52 Week Challenge Wrap Up

Since my 52 week challenge finished last week I decided to ask a favor of all of my readers.  I would love to hear your comments on the challenge and wondered if you help me out.  Would you browse through the posts for the challenge and let me know what your favorite piece of jewelry is?

Your feedback would help me to decide the direction to take for the upcoming holiday season. Should I made more of an item, drop an item?  I can’t decide on one item that is my favorite because I like them all.  What do you think? Let me know.

If you would rather not post to my blog, or have trouble posting, then send an email to me with your thoughts to denise@jewelrybydm.com

Thanks and have a great week.

Denise

Book Review - The No Asshole Rule

This month’s book review is of the book The No Asshole Rule, Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t by Robert I. Sutton, PhD.  Now, the title may offend some, but please look past the word asshole and, if it does offend you, replace it with the word bully.  Bully mildly covers the type of person that the author is describing and you will see why he uses the word asshole. I’m sure you will be able to relate the description to someone that you have worked with or have met and had to deal with somewhere in your life.

Mr. Sutton gives tips for surviving nasty people and work places and how to deal with them. He tells how to avoid taking a job in a company where there are more jerks than not. He gives advice on how to enforce the Rule in the workplace and to change the culture of the organization so that the behavior is not tolerated.

I smiled when I got to the part where he had a self-test to see if you qualify to be one of the jerks he is writing about in his book.  I guess we all have a little dark side to us, but do we “go over to the dark side” (to borrow a phrase from Star Wars) more often than not?

At the end of the book he gives a great list of additional reading for those who want to learn more about dealing with nasty people.

As I read this book it seemed that he knew some of people that I worked with because he described them exactly. This was a very good book, I really learned a lot from it. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with another asshole, but they are out there….

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my evaluation of this book. I’m sure that other readers would like to read your opinion too.  Or just make a comment if you want to.

Book Review - The Success Principles by Jack Canfield

The Success Principles How To Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield was given to me when I was visiting a friend's office and found it on the bookshelf.  I started looking through it and liked what I saw, so she told me to take it, they had all read the book already.

This is not just a business book, it's a change your life book. The thing I like about it is that Jack Canfield gives clear principles and how to put them into practice. Then he gives examples of how other people used the principles and what happened as a result.  He talks about goal setting and overcoming obstacles and boosting your self-esteem  This book contains practical advice.  I've read other books that are so complicated that there isn't an easy way to use the advice in daily life (like the very complicated The 7 Habits of  Highly Effective People).  Jack Canfield talks to you in an easy to understand way. He even gives a web address where you can download forms that can help you.

At the back of the book are resources and suggested reading to add to your knowledge. He doesn't claim to be the only authority on the subject. It seems that he really wants to help you get where you want to go.

There is one chapter on saying "No". That was always difficult for me, if someone asked me for a favor, to volunteer for a committee or to help out with a project I couldn't say no. Then I would get behind on my own scheduled things to do and I would get stressed out and sometimes get physically ill from the stress. After reading the chapter on saying "no" I realized that it's ok to say no if you do it the right way.  Life got easier.

This book has impacted my life in other ways too but you don't need to hear all my stories.  Read the book, change your life and make your own stories.

Please feel free to make comments about this book. I would like to hear what you think.

Book Review - ReWork

Being an entrepreneur I like to read business books to keep up on trends and to give me ideas on marketing and sales.  I've decided to review the books I've read so you can decide if you want to read them also. 

The first book I'll review is called "REWORK" by Jason Fried and David Heineeier Hansson.  The authors are the founders of a very successful computer software company called 37signals.

I really enjoyed REWORK.  Yes, enjoyed a business book, who knew there was one out there that one could enjoy.  This is not your typical business book. These guys are down to earth, keep it simple, use your common sense kind of guys. The chapters are short, only a few pages long, and they write in language you can understand.  They go against the typical advice that every other business book says, and I love their advice. They take a no-nonsense approach to business that is refreshing.

The line on the inside cover that got me to buy this book was, "... artists who don't want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages" and I agree 100%.  I think even people in big corporations should read this book.  There is too much red tape in Corporate America.  I worked in the insurance industry for a good part of my career and there were more meetings than there was work.  There were meeting to plan other meetings, meetings to summarize what happened in previous meetings, and meetings that just didn't seem to accomplish anything.  In this book, the chapter on meetings is titled "Meetings are Toxic". 

I think we all tend to get bogged down in the mire of "the established rules of business". Like having to write a business plan and finding investors and having meetings. Basically they say to stop talking and start working.  This book will make you think  and look at things in a different way. It's not just theory, these guys have built an extremely successful company using the wisdom that they share in the pages of this book.

My favorite line in the book, and also a title of a chapter, is "Build half a product, not a half-assed product". Good advice, maybe another well known software manufacturer should take that advice. There is so much that I like about this book, well actually I like everything about this book, so it's hard not to quote the whole thing while reviewing it. Anyway I don't want to give away anything.  It doesn't matter where you are in your work life, whether you work in the corporate world or have your own business or you are just thinking about starting a business, the advice these guys give will work anywhere.

If you have read this book, please let me know what you think of it.