Go Ahead - Take The Leap

I must admit, before I got the opportunity to read the preview copy of this book, I had never heard of Rick Smith. But I'm adding this book to my list of favorites, and Rick Smith is now my Facebook friend.

This book is very inspiring to me because in it Rick proves, through various stories (both his and others), that anything is possible for those who really know what they want. We've all been stuck at one point or another in our lives and careers, and Rick proves that this does not have to be a career breaker. In fact, it might be at that point of restlessness and discontent that the best ideas can come to us. The trick is to act on those ideas.

During his career as an executive recruiter, Rick hit a burnout stage. Instead of becoming disengaged, Rick decided to create a night and weekend opportunity for himself - with his boss's blessing - to interview highly successful people and find the commonalities (sound familiar, Think and Grow Rich fans?). His research found its way into a book, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, and the book took off.

To make a long story short, Rick did such a good job at his night job, that he was relieved of his day-job duties and found himself brushing off his resume. From there, Rick tells the story of how he created World50, or w50 for short: a network of the 50 most important chief market officers, CFOs, heads of human resources, etc. from around the globe (see w50 for more information). What began as a wild idea, has turned into a very lucrative career.

In addition to his own story, Rick shares stories from others who took what may seem to be unreasonable leaps to achieve equally unreasonable success in their career aspirations. He sums up the transformations of these people in three counterintuitive principles:

1) To unlock your potential, you don't need to change who you are. Instead, match up what you do with what you love to do - your greatest strengths and passions.

2) You don't need to go it alone. Big, selfless, simple ideas attract a supportive team and multiply your successes.

3) You don't need to make dramatic and risky changes. There are ways to stack the deck in your favor gradually, with little or no risk.

The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be released in September and would make a great master mind study.