In an email to me, one of our contributors, Tom Vanderbeck, put forth the notion that "One can effectively lead and empower others only to the extent that one can demonstrate compassion, mastery, and accountability for self-leadership."

I found Tom's message and approach both timely and practical, so I asked him if I could share his insights with our readers. He said "yes". We have therefore been very pleased to offer Tom's new book, serialised in free, downloadable parts.
  A Primer on Compassionate, Proactive Self Leadership and Personal Accountability ... for conversations at the kitchen table

Clearly, others were also impressed by Tom's work.

The FOREWORD was written by Ken Blanchard ("The One Minute Manager"® & "Leading at a Higher Level"). Here's an excerpt from Ken's Foreword:

"Tom offers a unique perspective on self leadership and encouragement for realizing our potentials to create a life of growth, purpose, contribution, sharing, and fulfillment. He will teach you how to transcend "Spiritual Amnesia" and the "Negative Automatic Program" and will offer you practical and proactive skills for personal power."

Here's an extract I like which offers a little more on Tom's approach:

"Many of us have not been aware of two essential components of human consciousness, the Negative Automatic Program, or 'NAP', and Spiritual Amnesia. This doubly unfortunate lack of awareness severely limits our experiences of awakening our personal potentials. I call this way of being 'Not Playing with a Full Deck'. The truth is we were all dealt a full deck of cards for playing the game of life. However, none of us were made aware of the Two Jokers, the NAP and Spiritual Amnesia. When we feel confused, frustrated, and unfulfilled; and conclude that we have not been 'Playing With A Full Deck'; the problem has not been too few cards, but two too many."

The LeaderValues community is already very familiar with some of Tom's practical and well-researched contributions. For example, 'Business Leadership for Industry', 'Ed Norton Contractor Case Study; and 'A Simple Bright White Belt' .

You can now download and read of a series of seven installments.

Foreword by Ken Blanchard, and Chapter One:  The Quest to Find Myself
Chapter Two:  The Negative Automatic Program
Chapter Three:  Spiritual Amnesia
Chapter Four:  Transcending the NAP
Chapter Five:  Response-Ability
Chapter Six:  Recovery from Spiritual Amnesia
Chapter Seven:  Self Actualization

Here are the chapters:
 

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Introduction & Foreword

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 1

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 2

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 3

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 4

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 5

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 6

DOWNLOAD HERE: Playing with a Full Deck - Part 7

Public speaking is possibly one of the most feared activities, even by professional businessmen. It is also one of the most essential skills to master.

Being the main speaker at an event can provide you with an opportunity to build new relationships and attract new business.

Your speech will allow the first stage of a connection to be formed before you engage in any conversation. A well delivered speech will assure any prospective new clients that you understand your subject and will be able to help them. Public speaking will offer the following benefits to your business.

Adopt a forward thinking attitude

Planning a speech requires you to evaluate what an event is looking for. The easiest way of doing this is to find out what the theme is and how previous speakers have handled it. You will need to obtain a copy of the event guidelines to ensure your speech remains within them. This approach will guarantee you are building your forward thinking skills; you need to understand your market and to prepare accordingly. You also need to look at where your business is going in order to talk about it properly within your speech. A forward thinking attitude is essential to any business leader as you must always be planning ahead and looking at what the market is going to do, not what it is doing now.

Become aware of your marketing potential

Giving a public speech is an excellent opportunity to market your business. You should never dwell on the company. Instead mention it just once or twice and make sure your speech is good enough to have your audience hooked. If you manage this they will seek you out after the speech for more information and potential sale discussions.

Be organized and your speech will be successful

Preparing a speech means that you need to think about your subject, what the company is currently doing and how this will change in the future. In essence, preparing a speech forces you to take a good look at the way you currently operate and why this is the case. This will allow you to see better operating procedures and principles for the future.

Read the rest of Jason's article ...