Tag Archives: 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com
Rules of the New Renaissance in Jeff Goins’ Best-Seller
On Friday, August 4, I will present a synopsis of the best-seller by Jeff Goins, Real Artists Don’t 
Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age (Thomas Nelson, 2017). If you have not yet registered for the First Friday Book Synopsis this week, you can still do so at a discounted price at www.15minutebusinessbooks.com.
Goins’ premise is very simple:
“Making a living off your creative talent has never been easier….the idea of the Starving Artist is a useless myth that holds us back more than it helps us” (p. xvi).
Here is a teaser from Friday’s presentation. If you cannot attend, you can access this within a few days at our 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com site.
In the introduction of the book, he discusses the myths of the starving artist, by presenting twelve rules of the new Renaiassance (p. xvii-xviii).
With those rules, he contrasts starving and thriving artists.
Here are those myths:
|
Starving Artist |
Thriving Artist |
| Believes you must be born an artist | Knows you must become one |
| Strives to be original | Steals from his influences |
| Believes he has enough talent | Apprentices under a master |
| Acts stubborn about everything | Acts stubborn about the right things |
| Waits to be noticed | Cultivates patrons |
| Believes he can be creative anywhere | Goes where creative work is already happening |
| Always works alone | Collaborates with others |
| Does his work in private | Practices in public |
| Works for free | Always works for something |
| Sells out too soon | Owns his work |
| Masters one craft | Masters many |
| Despises the need for money | Makes money to make art |
Save the Date for CCN Domestic Violence Conference
second Domestic Violence conference on Purple Shirt Day – Friday, October 20, from 9:00 – 11:45 a.m., benefiting Hope’s Door and the New Beginning Center in Garland. 
Inductive Reasoning Also Finds Its Way Into Persuasive Speaking
In a previous blog post, I wrote about reasoning as a prerequisite to organizing and wording arguments in a persuasive speech. We teach the important principles of parallelism and alliteration in our Speech Class Refresher program. You can read that post by clicking here.
In that post, I focused upon deductive reasoning, of which there are two types: syllogistic and enthymematic.
I did not mean for anyone to interpret that post to think that I do not also believe in inductive reasoning in a persuasive speech.
There are four types of inductive reasoning:
by example – give an incident that illustrates the argument; note that an extended example is a case or story – “President Ford introduced WIN – whip inflation now – as a major initiative to turn around economic conditions.”
by cause – show that there is a factor that is a force that produces some effect; always start with the effect – if it is good, put more resources behind the causal factor; if it is bad, minimize or eliminate the factor – “Illegal immigrants have helped businesses maintain steady employment wages.”
by analogy – show that what is true in one case is also true in another; the underlying assumption is that the two items being compared are highly similar – “Truman ended the conflict with Japan by dropping two nuclear bombs. If Trump does the same with North Korea, we will end any conflict we have with them.”
by sign – make an observation that infers some effect or outcome – since it depends upon an inference, it is the weakest type of inductive reasoning – “The current construction that we now see of new homes and apartment complexes in our city indicate that our local economy is getting stronger.”
Company Offer for Employee Access to Our 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com Site
We offer substantial per-person discounts to our 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com site to medium and large-size companies which purchase annual subscriptions for all of its employees. This is a terrific benefit to employment in the company, and one that benefits individuals as well as the organization.
Here are details:
|
SITUATION |
Many employees in your company are interested in business trends, as represented in best-selling books. However, they neither take the time to read them, nor choose to expend personal funds to purchase them. This creates a knowledge gap which can limit their effectiveness, but that you can easily remedy through the offer you are reading. |
| IDEA | Add an annual company-wide subscription to 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com for all your employees as one of the benefits you offer employees. |
|
HOW IT WORKS |
Employees will have unlimited access to the 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com site, which contains content from over 400 business best-sellers published in the last 20 years. The site provides a PDF file, containing the important content from each book, along with an audio recording from its actual presentation at the First Friday Book Synopsis. The content is neither an editorial, nor a review, but rather, a true information transfer. Some have described it as an “oral Cliff’s Notes.” Since each recording lasts only 15 minutes, an employee can obtain essential information very efficiently, and at his or her personal convenience.
The annual subscription can be listed by your company as one of the benefits for employment. The subscription allows for unlimited access to the site by each employee in your company for one full year.
Any employee who holds a current subscription to the site will receive a pro-rated refund once the new benefit is in place.
The retail value of each subscription is $199 per person. You may purchase the company-wide subscription at up to a 90% discount from the retail price. This is of great value to you.
Your company will have its own link on our 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com website, which your employees can easily access with a built-in password. You can also link to the site from your own website.
Your employees’ access to the site is implied consent to the agreement that the link is for their individual personal and professional use, and may not be shared with non-employees, or other persons outside your company. |
| BENEFITS | The subscription allows employees instant access to important business knowledge, enhancing their effectiveness for customers, and improving their own professional development.
The subscription provides your company with another important perk for membership at a discounted price to you, thus providing value to current employees, and creating an important hook to attract new employees to your company. |
| NEXT STEPS | We can provide you with a one-page Letter of Agreement to begin the process, and work with your IT professionals or webmaster to provide a seamless gateway to our site within 15 days. The total payment is due 15 days after the contract is signed by both parties. |
| For complete information and to answer questions about this offer, contact: | |
| (214) 577-8025 | |
Learning Leadership Means Debunking Popular Myths
On Friday at the First Friday Book Synopsis at the Dallas Park City Club, I will present this best-seller:
Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. Learning leadership: The five fundamentals of becoming an
exemplary leader. San Francisco: Wiley.
If you have not yet registered, simply click here and save money from the on-site price.
The book’s authors are James Kouzes and Barry Posner. Kouzes is pictured on the left, and Posner is on the right. Their other famous books are The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart.
Early in the book, the authors address whether leaders are born or made. Here is what they say:
“Asking, ‘Are leaders born or made?’ is not a very productive question. It’s the old nature versus nurture argument, and it doesn’t get at a more important question that must be asked and answered. The more useful question is ‘Can you, and those you work with, become better leaders than you are today?’ The answer to that question is a resounding yes” (p. 4).
Just a few pages later, the authors talk about some myths associated with leadership:
Four Myths (pp. 5-11)
Talent myth – Leadership is not a talent, “but an observable, learnable set of skills and abilities. Leadership is distributed in the population like any other set of skills” (p. 5).
Position myth – Leadership is not a rank, title, or place
Strengths myth – You cannot do your best without searching for challenges, doing things you’ve never done, making mistakes, and learning from them
Self-reliance myth – the best leaders know they can’t do it alone
If you miss the synopsis live this Friday, you can access it later at 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com.
Brad Stone is Optimistic in The Upstarts
On Friday, April 7, I present a synopsis of The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, 
and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World (New York: Little Brown, 2017).
The author is Brad Stone, who previously wrote the best-seller, The Everything Store (Back Bay Books, 2014), about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com.
You can register to hear this presentation at the First Friday Book Synopsis for just $29 online by clicking on: www.15minutebusinessbooks.com. The site also has directions to the Park City Club. Breakfast opens at 7:00 a.m., and we end the session at 8:05 a.m.
In the book, Stone is optimistic about the future of these companies:
“Both Travis Kalanick and Brian Chesky had made big promises: to eliminate traffic, improve the livability of our cities, and give people more time and more authentic experiences. If these promises are kept, the results might be well worth the mishaps and mistakes that occurred during their journeys; perhaps they’ll even be worth the enormous price paid by the disrupted.
“And if they can’t meet their own lofty goals? Or if the intensity of competition pushes them further toward a ruthless, win-at-all-costs mentality? Then Uber and Airbnb risk validating the worst claims of their critics – that they used technology and clever business plans merely to replace one set of dominant companies with another, amassing a staggering amount of wealth in the process.
“I’m more optimistic than that. I believe in the power and potential of the upstart s and have frequently admired their resourceful, adaptive CEO’s. But it’s up to us to hold them to their promises. They are the new architects of the twenty-first century, every bit as powerful as political leaders and now completely enmeshed in an establishment that they have, at times, bitterly fought” (pp. 331-332).
