – Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work.

We are bombarded daily with the need to make a multitude of decisions, ranging from the relatively inconsequential to those of significant import to our lives and careers. As the Heath brothers point out though, our decisions are influenced, typically unconsciously, by an array of biases, irrationalities, emotions, and information all serving to make our decision making process flawed.

The point of the book is, of course, to provide strategies and tools to help us to make better decisions. If this book serves only to help you stop agonizing over your decisions, or to establish better team and group decision-making processes, or assists you in breaking through those difficult personal decisions, it will be worth its price. Given that I am offering you an opportunity to get this book for free… it is beyond worth it!

Simply follow the directions below to get your name entered into the Great Book Giveaway! If you have read the book, I encourage you to leave your thoughts about it in the comments. The contest runs until August 20 when I will select a randomly drawn entrant. If you wanted to tweet the link to this giveaway, or post it to your blog or favourite social networking site, you will receive an additional entry for each. Just post where you have linked us in the comments section.

Getting Gritty to Get Ahead

One of my favourite movies when I was younger was True Grit, starring John Wayne as the irascible Rooster Cogburn.  Though the movie was recently remade, nothing touches the original 1969 version in my mind.  For me, the image of John Wayne in this role and Kim Darby as Mattie Ross come to mind whenever I hear the term Grit.  The movie revolves around a young woman looking to hire a man with 'true grit' to help her hunt down her father's murderer.  Throughout the movie Mattie continues to demonstrate that she has more grit than any of the men she was looking to hire.  Perhaps that's why the movie appealed so much to me, the thought that we may just discover within ourselves, that which we think we need to find externally.

Grit isn't a term that you typically hear others using.  Think of 'Grit' being a passion and perseverance for long-term goals.  It is persistence and tenacity, stick-to-itiveness and fortitude, it is living life like it a marathon and not a sprint.  So much contained within four letters.  Recently, the term Grit has been making a comeback within business circles.  New research being conducted has found that the number one characteristic that is the key predictor of Success is not IQ, not EQ, not even how charismatic or good looking you are, it's... Grit.

This begs the question of course... just how do you go about developing your grit?  There is no straight-forward answer to this but recent work from Stanford University on the Growth Mindset just may prove to be laying the foundation for the right path.  Their works highlights that you have the ability to grow and change your brain in response to challenges.  As you face new challenges and work to overcome them, you develop and strengthen your perseverance.  Those that give up... don't.

But this means that failure is required.  There is a need to face challenges in which success is not a given.  Grit is developed in those moments of failure.  If you let your failure define you, you're done.  Instead, grit requires you learn to recognise that failure is not a permanent condition.  The acceptance of this belief is necessary to persist, to push through.  You have to belief that there is better, that there are other alternatives to failure, and therefore you continue to push for the result you want.

Tenacity.  Perseverance.  Fortitude.  Grit.

As it turns out, these are the words forming the backbone of success.