The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary

The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary
Average customer rating:

The short and sweet of customer service

Let's be more like Fred

Fred Factor

Choosing to Make a Difference is Leadership

Learn to be a Fred

The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary
Mark Sanborn
Manufacturer: Currency
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Motivation & Self-Improvement | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0385513518
Release Date: 2004-04-20

Book Description

Meet Fred.

In his powerful new book THE FRED FACTOR, motivational speaker Mark Sanborn recounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionately loves his job and who genuinely cares about the people he serves. Because of that, he is constantly going the extra mile handling the mail – and sometimes watching over the houses – of the people on his route, treating everyone he meets as a friend. Where others might see delivering mail as monotonous drudgery, Fred sees an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those he serves.

We’ve all encountered people like Fred in our lives. In THE FRED FACTOR, Mark Sanborn illuminates the simple steps each of us can take to transform our own lives from the ordinary – into the extraordinary. Sanborn, through stories about Fred and others like him, reveals the four basic principles that will help us bring fresh energy and creativity to our life and work: how to make a real difference everyday, how to become more successful by building strong relationships, how to create real value for others without spending a penny, and how to constantly reinvent yourself.

By following these principles, and by learning from and teaching other “Freds,” you, too, can excel in your career and make your life extraodinary. As Mark Sanborn makes clear, each of us has the potential be a Fred.THE FRED FACTOR shows you how.

Customer Reviews:

The short and sweet of customer service.......2007-10-19

This is a quick read and it hits right at the key elements of providing exceptional customer service. Grab a copy and read it on your next plane ride. You'll hit the ground running with a few simple changes in your perspective that will help you to have move 'Fred-like' moments. As a training support tool, you'll find additional resources to use at www.fredfactor.com.

Let's be more like Fred.......2007-09-14

The Fred Factor
The Fred Factor is a rather small book that gives the details on how someone can, by its own motivation, get the extraordinary out of something rather common. The book gives an explanation of how the behaviour of someone can change when and if they commit to it. Some of the topics in the book are rather obious, but re-reading them every once and a while makes one reflect again on how we sometimes can go the extra mile and make a huge different.

We all have values. This book is about making sure that we don't forget about these values when we are doing our job. Let's all care and have a little Fred in us..

This book is worth the reading.

Koen
(review first posted on my blog on http://koen.blanquart.be/blog/item/99/ )

Fred Factor.......2007-09-10

Buying new from Amazon is almost always the best way to go. As a school secretary having them delivered to our door is always a plus. You are quick and accurate. As a college student I like to buy used and you take your chances doing this. BUT if you review who you are buying from FIRST you should have no problems. I have greatly appreciated the deals that I have gotten thru Amazon.

Choosing to Make a Difference is Leadership.......2007-08-28

Every day, in every individual interaction, we have a choice; a choice to make the interaction transactional or relational. That choice will make all the difference in the world to the quality of our lives.

In "The Fred Factor", motivational speaker Mark Sanborn tells the very real story of his postal delivery person, Fred - and how he gave definition to his job as a `service provider' by making mail delivery a relational interaction. Sanborn says that Fred exemplified 4 principles: Everyone Makes a Difference; Success is Built on Relationships; You Must Continually Create Value for Others and It Doesn't Have to Cost a Penny; You Can Reinvent Yourself Regularly. All very real and very useful principles, but perhaps the most valuable principle in this story and the other examples in the book is the principle of choice: Everyone has the choice to be a Leader, by making a difference in the lives of others. This book is highly recommended as a gift for those who say, "Why bother?"

Learn to be a Fred.......2007-08-23

This is a pass it forward book. I am a Fred and I have helped others find the Fred in them. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it for everyone who is tired of seeing grumps in the office or in their home and wants to make a change. One person can make a difference if that peoson is a Fred.

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

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True Religion
IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION (Shane Claiborne)
Life changing
Hard Encouragement
Spectacular

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
Shane Claiborne
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Political | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0310266300

Book Description

Using unconventional examples from his own life, Shane Claiborne stirs up questions about the church and the world, and challenges readers to truly live out their Christian faith.

Customer Reviews:

True Religion.......2007-10-19

Great work Shane! Lord, forgive our apathy and help us to have true religion and to seperate it from our political ideology.

IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION (Shane Claiborne).......2007-10-18

IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION (Shane Claiborne)

(Zondervan, 2006).

Shane Claiborne looks, speaks, and dresses like an Old Testament prophet (or John the Baptist). And he makes the same sort of crazy sense. (But he's had a better formal education than most of them).

He's a young (my guess: 30s) idealistic American, who spent time with Mother Teresa's helpers in India, and went to Iraq with other peacemakers (there he was lucky to survive a car accident and other possible horrors). He's one of the founding members of The Simple Way community in very-downtown Philadelphia, and a prominent activist.

A couple of months ago I heard him speak at the Urban Neighbours of Hope conference in Melbourne, and was impressed. (My wife Jan's job at the conference was to provide hospitality - bedding and breakfast, for Shane - and his mother: he's never married - and other speakers, but that's by-the-way). He's a terrific raconteur. Who could forget his lines: 'Patriots you may bring your flags; we're washing feet and will need some rags'? Or his story about throwing $10,000 worth of small change around Wall Street. Or of his grandfather's setting fire to fields because he overloaded a new trailer with hay, which ignited from friction?

This book is a terrific read: those of us over 50-or-so mightn't get some of the modern lingo, but we'll certainly enjoy his humor (particularly 8 or 10 'Just kiddings!').

I have no other comments to make about the book, and would rather use the space here to cite a few representative 'quotable quotes' to whet your appetite:

* (When Roman Catholic authorities began the legal process of evicting homeless people from a deserted cathedral): 'We ran through campus hanging up flyers that read, "Jesus is getting kicked out of church in North Philly. Come hear about it. Kea Lounge. 10 pm. tonight".

* 'You guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemas. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too'.

* 'If you don't know what a eunuch is, see the diagram in the appendix. Just kidding. Check the phone book and call up a pastor and ask her or him: it should make for an interesting conversation'.

* 'Many spiritual seekers have not been able to hear the words of Christians because the lives of Christians have been making so much horrible noise. It can be hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom'.

* 'When people move beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get into trouble... Managing poverty is big business. Ending poverty is revolutionary'.

* 'There is one thing I will never forget - (Mother Teresa's) feet. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn't going to ask, of course... One day a sister said to us, "Have you noticed her feet?" We nodded, curious. She said, "Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them. And years of doing that have deformed her feet." Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet'.

* 'The stuff Jesus warned us to beware of, the yeast of the Pharisees, is so infectious today in the camps of both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives stand up and thank God that they're not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals. Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives. It is a similar self-righteousness just with different definitions of evildoing. It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life'.

* 'Bono, the great theologian (and decent rock star) said in his introduction to a book of selections from the Psalms: "The fact that the Scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers, and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort".'

* 'The Catholic Workers used to say "The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God's image in the face of their neighbor".'

You get the idea... Every Westerner whose life is fairly comfortable should read a book like this at least once a year.

Rowland Croucher
October 2007
jmm.aaa.net.au

Life changing.......2007-10-16

Read this if you want to be knocked off your feet. I literally think about something related to it every day. Sure, there is much to be argued with...but the discussion he is generating is one that needs to be had.

Hard Encouragement.......2007-09-28

The message is radical, but very much in keeping with how Jesus taught us to live. As I read this I felt encouraged by the stories of how everyday people are following in the ways everlasting.

Spectacular.......2007-09-24

This book is life changing. Read it if you deeply desire a new way of life and are tired of seeing dilution of the church and it's foundation take place.

The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Expanded and Adapted for Small Groups)

Average customer rating:

simple and uncompromised view on spiritual disciplines
The Life You've Always Wanted
Ortberg does it again
Another solid work by Ortberg...
A Modern Classic that Enlightens while Equipping

The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Expanded and Adapted for Small Groups)
John Ortberg
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0310246954

Book Description

With a new chapter and study guide questions, this expanded edition presents readers with what it means to live as Jesus would on a day-to-day basis--one filled with new meaning, hope, change, and a joyous, growing closeness to Christ.

Customer Reviews:

simple and uncompromised view on spiritual disciplines.......2007-10-05

This book is an every day, simple and uncompromised view on spiritual disciplines. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to grow in their relationship with Lord. Rev. Ortberg uses his signature style of simple, easy to understand language with a twist of humor to help the reader understand how to become "transformed" into the likeness of Christ.

The Life You've Always Wanted.......2007-03-10

Ortberg helps the reader see that spiritual disciplines are the pathway to joy. The disciplines are not the goal of a disciple but the path to experiencing a life in Christ that exudes real joy and transformation. This is a great read for ministry leaders or followers of Christ who want to invigorate their fellowship with Christ.

Ortberg does it again.......2007-03-09

This book is excellent. It is well written, challenging, and provocative. Just when the reader thinks John has written a chapter to top all previous ones, the next one is better. This is the best book we have done on spiritual growth in our Men's Den Sunday School Class. We previously read IF YOU WANT TO WALK ON WATER YOU'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT

Another solid work by Ortberg..........2007-02-03

Having now read several of John Ortberg's books, I'm starting to get a feel for his style. His ability to tell an engaging story is unparalleled, and his books are always engaging and easy to read. "The Life You've Always Wanted" fits neatly into that pattern.

Because the topic of "The Life You've Always Wanted" is some of the traditional Christian spiritual disciplines, it draws natural comparisons to Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline." On some level, it might be fair to consider Ortberg's book to be "An Idiot's Guide to Richard Foster," and I'm not sure that Ortberg would necessarily mind that classification. Of course, the spiritual disciplines aren't for idiots, and I don't want to imply that Ortberg writes on a superficial level. However, he has obviously made the decision to write a book that is, quite frankly, more accessible if somewhat less exhaustive than Foster's classic. As such, Ortberg has added a nice addition to the spiritual disciplines library.

I would happily recommend this book to anyone interested in getting a taste for spiritual disciplines. Though it's easy to suggest that Ortberg omitted some essential disciplines, it seems as if comprehensiveness was never his intention. Instead, he appears to have wanted to write something that anyone could read and understand and apply, and he has accomplished that goal. Though I'd recommend Foster as a next step, this is a great place for any would-be Christ-follower to start!!

A Modern Classic that Enlightens while Equipping.......2007-01-05

First and foremost, this book is an amazing read that anyone who desires a more genuine relationship with Christ must have, period. Ortberg is one of the best communicators when it comes to revealing the potency of spiritual disciplines or discipleship activities and why they can help us so much.

This book is very well written and has a surprisingly nice flow from chapter to chapter despite the book being broken up into segmented sermons, more or less (which is by no means a bad thing).

You can certainly see how Dallas Willard has influenced Ortberg's ideas and communication styles (especially Willard's "The Spirit of the Disciplines" and "The Divine Conspiracy").

The best part of the book is the fact that it is easily and readily applicable to your every-day life.

Much like J.G. Marking's, "A Voice Is Calling" (who cites Ortberg a few times), this book's entire goal is to equip you to authentically and passionately pursue God with a revitalized perspective on discipleship and an enlightened sense of one's relationship with Christ.

One of the best books I've ever read and a book that changed my life.

No Ordinary Moments: A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life (Millman, Dan)

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Good Condition
Wonderful Writings
A life-changing book
Powerful
No Ordinary Moments:A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life

No Ordinary Moments: A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life (Millman, Dan)
Dan Millman
Manufacturer: HJ Kramer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0915811405

Book Description

Every day, we face challenges in relationships, sexuality, money, work, and health. While there is a wealth of information and advice available on all of these subjects, we still have trouble turning knowing into doing. Here, Dan Millman presents a peaceful warrior's way to turn our intentions into action, our challenges into strength, and our life experiences into wisdom.

Based on the premise that by changing ourselves we can change the world, No Ordinary Moments presents simple yet powerful ways to balance our body, liberate our mind, accept our emotions, and open our heart.:

Customer Reviews:

Good Condition.......2007-09-18

I bought this book used for school and it was in very good condition. Thanks for the timely shipping. I recieved it only a few days after class started.

Wonderful Writings.......2007-09-18

As always, a Millman book that is wonderful and heart felt with thoughts. I enjoy reading his books and rented the movie of the Peaceful warrior which was good as well. thoughts throughout the book make you stop and think about goings on in your own life. all his book are wonderful.

A life-changing book.......2007-08-03

This book has absolutely changed my life. For the past 4+ years I have been having personal issues that I refused to deal with until they all came at me at once. Dan's book helps you take your first steps on a personal journey of exploration, self-improvement, and spiritual-awakening (as your own beliefs allow). The first section of the book is a new way to look at yourself, a new way of thought, setting goals for yoru life. The next section called "tools of transformation" helps you begin that journey, which is a life-long one.

I have read several books along this genre, scanned through an untold number trying to find that one book that was easy to understand in everyday conversational writing and not Dr speak, and this is that book. It's an easy read, so easy to say "that makes great sense", "i can apply this to my own life by..." We've all seen Phd books, they talk about their practice, their patients...but I've seen so many that are completely not helpful as a guide to starting that path. This book, I can guarantee, is the book.

I'm no longer an angry person, not nearly as impatient as I once was, nor do I take for granted the things I've been given. I have to say...if I hadn't read this book...I'd be in a much worse position than I ever was...downward spiral.

Dan - thank you so much for illuminating the path of my journey.

Powerful.......2001-04-13

I RatMouse am telling you that this is a very powerful book when it comes to 'self-help' books! It has helped me to find my way out of the sewers more than a few times! I RatMouse hereby prescribe this book to anyone who is struggling with themselves (which we all do at one point or another).

No Ordinary Moments:A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life.......2000-06-14

To me, this book reads like a conversation between the reader's mind and Mr. Millman. Mr.M. has interspersed several useful mental and physical(i.e. breathing) exercises amongst the various chapters of this great book, giving the publication a very practical appeal. The use of quotes is also very effective. There is no preachy, judgmental "fire & brimstone" tone to the teachings either. Mr. M. uses examples from his own life, which helps the reader get "closer" to the author.

I like Mr. M.'s approach to self-help issues such as addictions, relationships and success. One begins to realize that it is all up to the individual to CHOOSE their path when faced with ANY circumstance.

My favorite section is "The Time is Now" (pp.291-295) which truly drives home the truth that every moment of one's life can be an unreasonably happy microcosmic "lifetime".

Thank you Mr. Millman!

Average customer rating:

Twelve Gracious Apostles

very good book

Subtly Calvinistic

Informative and interesting

Twelve Ordinary Men Review

Twelve Ordinary Men
John MacArthur
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Discipleship | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus

ASIN: 0849917735

Book Description

Contrary to popular belief, we do not have to be perfect to do God's work. Look no further than the twelve disciples whose many weaknesses are forever preserved throughout the pages of the New Testament. Jesus chose ordinary men - fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots - and turned their weakness into strength, producing greatness from utter uselessness. MacArthur draws principles from Christ's careful, hands-on training of the original twelve disciples for today's modern disciple - you.

Customer Reviews:

Twelve Gracious Apostles.......2007-09-27

In discovering the lives of the Lord's apostles, I found the nuances and tidbits very original and insightful. I however differed with MacArthur's title, for in his own MacArthur Bible, he describes them as 'gifted men'.
As I recall, it was Ephesians 2, which refers to the church being built on the foundation of the apostles.

So it was with special care not to upset this privileged position that I set out to glean from their lives what MacArthur had presented.

A good subject and marketable to the majority of 'unskilled' Christians, who have a 'thing' about apostles, most likely describes this effort.

very good book.......2007-05-22

This book is very good. It made me look at Jesus in a whole new way. He was doing everything for them to make them what they became. I strongly recomend this book to everyone that wants to learn about Jesus.

Subtly Calvinistic.......2006-10-05

Be prepared before you delve into the particulars of the lives of those 12 men whom Christ chose to be His disciples. MacArthur's Reformed Presbyterianism manifests itself on page 12 ( paperback edition )when he states: " They ( being the 12 disciples ) represented the true Israel of God --- a genuinely repentant and believing Israel."

This is the trademark of Calvinism/Reformed Theology, Replacement Theology, otherwise, known as Supersessionism. According to MacArthur and others of his denominational persuasion, all promises and blessings given to Abraham and his seed were rescinded by God and given unconditionally to the Church under the New Covenent. This is promugated by MacArthur in spite of the numerous prophesies found in Ezekiel, Zechariah, Romans, and Revelation regarding the restoration of a Jewish homeland and an ultimately repentant people; also, in spite of the scriptural fact that Paul recognizes in I Corinthians 10:32 to " give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God. "

God has certainly not cast aside the nation of Israel forever.They are likened to the adulterous wife, repudiated, but ultimately to be purified and restored, as pictured in the book of Hosea. The invisible Church is comprised of believers who put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, just as God is preserving those remnant of the Sons of Abraham until the Kingdom Age is ushered in by Christ himself.

To be truly credible, MacArthur should have clearly stated his predisposition to liken the Church - established by Christ when Peter made his historic confession and thus coming to fruition at Pentecost - as the replacement entity for the Abrahamic Covenant.

One should prayfully be reminded that God will " Bless them that bless thee " - referring, of course, to the wholly gracious and unconditional promise made to Abraham and his descendants.

Informative and interesting.......2006-05-05

Many times when we get into non-fiction books we just don't think it will be an easy read. This book really gives great information about the 12 disciples and does it in a way that makes you want to keep reading to find out more. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning but has problems with most of your textbook types of material. I enjoyed this book and learned a good bit as well.

Twelve Ordinary Men Review.......2006-03-28

John MacArthur presents a thorough and interesting description of the disciples Jesus picked to complete his work on earth. Never before have I read such valuable information about the disciples individually and collectively in one place. Way-to-go MacArthur.

Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness, and What He Wants to Do with You

Average customer rating:

Great Book
Seeing the apostles for what they were through God's eyes
great resource and Bible Study
Outstanding Study for Men
Inspiring Intimacy

Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness, and What He Wants to Do with You
John MacArthur
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2007-08-26

This is another great read from John MacArthur, one of the soundest biblical teachers of this day and age. In it, John uses the information given us in Scripture to give a full picture of the 12 apostles and personalities. Personally, I found this very enlightening and though I did not identify with just one apostle, I found certain elements of each one within myself. The message of John's book is that God can, and does, use just about any type of person that is willing to humble him/herself before Him. You don't have to be a charismatic orator, a mighty warrior, or a human prodigy to turn the world upside down. Just as God used 12 ordinary men of the first century to topple empires, so He can and will use you! Praise be to the Lord forever!

Seeing the apostles for what they were through God's eyes.......2007-08-06

I enjoyed reading this book. It's a summation of Dr. MacArthur's sermons over the years on the disciples, edited for easy reading. It's divided into four sections, the first consisting of the best known disciples. The second and third concern the lesser known disciples and the last section, Judas the betrayer.

I found the explorations into the lives and character of Peter, John and Andrew to be most inspiring. I learned some things about these men that had escaped me, or were not as vivid, beforehand. I also enjoyed the background on the second group which incudes Philip and Thomas and I agree with MacArthur that Thomas gets short shrift from most Christians, when he is, in fact, no less doubting than any other disciple.

Seeing these men for the human beings they were is most helpful to any Christian or person who is examining the truth of the Gospels. What is fascinating is how MacArthur makes these characters (at least in the first two groups) tangible to us ordinary folk. God chooses the foolish things of this world, and the weak, in order to make clear that He, and He alone, is responsible for what these people accomplish. These lowly fishermen and sinners went on to change the course of civilization and impact all of us even today. They were uneducated, simple people who were used greatly of God. They learned what real love truly is through the life, example and sacrifice of the Christ.

While Dr. MacArthur's writing does evince his Calvinist theology, the scripture he uses is not used out of context or s "proof text". Rather, it is used as the basis for what he believes God is trying to tell us through these men. Jesus DID say, "No one may come to me except the Father draws him" and other hard sayings. The book meanders a bit, through the last section involving the almost anonymous lives of the lesser know disciples, until the last section where Judas' motivations are analyzed, successfully I think.

I didn't learn a whole lot more than I already knew about the twelve, but it's defintely worth reading and studying simply for the points Dr. MacArthur makes about how God works.

great resource and Bible Study.......2007-06-09

After reading this book and using the accompanying workbook I taught a Bible Study on this and WOW...it was well accepted and loved. A unique view of the diverse personalities of each of the disciples, why Jesus chose them and how He molded them into devoted followers.

Outstanding Study for Men.......2007-03-09

This is by far one of the best books to use in a study with men. The men were given a specific disciple to read about and report on. Every one of the men enjoyed their study that they completed the book before our next meeting. Highly recommend it.

Inspiring Intimacy.......2007-02-03

I love this book! In a wonderful way the author makes the chosen twelve real and human, giving great insight into their weaknesses, strengths and deep love for Jesus Christ.

The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary

Average customer rating:

This book is pretty short, but good
The Fred Factor
Fun and easy read
The Fred Factor
great tool for team and conference

The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
Mark Sanborn
Manufacturer: WaterBrook Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Motivation & Self-Improvement | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrows Success (Maxwell, John C.)
The Secret: What Great Leaders Know - And Do

ASIN: 1578568323
Release Date: 2004-04-20

Book Description

Seize the chance to be extraordinary.

Who has made the biggest difference in your life? Whose words and actions have uplifted and motivated you to excel? Chances are it was someone like Fred the postman--so outstanding in his service that Mark Sanborn realized this mail carrier could be an example for any person wanting to be extraordinary.

The “Fred factor” is summarized by four principles that will release fresh energy, enthusiasm, and creativity in your career and life:

• Make a Difference
• Build Relationships
• Create Value
• Reinvent Yourself

You, too, can apply The Fred Factor to enrich the lives of customers, co-workers, friends, and family members, as well as reach new levels of personal success yourself. Sanborn also shows how to discover and develop other “Freds.

Why not become a “Fred” yourself? You will turn the ordinary moments of life into extraordinary opportunities to make a difference in the world.

Customer Reviews:

This book is pretty short, but good.......2007-01-22

This is a very short book: something like 113 pages with not a lot of page surface for words. It's one of those books that should really have been longer (to get your money's worth) but couldn't really be without distorting the clarity of the message.

It is a quick and enjoyable read, and it has a lot of real life examples and ideas. Most of it is commonsense, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful. It is all about the excellent service that a mail carrier provides over his career, and why he chooses to go "above and beyond" all the time with his dedication.

It reminds me a lot of another book called "Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results". We read both books for our workplace book-club and enjoyed both. Both were written by motivational speakers, and both try to work their way into a whole teaching program with awards and special terms and the like. Personally, I don't care for this type of commercialization, and I'm not about to go out calling people "Freds" or hand out "Fred" pins, but I darn well am going to look at the message of the book seriously and take it to heart.

I recommend this as a book that will appeal to a lot of people because it is not intimidating (especially to non-readers) and because it is written in an easy conversational style. (I think it is a good book for reading clubs.)

And finally, as one of my favorite lines in the book said (spoken by Abraham Lincoln) "Whatever you are, be a good one."

The Fred Factor.......2007-01-09

Outstanding look at excellent customer service and what it takes to deliver it!

Fun and easy read.......2007-01-06

This is a very motivating book. I shared it with my team of guest service reps at our hospital and they loved it. It is a fun read and a great discussion piece.

The Fred Factor.......2006-11-10

Not an easy read, kind of slow. There is some good advice that we already know, but just don't utilize. I still haven'r finished reading.

great tool for team and conference.......2005-08-15

I thought this book was extremely helpful with ideas on how to improve service and thereby improve business

Millionaire's Notebook: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Success

Average customer rating:

A great book for infomercial marketing
But Wait There's More!
Brilliant marketing & copywriting book -- powerful tactics!
Fabulous book!
nice autobiography.... but little useful info

Millionaire's Notebook: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Success
Steven K. Scott
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Motivation & Self-Improvement | Business Life | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0684803038

Book Description

Steve Scott held and lost nine jobs in his first six years after college. He was told more than once that he would never succeed. Yet this former corporate failure not only became a multimillionaire himself, more than forty others have become millionaires as a result of the efforts and advice of Steve and his partners. Ordinary people just like you, including a housewife, a makeup artist, a hair stylist, a salesman, a teacher, a convenience store clerk, a marriage counsellor, a carpenter, a doctor, a dog trainer, a former P.E. teacher, to name a few.

Not Simply a Book about Making Millions
A Book about Achieving Incredible Degrees of Success!

This book is not a guide to making millions, although its insights and advice could certainly result in that. It's not a book about theories. Instead, it's a step-by-step guide to success -- success in any field, at any age. It tracks Steve Scott's life from mediocre high school student to a corporate failure to number-one marketing entrepreneur in the United States. It shows how a "nobody" who couldn't even afford to pay for his first child's birth could create more than a dozen record-breaking companies in completely different industries, selling over one billion dollars in products.

Unlike Any Success or Business Book You've Ever Read!

This book doesn't stop with general principles or psychological motivation, but instead gives specific tasks you can instantly apply to your personal or business life.

Your Personal Notebook for Success

Each chapter ends with a section that leads the reader through a step-by-step process that can result in greater success than he or she has ever experienced. The Notebook for Success provides a guide that can be used by anyone from a high school student to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You'll understand why Steve Scott firmly believes that ANYONE can significantly increase his or her "batting averages" in any area of life and break through the barriers that separate mediocrity from phenomenal success -- barriers imposed by others or even by ourselves.

If you want to achieve a higher degree of success than you've ever thought possible, this book will become the most important book on success you, your employees, and your children will ever read.

Customer Reviews:

A great book for infomercial marketing.......2007-07-17

As marketing director for my company, I read constantly read marketing and sales books. Occasionally a book comes along that really peaks my interest. A Millionaire's Notebook is such a book.

Many products have been marketed using infomercials, most fall flat on their faces. But some soar, making millions for the companies that sell them. Steven K. Scott has been around for a long time. He has marketed many products that you would recognize using both infomercials and 2-minute television spots. In his book, A Millionaire's Notebook, he outlines exactly what it takes to take a product to market and make a fortune.

He covers how to write a good television spot, how to write and engaging infomercial. He teaches how to pick or produce a great product with a fertile market. His writing is clean and his instruction is easy to understand.

If you hope to market using television, this book should be on your shelf.

Excellent job, Steven.

Hope this helps.

-Craig Nybo, co-author of Total Human: The Complete Strength Training System

But Wait There's More!.......2007-01-11

More than just a book about "How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Success", Steven Scott has given us what I consider to be one of the best books on the subject of making infomercials. I've produced, written and directed over a hundred infomercials myself, so I feel qualified to make this endorsement. I thought Steven explained the business so well that I purchased and gave away over two dozen copies to my clients, colleagues and friends. If you want to learn what making infomercials is all about, while discovering secrets on how to vastly improve your business life, then order your copy now!

Joe Torina
TORINAMEDIA INC.

Brilliant marketing & copywriting book -- powerful tactics!.......2005-05-27

This is one of my top 3 favorite marketing/copywriting books of the year (also get Eugene Schwartz' Breakthrough Advertising, and Joe Sugarman's books, and Ron Popeil for infomercials).

As an internet marketer and producer of internet infomercials, I found the insights shared by Steven to be priceless. The checklist on page 194 has helped me make thousands in sales improvements on a single campaign, and the inclusion of actual scripts and objection-handling phrases and marketing perspective was absolutely stunning.

Scott's a brilliant man, and this is one book that I will refer to for years (especially all the later chapters where his best secrets are revealed -- crucial stuff for marketers and copywriters).

In addition to personally profiting from Scott's tips, I recommend it highly for all my students at the online copywriting university site. Wickedly brilliant. Also study Dan Kennedy's stuff, priceless.

Buy this book -- one of my all time favorites, and I've bought hundreds.

Fabulous book!.......2005-03-16

I've read this book about 5 times, starting from when I was 23 years old and floudering around in the business world trying to figure out what I could do for a living.... making about about 1/5 of what I do today, 8 years later.

Steven Scott meshes practical skills and advice with actual step by step activities to do to immediately put what he's saying into action in your own life. He's the genius behind such products as Richard Simmon's "Deal a Meal", Suzanne Sommer's "Thigh Master", and Christie Brinkley & Chuck Norris' "Total Gym".

Extremely easy reading by a man who has done it. It's like having a personal coach who is a multi-millionare at your side telling you how to do it. I recommend it to anyone of any age.

nice autobiography.... but little useful info.......2002-04-06

this guy writes a nice autobiography about how he did it in marketing... maybe interesting for some but not for me. I guess I was expecting something more than a horn blowing fanfare of an "I did it my way" brag-o-rama.

The Life You've Always Wanted Participant's Guide: Six Sessions on Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Groupware)

Average customer rating:

Very good Bible Study
PLAN ON SPENDING MOST OF YOUR GROUP SESSION LOOKING UP VERSES
The book is much better...
Just buy the book

The Life You've Always Wanted Participant's Guide: Six Sessions on Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Groupware)
John Ortberg , Stephen Sorenson , and Amanda Sorenson
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Expanded and Adapted for Small Groups)
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If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat - Participants Guide
If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat

ASIN: 0310255880

Book Description

In this six-session ZondervanGroupware™ video curriculum, award-winning author John Ortberg teaches participants the skills essential to “running the marathon” in the Christian life.

Customer Reviews:

Very good Bible Study.......2007-09-22

I am using this book and video in an adult Bible study with 17 participants. It is a good study which shows you how to live and love like Jesus did. John Ortberg uses humor and touching stories to get his point across. Another thing that I like is that you are referred to scripture to see how Jesus faced the same problems that we face in our daily lives.

PLAN ON SPENDING MOST OF YOUR GROUP SESSION LOOKING UP VERSES.......2007-05-12

Our small group just started this lesson. The DVD messages are only about 15 monutes long. THe bulk of your small group time is spent looking up verses to discuss. There is also homework to do between meetings which is nice. BTW- You MUST get these books if you are doing the DVD study- the DVD references the book, and you really cannot do the study without this book.

The book is much better..........2007-02-03

When our small group decided to study together John Ortberg's "The Life You've Always Wanted," we couldn't decide whether to read the book or watch the DVD with companion study guide. So, we decided to do both.

Though there was understandable repetition between these two resources from the same author about the same topics, that was actually a good thing for us, as the principles were more fully embedded each week. Ortberg is a great teacher, so his teaching segments on the DVD were solid. In addition, the accompanying study guide provided a host of solid questions to use in response to the teaching time.

My greatest critique of the participant's guide in conjunction with the DVD was that it left me wanting more each week. Especially because we were reading the book at the same time, I was aware of how much more Ortberg had to say than he was able to include in 13 minutes of video teaching. And it was very common for our discussion to center around the text in the book that we had read earlier in the week more than the video that we had just watched.

I found this participant's guide to be fully functional and ultimately worthwhile. However, if I were to recommend "The Life You've Always Wanted," I would suggest that you just read the book. It provides much more content and the questions in the back still allow for groups to study it together. In any case, Ortberg has provided the church with a great contemporary resource about spiritual disciplines, regardless of which format you choose.

Just buy the book.......2007-01-12

I initially wrote a review for this product thinking I was reveiwing the Hardback book. I truly think this participants guide is unnecessary. The book itself has discussion questions and stuff in it. This is really just a lot of duplication (I personally would not buy again.) Save your money here and just buy the book.

Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s

Average customer rating:

Everyday life and the state under Stalin
Must read
Impressed so far
Clear, concise, filled with information
Nothing very much "new".

Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s
Sheila Fitzpatrick
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195050010

Amazon.com

Most popular books about the Stalin era feature the big names and a firm narrative shape: Robert Conquest's The Great Terror; Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin. Some books yield their revelations at a glance, like the stunning The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia.

But scholar Sheila Fitzpatrick is famous for letting the common people and the facts speak for themselves, in all their complexity. Her new book on Soviet life in the 1930s--based on research in newly opened archives--does for urbanites what her Heldt Prizewinning Stalin's Peasants did for rural victims. The many witnesses in this fascinating horror story cast doubt on Stalin's notorious 1935 slogan "Life has become better, comrades; life has become more cheerful."

A comment made by a victim of Ivan the Terrible would be more apt: "We Russians don't need to eat; we eat one another and this satisfies us." Famine, caused by bad weather and worse policies, plagued the decade, and life became a chronic struggle to wrest crumbs from an incompetent bureaucracy. Stalin's sly methods of deflecting blame from the state onto allegedly disloyal citizens provoked orgies of denunciation (which could backfire on denouncers). A mad starch factory director forbade comrades to get shaves or haircuts at home--it would have been disloyal to the factory's hairdresser. One kid, Pavlik Morozov, reported his father for grain hoarding in 1937, was murdered by relatives, and became a national hero to kids. Andrei Sakharov's future spouse Elena Bonner was shocked at her 9-year-old brother's response to his father's arrest: "Look what these enemies of the people are like--some of them even pretend to be fathers." The celebrated Moscow Children's Theater put on The Squealer, a drama strikingly like Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront.

Fitzpatrick gives a sense of what it really was like to live under the satanic circus master Stalin: it was beyond Kafka, and it was bloody hard work. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by a leading authority on modern Russian history. Focusing on the urban population, Fitzpatrick depicts a world of privation, overcrowding, endless lines, and broken homes, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned life into a nightmare, and of how ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it. We also read of the secret police, whose constant surveillance was endemic at this time, and the waves of terror, like the Great Purges of 1937, which periodically cast society into turmoil.

Customer Reviews:

Everyday life and the state under Stalin.......2007-04-06

Sheila Fitzpatrick, specialist in the Stalin period of the USSR, has written a counterpart to her history of peasants and their lives in this era (Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization). Here, in "Everyday Stalinism", she chronicles the urban experience of life under Stalin during the 1930s, with all its paranoia, hardship and oddities.

The book is focused in particular on the relationship of daily life and the state, with relatively little attention for cultural history. However, making much use of the Harvard Project interviews with Soviet citizens from this period, she offers a compelling and fascinating view into the attitude of Soviet citizens towards the state, towards Stalin, and towards each other. Much more than just a tale of survival under threat of secret police, Fitzpatrick shows how people got by in terms of getting consumer goods, getting ahead, and getting even. Of course the Great Purges are given due attention, but what is particularly interesting is that in this book we see those events, as well as the earlier show trials, from the bottom up: not the political history of Stalin eliminating his enemies, but a struggle for power between the Party elites (largely received with disinterest by the general populace), and subsequently a series of rapid repressive maneouvres that descend onto the unsuspecting middle level.

Fitzpatrick pays excellent attention also to social policy and what effect this had on women, social and ethnic minorities, and so on. The USSR as an "affirmative action empire" has been well chronicled: The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Wilder House Series in Politics, History, and Culture). Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick's overview is clear and cogent, and we get also get a good idea of the immense advances in literacy, cultural knowledge and general outlook that were made in roughly the period 1927-1937. Whereas in 1926 only 57% of those aged between 9 and 49 were literate, in 1939 81% of the whole population was literate. Similarly, the entire mass of the population learned basic culture such as appreciating poetry, washing regularly, using soap and towels, not leaving cigarette butts everywhere and not spitting on the floor, etc.

Striking is the amount of critical letters and appeals that people kept sending to Party and Politburo leaders in the (often, but not always vain) hope of redress of grievances or changes in policy. This was already a set tradition dating back to Czarist times, but was maintained during the Revolution and post-Revolutionary period in the form of public debate in leftist papers and letters to Lenin (see Voices of Revolution, 1917). This gives us a good indication however of the public opinion in the Stalinist days, to which Fitzpatrick usefully adds the NKVD reports of overheard conversations and the like. This surprisingly indicates that skepticism towards Stalin himself as well as the general system was reasonably widespread, despite the "cult of the personality".

Overall, this is a well written and interesting history of urban life in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It must be emphasized though (as this is not directly apparent from the book description) that it only deals with urban life, and only the 1930s. Neither WWII nor the post-War Stalinist period is discussed.

Must read.......2007-02-13

If you have an interest in Stalin and the 1930's, which include the purges, this book is a must for you. For the most part I study the Military and Political history of the early Soviet Union and I had this book on my shelf for years before I finally decided to read it. But once I began I was amazed at myself that I had waited so long to finally dive into this book! The author has really done her research and it shows!

The reader will get a much better and broader understanding of what life was like in the 1930's and how a new state was coming into its own. Why certain groups or 'classes' were being targeted by the state and what happened to them. How some changed their entire lives just to get away from the OGPU and later NKVD. And interestingly enough the policies implemented by the state worked against making it a safer place. As they aggravated one group after another through trials and forced movements they made enemies where in the past there might not have been any. It began to dawn on the government that these people would only seek vengeance once they were freed from punishment and it also created the idea that these people would be enemies for life. This, to a certain extent, explains why during the "Great Purge" which started in 1937 those released from GULag camps or special settlements, etc, were once again picked up and tried and sent to either prison or were executed.

The examples the author draws upon are an excellent representation of the time period and people's thoughts recount what they felt and desired while living through this turbulent, to say the least, decade. The one aspect of the Stalinist period that should be kept in mind, and appears throughout the book, is that no one was really safe in this time. From Communist officials who were being denounced by the hundreds to the regular man on the street who could be denounced because his apartment was bigger than his neighbors, or NKVD officials, one of whom a week before committing suicide visited and drank with the families of people who were denounced and he had to arrest and lastly even to Stalin's inner circle which witnessed the likes of Kaganovich losing his brother and Molotov his wife. A great contribution to the literature on Soviet Union under Stalin!

Impressed so far.......2007-02-11

Clearly it is well researched and (notwithstanding the author's Introduction) cuts through a lot of the politicised waffle that tends to accompany other books dealing with this period. You get an idea of the human and personal dynamics that were operating at the time. In short, the insight gained is sometimes surprising even when you think you know a lot about this period of history, i.e. the October Revolution and socialist construction. Only half way through the book as a matter of fact but you can tell from the outset that what you're reading is a study of substance that genuinely serves to inform the reader. I would say the author is one who is prepared to let facts speak for themselves.

Clear, concise, filled with information.......2006-08-10

This is a good, necessary, and essential book. It is compact and precise. Its aim is to provide massive information about Stalinist Soviet Union in the 1930s. It does so not by the analysis of high politics or the significant political events, but through a depiction of everyday life of urban inhabitants of the Soviet Union during these years.

Fitzpatrick tries to remain neutral, but so many of the disastorous conditions she records were clearly brought on by the Stalin bureaucracy's fear, its fear of workers, its fear of the intellectuals, its fear of those who held positions under Tsarism, its fear of those who had belonged to opposition factions in the Communist party, and fear of itself.

Whether what she provides is "new" is irrelevant except to the academically twisted. What she does is provide the realities of life in the USSR in those years as personally experienced whether in the cold, rancorous, barracks and apartments filled with four or five families of the plebian cities, or the luxurious dachas of the rising bureaucracy.

The strength of this book is its compactness and clarity and its lack of digressions. Fitzpatrick produces a very high amount of understandable information per page.

The one weaknesses of the book is that in order to do this, she tends to assume the reader's knowledge of Soviet history in the late 1920s and early 30s, particularly, "the cultural revolution," though many, especially popular, readers may know little or nothing about this. Perhaps this just invites the reader to explore the work of Fitzpatrick and her colleagues on these questions.

Nothing very much "new". .......2006-06-27

Professor Fitzpatrick has chosen to write a History of Stalin's Soviet Union during the 1930s (that is, at the height of the Great Purges) by focusing on doings at the private life sphere of common Soviet citizens of the time. Problem is, after we have read the book, we realize we've been told about the same old issues: de-kulakization, collectivization, shortages, queues, Yezhov, social mobility through the Party apparatus. The problem being, perhaps, that the whole book was based on a flimsy foundation, that of the opposition between the "private" & the "public" sphere, when actually, in the early Soviet Union, there was no "private" sphere at all, private life merged with public life entirely - something Professor Fitzpatrick acknowledge at the conclusions, but fails to draw the conclusion that the opposition between the private and the public is an historical construction, not an ontology. Therefore the book is informed and readable, but offers nothing that is altogether new.

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