Plug, play and learn

MotivateMe!
Providing Strategies to Overcome the Procrastination Habit with a Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine

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In This Issue:
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* Today's daily dose: Plug, play and learn
* Motivate Me to find work: Personal presentation - the litmus test
* Let's Connect:
* Share this e-zine:

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Today's daily dose: 11th August 2010
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If leaders are readers, then I feel the ones who are better than average also use audio programs - for when they are on the move.

I have a stack of CD's from some of the greats in the self-help / motivational / business industries which I have converted to MP3. This means I can listen when:

    * I exercise and certainly when I am out walking
    * I am in the car

As these are times when I certainly can't read whilst I am walking or driving the car, but I can listen. I've also got hundreds of interviews I've been given or sent and I use these in the same way as the programs I have purchased over the years.

Given that we can make all sorts of excuses when it comes to both exercise and personal development, this is a perfect way to combine these two essential (IMHO) activities. Which is what I call sensible multi-tasking.

How many times have you been tempted to say - but I don't have time to read the books, well now you don't have to, just plug in and play.

And a FYI - I also use this trick when I am doing admin work too - sometimes I do get distracted by what is being said so I also make sure there is a notebook and a pen by my side to jot down what I've just heard. But I can get inspired for my next set of action steps, planning and working out strategies - when I am doing those tasks that are sometimes uninspiring but do still need to be done.

There are some people who will say to me, but I can't afford to buy all the self-help and motivational books and programs on the market - you know what, neither could I. There have been huge swathes of my life when the best thing I had in my possession was my library card. I couldn't keep up with the number of books I wanted to read if I had to purchase them, so I borrowed them. I also "cheated" somewhat. I am a qualified librarian and have worked in the industry for over 25 years. I've been fortunate to have created several corporate libraries from nothing more than an idea from the CEO that he / she wanted to provide the resource for their people. That takes vision, it also takes guts when you consider funding for most libraries these days is hard come by.

The beauty of libraries are many, not least of which we will never have the money to buy everything we want to read and we will never outlive the number of books and programs that are being developed. But with the advent of the internet and Google digitising the world's library collections - will we ever have a need for the physical space. I feel the answer is YES. Many times I have browsed the shelves and found goodies tucked away a few books away from the one I was supposedly looking for. You can't do that in the digital realm.

But where the internet does come into its own of course is that we can visit virtually every library. But even more importantly are the websites that offer links to books that are no longer in print.

Gutenberg for instance - http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page or Just Free Books - http://www.justfreebooks.info/ or how about The Manuscriporium - http://www.manuscriptorium.com/site/eng/default_eng.asp and we should never forget about the Internet Archive - http://www.archive.org/ which also covers music and movies and a whole lot more.

We have the world's greatest information available to us, so don't make excuses about not having time to read, I just don't have time to read everything there is to read - and believe me when I say I read A LOT. And the best bit by far - we get to interact with the greatest leaders of our times. So get ahead and get reading.

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Motivate Me to Find Work: Personal presentation - the litmus test
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Now we have briefly touched on this topic on day 1 of the program, are you still taking as much care with your personal appearance as you did? Ready to do the litmus paper test again? Good, go into the bathroom and take a look at what you see - would you hire or re-hire the person you see before you based on what you see? Did I say
re-hire? Yes absolutely. I know of several instances where people I know have been called into the office and told they were going to have to re-apply for their own jobs. If that happened to you - TODAY - would you pass the first impressions test?

Still don't believe first impressions are important?

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