Managing priorities is more than just making a to-do list. It’s about understanding what truly matters, making strategic decisions, and effectively allocating your time and resources. So, let’s dive right in! 1: Understanding Priorities First things first, what exactly are priorities? Priorities are tasks or activities that are more important than others and need your immediate attention. They’re the things that will move the needle in your life or...

Keeping our skills in sync with fast-changing markets is the biggest challenge of our time So says my guest today, Kelly Palmer, and her co-author David Blake. Kelly and David have written a brand new book called The Expertise Economy: How the Smartest Companies Use Learning to Engage, Compete and Succeed. They say that, in order for companies and their employees to succeed, they need to focus on building skills for the future. The book shows how the most forward-thinking companies, big...

My guest today asserts that we all want great ideas, but few of us actually understand how great ideas are born. Innovation, he says, is not an event, a workshop, a sprint, or a hackathon. It’s a result of mastering ideaflow, a practice that elevates everything else you do. His name is Jeremy Utley, and he is the coauthor, along with Perry Klebahn of IDEAFLOW: The Only Business Metric That Matters. They advocate a simple core principle: ideas matter. Instead of...

I love books on the topic of productivity. It’s a topic about which plenty of books have written. Some might argue we don’t need any more books on productivity. That is not the case for the latest productivity book I read. It’s now at the top of the list of best all-time productivity books in my view. It’s written by author Jordan Raynor and it’s called Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present & Wildly Productive. Jordan is a...

My friend and former mastermind group member, Steve Sponseller, was kind of enough to introduce me to today’s guest a few months ago and I am thrilled he did. His name is also Steve. Steve Shwartz to be specific: AI expert, investor, and serial entrepreneur. Steve began his AI career working with Roger Schank as a postdoctoral researcher in the Yale University Artificial Intelligence Lab. Steve was a founder or cofounder of several AI companies, one of which created the...

If there is a topic that has captured my attention more in the last three to four years, I don’t know what it is. I’m talking about the art of note-taking or, as I like to call it, note-making. It’s a phrase that makes a subtle distinction between notes we capture for learning (note-taking), and notes we write to help us think (note-making). Better thinking makes you a better person. And few things extend your mind as quickly and powerfully as the humble note....

What an awesome and incredibly important discussion I have for you today! It’s my long-awaited sit-down with none other than Marcus Buckingham. I first got the chance to hear Marcus speak fifteen, or maybe, twenty years ago at the annual Global Leadership Summit in Chicago. Marcus was captivating AND inspiring that day. His new book is fantastic! And, the good news for you is, it officially releases TODAY! It’s called Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You...

Today, I’m featuring one of the 9 books I’m most looking forward to in 2024. This marks the fourth author (or authors, in this case) of the nine I’ve manage to showcase so far. Who knows, maybe I’ll eventually interview all nine! Today’s guests are the coauthors of the book MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact. I believe it to be the handbook that everyone who wants to be successful in their career needs to read. The promise of this book is simple: if you buy...

Today’s episode is a milestone episode in so many ways. It’s episode 400, of course, but several other “yours, mine, and ours” type milestones are also at play. To hear about each one of them, click the play button below. Today’s guest, Liz Wiseman, has been one of my favorite leadership authors for the better part of fifteen years, ever since I first learned of her work with her first book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. But Multipliers needs to...

While technically today’s featured book was released in 2019 (December 31 to be exact), I’ve dubbed it my favorite book of 2020! Upon reading it, I immediately wanted to share it and attempt to teach its concepts to others. That, to me, is the mark of a great book. What is this amazing book? Well, it’s the New York Times bestseller Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by Dr. BJ Fogg. Or, as BJ would now call it if he could rename it, Tiny Habits: The Future of Behavior...

What an honor it is to be asked to participate in the launch of the 30th Anniversary Edition of the #1 business book of the 20th century! And what a treat it is to talk to the son and namesake of the author himself, Mr. Stephen M. R. Covey. I can honestly say, if the Read to Lead Podcast were to come to an end after today, I would be at complete peace with that. Why? Because today I am privileged to conduct what is arguably the single most important interview of my 30+ year career. Not...

If I had to make the difficult choice of selecting just 20 books to access for the remainder of my life, I could do a lot worse than the 20 written so far by today’s special guest. Seth Godin is special to me for a lot of reasons; not the least of which is he is almost singlehandedly responsible for helping rekindle my love of reading. Seth Godin image credit Darius Bashar and Archangel In fact, you could go so far as to say that, without Seth Godin, there’s a real good...

If there’s a topic not talked about all that much, it’s the topic of silence. The kind that says why speak up if you know that it won’t be received well and often makes things worse? Today’s guest, Elaine Lin Hering, explores how we’ve learned to be silent, how we’ve benefited from silence, how we’ve silenced other people—and how we might choose another way. She teaches ways to recognize and unlearn unconscious patterns so we can make more intentional choices about how...

As I say in today’s podcast, I buy this author’s books before I even know what they’re about. There are only a few of these kinds of authors on my list, but Michael Hyatt is one of them. His latest effort is a book called The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Question to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business. It is, in my estimation, a book that EVERY leader needs to read, especially now, what with all that is going on in our world today (I’m looking at you...

One of my favorite people to watch over the years has been Scott Miller. He interviews tons of wonderful authors for his podcasts and other projects. I learn something new every time I watch him work. I’m thrilled to be able to welcome him back for the second time to Read to Lead. The first time was back in 2019. This time we’re chatting about his new book (surprise!). It’s called Career On Course: 10 Strategies to Take Your Career from Accidental to Intentional....

Inside my online community, ReadtoLead+ members get access to a wide range of personal and professional development resources, including articles I publish not available anywhere else. One of those articles I published just yesterday and I’ve decided to share it here in audio form to help give you a sense of the kind of content you’ll find inside, should you desire to join us as a member. By the way, you can try it free for two weeks. Just go here. If you decide...

For the second week in a row, I’m delighted to welcome a guest whose book made my list of the 9 books I’m most looking forward to this year. That guest is the University of Georgia’s Malissa Clark. She’s written a new book, released just last week, called Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture is Bad for Business—and How to Fix It. Malissa says that many workers believe that, in order to compete with other top talent, they must embrace a culture that rewards long...

I’ve been a fan of today’s guest for several years and have probably watched over 100 of his YouTube videos. So, when the good folks over at Readwise reached out about making an introduction, I was elated. I’m talking about the world’s most-followed productivity expert, otherwise known as the one and only Ali Abdaal. Ali has written a brand new book that was released this past December, and I am delighted to feature it, and my chat with Ali, in this week’s episode. That...

When your name is Huggy, surely people can’t help but like you. And after meeting today’s “Huggy,” all I can say is, “What’s not to like?” Huggy Rao, along with Robert Sutton, have written a new book, out today, called The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.Every workplace, Huggy says, is clogged with friction—the convoluted, time-consuming, and soul-crushing gyrations that drive people crazy and undermine organizational...

Never has a guest appeared on the Read to Lead Podcast five times. In that the show is nearing its eleventh anniversary, though, the odds of that one day happening are increasing. In fact, that day is today, as Todd Henry indeed makes his fifth appearance on the podcast. His new book is called The Brave Habit: A Guide to Courageous Leadership. When your job requires you to solve problems, create things, or lead others through times of uncertainty, you have to make tough...

There’s no one I can think of who’s been as consistent in his encouragement toward what I do than Dan Miller. And, he never stops learning. A habit I’m quite fond of. 🙂 Dan is the kind of person I want to be in the lives of others. That’s why the first question I ask you to consider when pondering your own legacy is this: Who has had the most significant impact on your life and why? Answering this question will help you think about the kind of impact...

It still hasn’t quite sunk in for me. My friend, and a friend to so many around the world, Dan Miller, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given less than six months to live. Dan was my first-ever Read to Lead Podcast guest. He appeared again in episode #067, and two more times after that, including just last year.Dan is, of course, best known as the New York Times bestselling author of the book 48 Days to the Work (and Life) You Love.His life has impacted...

Like any other year before, there are literally tens of thousands of books set to be released this year. Needless to say, it can be hard whittling down what to pay attention to and what to ignore. I’ve attempted to take some of the guesswork out of it for you by selecting nine books I’m really looking forward to reading this year. Here they are in order of their release date. Note that my first selection is actually a book that came out last week—making it,...

These days, like you perhaps, I read just about everything I can get my hands on pertaining to artificial intelligence. Books on this topic a still few, but that’s beginning to change one year removed from the buzz that was the launch of ChatGPT. That’s why I was excited to learn about Autonomous Transformation, the new book by Brian Evergreen. We are in the midst, Brian says, of an unprecedented degree of technology-driven change at the same time that society faces...

Easily the highlight of my career was the 13+ years I spent with WAY-FM Media Group from 2000 to 2013. My time there included having Dusty Rhodes as a colleague. Dusty recently reached out and introduced me to author Bob Tiede. Bob is the man behind the blog Leading With Questions, inspired by the book we’re featuring today. That book is indeed called Leading With Questions: How Leaders Discover Powerful Answers by Knowing How and What to Ask, written with Dr. Michael J....