by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals, Recommended Books
STARTUP
A Silicon Valley Adventure
by Jerry Kaplan
The following is an excerpt from: STARTUP by Jerry Kaplan
…I first learned the truth about scientific progress from my Ph.D. dissertation advisor at the University of Pennsylvania.
A shy Indian man with a shiny, balding head and an occasional stutter, Dr. Joshi was widely known for his brilliant work in artificial intelligence. Our weekly meetings to help me find a thesis topic were more like therapy sessions than academic discussions. Most of the time he would (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, Recommended Books
Fiction, like religion, takes us to a strange world to which we nevertheless feel a connection.
–Herman Melville
To enter another person’s world, to see things as they see them, to allow for different reactions to similar circumstances is to connect with people in a powerful way. Such empathy, compassion, and insight are essential for succeeding as a leader, salesperson, or an executive coach and to living a fulfilling life.
Reading the stories of people in circumstances different from your own is entertaining exercise that develops this important skill. Good novels offer intimate and immersive experiences of worlds most business people never encounter, yet the practice they offer with escaping our own narrow versions of reality can help us to be more receptive to the various worlds of the people we manage and sell to every day. [For more on individual worlds, see The Santiago Theory of Cognition on this blog.]
See these recommended novels on my blog:
The Razors Edge
Closers: Great American Writers on the Art of Selling
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth
His Dark Materials
Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
Spidertown by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street
And, of course, the one I wrote:
Crimes of Cunning: A comedy of personal and political transformation in the deteriorating American workplace.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Salespeople, Recommended Books, Sales Techniques
The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.
Influence is written as a guidebook for the savvy consumer. The author’s conversational style and frequent sharing of personal experiences will certainly recommend it to that audience. My interest in the work is probably closer to that of the typical reader: as a persuasion professional I am looking for specific ideas to increase my effectiveness. My attention has been richly rewarded.
Professor Cialdini organizes decades of research and experience into six easily comprehended categories of influence techniques. Relevant examples from marketing and sales are used to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Recommended Books, Team Manager Skills
My mother, my wife, my sister, and Oprah recommended Ellen Foster to me. Ellen Foster is a very young, very mistreated Southern girl who tells her story in simple, compelling language. She takes us energetically into her world and lets us see adult behavior through her worldly but never cynical eyes. Her saga is funny, clever, and heart-rending. But most of all, it is a true human experience.
I read Ellen Foster in between reading (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Recommended Books
I am pleased if a novel provides me with insight into one type of person. I am thrilled that When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth by Fernanda Eberstadt took me deeply into the heads of three people: Alfred, the man who married so much money he never learned what he might have made of himself; Dolly, the heiress who loved the art milieu more than she cared about art; and Isaac, the brilliant artist whose personality and creations forced their compromises to the breaking point.
The book introduces us to a wide cast of realistically drawn characters who interact in a believable and compelling manner while moving in (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Recommended Books
Spidertown
by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
Ever wonder, as I have, what it is like to come of age in the South Bronx? To be a citizen of the world’s greatest nation, a short ride from Trump Tower, commuting distance from a million high paying jobs yet to be in reasonable fear for your life night and day, to have (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Recommended Books, Stress Management
One of my favorite radio programs and podcasts is the non-denominational, non-doctrinaire Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Krista interviews deep thinkers with important ideas about the essential human experiences of awe, eternity, and community. Every show leads me to reflect deeply and, very often, to live a happier, more involved life. I consider it one of the most nurturing practices of my continual development as an executive coach.
A recent guest was Esther Sternberg, Ph.D., an expert on immunology and stress. She relates the remarkable history of stress’s role in health and healing. It seems that every culture has always known that emotional and physical stressors contribute to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Quotes and Aphorisms, Recommended Books
The Essential Gandhi:
An Anthology of his Writings on
his Life, Work, and Ideas
by Mahatma Gandhi
or Mohandas K. Gandhi
Louis Fisher, Editor
[Items in square brackets are by Tony Mayo.]
{Items in fancy brackets are by the editor, Louis Fisher.}
p. 15 [As a boy, Gandhi confessed a petty theft to his father and was forgiven.] This was for me an object lesson in Ahimsa [Love and Non-Violence]. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.
This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought he would be angry, say hard things and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful and I believe this was due to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Recommended Books, Stress Management
The Relaxation Response
by Herbert Benson, M.D.
with Miriam Z. Klipper
Reading and using The Relaxation Response may have saved my life in 1989. It may also have destroyed my life, for it turned out to be the first paving stone on a spiritual path which led away from much of what was accepted and familiar. I left behind the person I had known myself to be and became a person I could not have predicted. The path brought me to most of what I treasure today.
I was a thoroughly Western, rational, mechanist, Ayn Rand Objectivist, John-Wayne-style “I’ll do it myself” individualist whose life was thoroughly unsatisfying. Each day I came home from a thankless, stressful job to a cold and chaotic home. I would sit on the couch and feel as though worries and disappointments were (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Recommended Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a deep and impressive work that has sold millions of copies and stayed in print in many languages for over twenty years. I read it for the first time when I was about forty years old. It was good to wait until I was ready for it. I am not sure I can recommend the book, but I am glad I experienced it.
Mr. Pirsig presents the story of his search for the roots of deep (more…)
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