About Michael Hyatt

I have heard the blogging experts talk about all kinds of things, from blogging platforms to SEO. But I rarely hear them talk about the one thing that is essential: content. All of these other items are interesting, but none of them will help you if you don’t write great—or at least, pretty good—blog posts.

Most people believe that somehow, if they can just find the right system, they can get everything done. I think this is a myth bordering on an outright lie. You can’t do it all. Time is a limited resource. In my experience, the key to work/life balance begins by getting crystal clear on your priorities.

or several years now, I have profited from using a “Master Task List.” This is a way to group your work-related activities so that you do what you were hired to do and keep from getting side-tracked by “trivial pursuits.” It is something you should develop before you start throwing together a to-do list.

Everything important requires work. Hard work. And sometimes there is a long arc between the dream and it’s realization. That’s when we want to quit, but that is also where the work and the transformation occur.

You wouldn’t want to attempt to climb Mount Everest, get half way up the mountain, and then discover that this is your guide’s first climb. Neither do you want to follow the advice of someone who is (as they say in Texas) “all hat and no cattle.” Reading a few books and articles on social media is not the same as building a successful social media platform.

In summary, the greatest obstacle you face could be your greatest opportunity. It really comes down to your response to it.

The one thing that will keep you from settling is courage. This is the only thing that gives life to the dream once the initial magic wears off. In my experience, there are six ways to find the courage you need to swim against the tide and stand for wow.

Our interaction with the Web and the expectations it creates have shaped what we expect from our leaders. Therefore, if leaders are going to be effective with the current generation of Internet-savvy followers, they must adapt their leadership style. I call this Leadership 2.0.

Saturday night, Gail and I went to the Nashville Symphony with our daughter, Mary, and her husband, Chris. Mary had bought tickets for Gail’s birthday. It was a magnificent evening. Toward the end of the evening, it occurred to me that conducting and leading have a lot in common.

I received an email yesterday from a young lady who wanted to write a book. She complained that neither publishers nor agents would give her a chance. According to her, their main objection was that she didn’t have a platform. “How can I get a platform,” she wrote, “if no one will publish me?”

Knowing that I had recently upgraded my blog, one of my readers wrote to ask, “You wrote a post a year ago or so, providing an overview of your then-current blogging tools. Has anything changed in the last year? What tools are you using now?” Rather than replying to him individually, I thought I would post my answer here.

As I got up this morning, I realized how very similar worry and imagination
really are. Both of them involve visualizing the future. In a sense, worry is
simply an unproductive use of imagination.

As I was driving back to the office, I began to speculate about how many procedures my own company has that may be superfluous? What are we doing that is no longer necessary or useful? How much cost and frustration does this add for our customers and other key constituents? Probably more than I’d like to admit.

There are numerous things you have zero control over. You can’t control the weather, the economy, or the actions of others. Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about these things. It’s a complete waste of time. Worry does nothing to change them. It only makes us miserable. It also turns us into victims.

Everything you say has an effect. Even the things you don’t say—your attitude, your facial expressions, and your body language. All. Have. An. Effect.

This is the beginning of a series of posts I am calling, “Book Marketing 101: What Works and What Doesn’t.” I have wanted to write this series for a long time. There are so many opinions when it comes to marketing books. I certainly don’t have the last word on this topic, but I do have some experience.

I cleaned out my bedroom closet this morning. I’m not sure what got me started. But once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I literally got rid of half my stuff.

Rather than reviewing one book this week, I thought I would share my favorite business books. I get asked this question regularly, most recently when I was lecturing at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Business School earlier this week.

From my point of view, there are seven things that are important in building an online brand, particularly if you are an author.

But Tribes represents a subtle shift in focus. It is a book about a profound change that is taking place in marketing. While leadership and marketing are both about influence, leadership is influence without self-interest. This is what makes leadership the most powerful kind of marketing possible.

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I won’t reiterate all the reasons I continue to use Twitter, but suffice it to say, it makes it easier to stay connected to the people I love, enjoy, and learn from. As such, I thought I would share a list of just some of the people I am following and who they are. Consider this a sort of Twitter “Shout Out.”

As long as you have to have meetings, you might as well do them well. Before you plan another meeting (and suffer the rest of us to sit through them), make a commitment to do the following:

Last week, in honor of our new dress code, I wore jeans every single day. I loved how much more productive I felt. I don’t know if it was the jeans per say or just the change of pace. Regardless, I like it.

But I am noticing that that a new model of leadership is taking root in many organizations, including our own here at Thomas Nelson. In this model, the leader’s primary role is to initiate conversations that bring out the best thinking of the tribe and direct those conversations toward a positive outcome.