February was a great month, and it seems like it flew by! I learned a lot, and I am excited to share a glimpse of that with you in this month’s learning inventory. I hope you find something here that resonates with you and that leads you to greater learning in your own life. Enjoy!

February Reading List

The bulk of my reading time was invested in  Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. I started it at the end of January, and it took me a few weeks to get through it. It’s awesome! It’s a huge book, but it’s awesome! There are 600+ pages of insights and advice from some of the most successful people in the world in a very wide array of fields. I highly recommend it. A lot of the quotes in this post will come from this book.

After taking so long to read Tribe of Mentors, I felt like I needed to get into a shorter, more digestible book. Last summer, a friend of mine recommended No Excuses Leadership: Nine Bold Choices Exceptional Leaders Make. I’ve had it sitting on my bookshelf for about 6 months, so I figured I should jump into it. I’m glad I did. It is definitely written for educational leaders, but it is something that can be applied to leaders in any organization. It is a short, actionable read, and at the end of each chapter, the author gives us specific action steps that we can put into practice. There are a lot of great topics in the book (9 to be exact), but the one that resonated with me the most was Chapter 7: “Choose to Feed and Be Fed.” That chapter was what motivated me to write the post, “Learning and Doing.” Find the balance between being fed (learning) and feeding others (doing/sharing). This book probably isn’t going to be a New York Times Bestseller, but it was a solid read.

Next, I turned to another book that I’ve had sitting on the shelf since September: Put Your Dream to the Test: 10 Questions to Help You See It and Seize It by John Maxwell. Although it was originally published in 2009, I had never heard of it before my principal gave it to me this fall. It was a great book! It challenged me to reflect on what my dream really is, and it challenged me to map out a plan for achieving that dream. The first chapter asks, “Is your dream really your dream?” Once you start reflecting on it, that’s actually a much more difficult question to answer than it might seem at face value. I’ve wrestled with this question before, and I still wrestle with it. I think one thing that happens to many of us is we get too good at the wrong thing. We do something because someone else suggests “you’d be good at this.” Then we are not intentional about identifying and chasing our own dreams, and the next thing you know, we’re stuck in “The American Dream.” This actually happened to me today. A friend of mine said, “You know, in a year or 2, you should apply for… That would be a great position for you.” I looked at her, and I said, “I don’t want to get too good at the wrong thing. If I applied for a position like that, it would be a nice bump in pay, and it would be a respectable position. However, it very well could put me on a road that actually leads me further away from my dream.” Read this book. It will challenge you to reflect, and it will move you to take action on YOUR dream, even if it’s just one step in the right direction.

 Great Articles/Blog Posts

Want To Become a Millionaire? Do These 15 Things Immediately.
While the title of this is about “becoming a millionaire,” the article really isn’t. It’s about “becoming the kind of person who does influential work.” It’s a very well done article, and I learned a lot from it. What are you learning? Why are you learning? Are you investing in yourself? Where are you investing your time? Why are you working? What motivates you? These are all questions that I wrestled with as I read this article. Here’s one of the quotes from the article that stuck with me:

“The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire.” — Jim Rohn

Shouldn’t that be what we are striving for? To become the best person we can possibly be?

How To Hire A Great Leader
It’s March 1st, so that means it’s “hiring season” in the world of education. The shuffle is starting to take place as teachers, coaches, and administrators start looking for opportunities to move up, move on, or expand their influence. In my school district, we are opening multiple new schools, so that means there is A LOT of hiring to do. I have a group of guys that I text pretty much on a daily basis. They are “my guys.” They are all educational leaders, and they are all in that same boat right now. Yesterday, one of them sent a text to the group, ” I need an interview question that fishes out whether or not the person being interviewed is a life-long learner.” That lead to a great discussion. That’s why I love these guys. They’re deep thinkers. They’re reflective. They’re learners. If you ask a question, you’re going to get a thoughtful answer. Well, my contribution to the discussion was simply sharing the link to this article. Ryan Hawk (I talked about his “Learning Leader” podcast in January’s Learning Inventory) wrote a great article about interviewing and questioning candidates. Even if you don’t use any of the questions he asks in the article, it will get you thinking about how to fish out what you are really looking for. There are lots of great insights to be found in this article. If you are in a position that requires you to interview/hire, I would highly recommend it.

Podcast I’m Loving

Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
I have been listening to this podcast off and on for a while now, but I tend to forget about this podcast because new episodes only come out once a month. It’s unfortunate that I forget because it is always packed with good stuff. Episodes usually only last 20-30 minutes. The January 31st Podcast, “Motivating Your Team,” was excellent! You can listen to Craig Groeschel’s podcast on iTunes, or you can watch the video of it by clicking here.

Quotes That Hit Home

There are a lot this month! I tried to be more intentional this month about keeping up with quotes as I read/listened to various resources, and as I sat down to write this, I was shocked at how many I had kept up with. I tried to whittle the list down a little for you. I hope you find one that you can chew on for a while.

“The tricky thing about life is, on the one hand having the courage to enter into things that are unfamiliar, but also having the wisdom to stop exploring when you’ve found something worth sticking around for” – Sebastian Junger

“One of the most demotivating things we can do as a leader is consistently accept unacceptable performance.” – Craig Groeschel

“When you’re creative, you render competition obsolete because there is only one you, and no one can do things exactly the way you do. Never worry about the competition. When you’re creative, you can, in fact, cheer others on with the full knowledge that their success will undoubtedly be your own”. – Terry Crews (From Tribe of Mentors)

“90% of us, when asked about our passion, will cite somebody else’s dream.” – Don Wettrick (From the 1% Better Podcast)

“The possession of trust is always worth more than the absence of it. Do everything in your power to gain the trust of people and everything in your power not to lose it.” – Brian Kight

“You can’t be a good person and An average leader and expect an elite Culture to form below you.” – Brian Kight

“Getting everyone ‘on board’ is a myth. You will never get everyone on board. You’re always going to have someone, somewhere, at sometime, pissed off at you about something. Stop trying to please everyone!” – Damen Lopez

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” – Abraham Lincoln

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do… A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” – Tim Ferriss

“If you want to live your dream,… Focus on what YOU can do, not what others, fate, or luck must do for you to succeed.” – John Maxwell

“The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at what they enjoy.” – Malcolm Forbes

“The greatest value of your dream wont be would get from it; it will be who you become by pursuing it.“ – John Maxwell

Thanks for sticking with me over the last couple of months. Every time someone reads or shares my blog, I am blown away. I really appreciate you. I’m growing so much by taking the time to write and reflect, and I hope that you are getting something out of it as well. March is going to be awesome! Spring break will be here in less than two weeks, and I’ve got some great books waiting to be read!