Top 10 Business, Faith & Faith-at-Work Podcasts (Part 2)

Alrighty, then: Here’s the second (and final) installment of podcasts that send my gray cells a-dancing . . .

Sales Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips For Getting The Deal Done
I confess: As an introvert, the word “sales” used to scare the daylights out of me. But I’m learning we’re all in sales, no matter what we do. Plus, biblical selling is all about servant leadership and relationship building . . . The Sales Guy delivers short, powerful tips for closing the deal in about six minutes each week.

The Accidental Creative
In a show aimed at the creative types among us, the AC guys explore topics and interview leading experts on what it takes to thrive in the create-on-demand world and “keeping your creative passion alive while dealing with the daily grind.” Check out my favorite episode on the “War of Art” (or forcing yourself to produce brilliant stuff, on deadline).

Stop Procrastinating Now
Umm . . . does this one really need a description? Each episode covers a root cause of procrastination and practical steps for overcoming it, building good habits and “obsessive consistency” (whatever that means).

Stand to Reason
Why do you believe what you believe? Because your mama taught you that way? Because the preacher said so? The good folks at Stand to Reason help us understand what truth is, and how to back it up with solid reasoning and evidence (yes, I said evidence). “There is a difference between choosing an ice cream flavor and choosing a medicine,” says host Greg Koukl. “When choosing ice cream, you choose what you like. When choosing medicine, you have to choose what heals. Many people think of God like they think of ice cream, not like they think of insulin. In other words, they choose religious views according to their tastes, not according to what is true . . . I think you can test religious truth, and I’d like to offer [some] of those methods to you.”

Mommy Mastermind
For moms of small children who have other ambitions and responsibilities in addition to (the awesome privilege) of raising their children. (I’ll definitely implement Mommy Mastermind’s tips as I prepare to grow EspressoShots.com while caring for a newborn in a couple of months… Lord help me.)

. . . and that about covers it. (I follow dozens of other podcasts as well, but figure that’s all the pod-talk you can take for now.) What resources do you consume on a consistent basis?

Please stay tuned for our next post, coming in a few short hours: “4 Musts for True Productivity” (Hint: Email subscribers will get 8+ related resources that the rest of you won’t see here . . . But you can rectify that by hurrying up and subscribing here.)

Top 10 Business, Faith & Faith-at-Work Podcasts (Part I)

If you made me choose between eating and being able to listen to my favorite podcasts for a day, that’d be a tough one for me. They’re my brain food, and consuming them makes me smarter, wiser and happier.

One simple (yet very, very powerful) success principle is choosing carefully whom we listen to and what goes into our minds. So I’m always searching for great audio teachings from men and women who embody the qualities and impact I want to have in  my own journey.

As an added bonus, I find that pumping helpful knowledge and wisdom into my ears makes tedious tasks like driving, filing, house-cleaning and standing in line at the post office far more enjoyable and fruitful.

Below is the first half of 10 podcasts I can’t get enough of, in no particular order (I’ll deliver the remaining 5 in the next couple of days to keep this post a more “digestible” length).

Breaking Free with the Barefoot Executive
Carrie Wilkerson, the “Barefoot Executive,” is one of my heroes. Each week, the preacher’s daughter and rock-star business woman from Texas lights up a fire in my belly (and under my derriére) to not wait for success, but go after it with a club. Her podcasts always leave me wanting more, so I gladly write Carrie a check each month for more intense mentoring through her online mastermind group. (Although Carrie’s message focuses primarily on women business owners, she’s got plenty of male followers.)

Psychotactic Zingers
Sean D’Souza, who calls himself a “Brain Auditor,” teaches the psychological reasons customers buy (or don’t buy). The quirky host also shares psychological tactics for self-improvement and more powerful communication.

48 Days To The Work You Love
Each week, best-selling author and psychologist Dan Miller advises callers about finding ways to profit from their innate gifts and passion, and how they can transition to their dream job in a relatively short amount of time. According to Dan’s web site, “his unique clarification of how God gifts us will introduce you to a new sense of freedom and fulfillment of your life’s calling.”

Listener’s Audio Bible Proverbs Podcasts
This podcast features brief readings of the book of Proverbs, written by King Solomon, who is still widely regarded as the wisest man who ever lived. In the words of author and PR veteran Mark DeMoss, the wisdom found in Proverbs “is universal, timeless, and foolproof.” Wisdom from above, DeMoss adds, “does not favor intelligence or education, affluence or sophistication; it calls to everyone, everywhere. We need only to respond.”

Get-It-Done-Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Work Less and Do More
Somehow, Stever Robbins is able to pack great productivity tips and humor into about 6 minutes each week. Good stuff. 
 
Again, I’ll deliver my next top 5 podcasts in the next post. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear what you feed your brain.

What resources have breathed new life into you and your career?

Housekeeping, Giveaways & What Makes You Tick

Have I told you lately that I love you? I do.

In fact, the plan was to surprise all you email subscribers today with a nifty little gift as a “thank you” for keeping your eyeballs on this blog. (Seriously, I’m digging into my pocketbook for this one and saving the receipt as a business expense.)

Then Google acquired Feedburner and ate up all my subscriber data, so I can’t tell who you are or how to reach you. They promise to get their act together in 72 hours, so we’ll see. Hopefully you’ll be hearing from me soon. [sigh]

Meanwhile, I’ve contracted a kick-butt designer to turn this blog into a super-duper, slick web site. I can’t wait to see what she’ll come up with, and I’m working hard to add new, helpful content and tools here for you. I’m also turning some content into audio for those of you who are iPod addicts like me.

But here’s the thing: If I’m going to go through all that trouble and expense, I want to give you stuff you truly want and will benefit from.

So would you do me a favor? Would you tell me in the comments section below:

• What your top 3 work-related challenges are
• What content or tool would be most helpful to you right now

Or, if you prefer, shoot me an email at andrea@espressoshots.com.

Many, many thanks. I really appreciate your time and input, and can’t wait to read your feedback.

Yay, more free books!

Hi, gang,

What’s better than a free book? Three free books!

This is probably the busiest week of the year for me so I haven’t been able to draft a thoughtful post — instead, I decided to bribe you (you know, in the spirit of Christmas and all). Below are three nifty resources I stumbled into:

• For a limited time, Zondervan is allowing free audio downloads of Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace by Cathleen Falsani. You can access that free download here.
• The folks at Thomas Nelson are willing to send you free books if you register as a book review blogger and commit to reviewing their books on your blog. After you register, you can check out their list of what’s new and request a book for review. Learn more here. 
• And to complete today’s trifecta, you can download a free copy of Loving Monday by John Beckett here.

Enjoy and have a great weekend. Talk to you soon!

Andrea

Free Book: The Power of Who

As promised, I’m donating a few of the pre-release books I’ve received from publicists in the past year or so.

Today’s giveaway is
The Power of Who: You Already Know Everyone You Need To Know by Bob Beaudine, and one of you will get it before it comes out to the masses in January, 2009. (Isn’t that special?)

I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t read this one, simply because I’m overpowered by number of books on my desk (and because I no longer review books for a living).

Here’s the description from Amazon:

Bob Beaudine believes networking is not working for Americans any longer. This highly respected and well-connected head hunter shares his philosophy on what really works in identifying what your dream in life is and how to get it. With his unique 100/40 principle, Beaudine takes the traditional networking concept, shakes it up and rebuilds it, explaining that individuals already know everyone they need to know. He shows readers that they have established a powerful network simply by interacting with people in their daily lives. Beaudine explains this new way to achieve dreams clearly, in a step-by step fashion using his well-tested knowledge to break it down and help readers tap into the Power of Who.

I’ll mail the book to the first person who types “I want it!” in the comments section below.

>> Disclaimer: This blog is automatically fed into BrazenCareerist.com, so, to be fair, I’ll consider comments left on that web site as well.

>> Hint, hint: if you subscribe to this blog you’ll be among the first to know about future giveaways…

Back from the dead (and 3 nifty tools)

I know, I know. If I’m not going to post regularly, I might as well shut this thing down, right? Yeah, well, that’s exactly what I did several months ago.

Convinced that blogging, in most cases, could be the biggest waste of time since Solitaire came standard on PCs (to borrow an illustration from Rob Eagar of WildFire Marketing), I’d decided to let this blog die a slow death. Eagar and my friend Sue Swayze pose strong arguments on the merits of blogging (you can read about those rants here).

But you know what? I miss sharing thoughts, lessons and updates with all of you between issues of Christian Professional — even if Ben McCann, one of the biggest fans of online media I know, is the only one who’ll read it. Plus, I need something to do with the growing file on my desktop I’ve labeled “Bloggables:” a collection of online tools, videos, ideas and other groovy stuff I want to tell someone about.

So to kickstart this sucker, here are three nifty services I wrote about in the latest issue of Christian Professional (you’ll also find them, along with a slew of other tools, in our ToolBox):

Jott
Trying to take notes while driving or hoping you won’t forget an idea or to-do-item that popped in your head in the middle of traffic? With Jott, a free service, you call a toll-free number, dictate your thought or to-do item, and hang up. Jott then converts your voice message to text and sends you an e-mail. [jott.com]

DumbFiles
You no longer have to spend time and money burning CDs when files are too large to be e-mailed to clients, vendors, or your home computer. Dumbfiles allows you to upload large files, then provides a link for you (or the intended recipient) to download them instantly. It’s a fast, no-cost alternative for sharing “bulky” files like graphics, audio and more. [dumbfiles.com]

WhoLinksToMe
Curious about your Web popularity? WhoLinksToMe lets you know how many (and which) Web sites currently link to yours. [wholinkstome.com]

An Instant Boost For Your Marketing Results

Here’s a nifty marketing tool I’ve recently learned about: Yahoo! and Google keyword trend reports.

These two sites let you know the popularity of specific search terms, offer suggestions on stronger, related terms, and, in Google’s case, even lets you know how much competition you’d have marketing those keywords.

So next time you’re gearing up to promote a service or product (even if it’s offline), take a minute to check out related, popular search terms. You may be able to zero in on lingo that truly appeals to your audience.

As best-selling author Timothy Ferris (The 4-Hour Work Week) puts it, “How do you think I picked a title for my book?”

• Yahoo! Keyword Selector Tool: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
• Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

STOP

My former boss once was a high-ranking Kodak executive, so he always had a Kodak story to illustrate his points. One of my favorites was the “Stop” story, which never failed to make me giddy as I thought of ways to implement it.

If my memory is accurate, Kodak employees used to walk around with lapel pins that simply stated “STOP.” The idea was to continuously look for inefficient processes and tasks they could stop doing.

In business, we’re always adding things to our plates, but fail to weed out the wombats (my new favorite buzzword; stands for “Waste of Money, Brains, and Time”).

The result? Half-baked output, depleted resources and workers. (Not to mention a severe lack of focus and unimpressed customers.)

Best-selling author Jim Collins talks about the need for cultivating “stop-doing” lists and offers a few tips for doing so effectively:

1. Clarify your strategic direction and goals. Throw out anything that doesn’t line up with them.

2. Include your top three “stop-doing” objectives in your strategic plan(s). You should have a “stop-doing” for every “to-do” item.

3. Have your team or employees rank to-do lists in order of importance. Then chop off the bottom 20 percent.

4. Practice “digital budgeting:” priorities that make it in the ranking after the previous exercises get full funding; those that don’t, get zero funding.

Listen to Collins’ “stop-doing” rant here*.

* From Jim Collins’ “lecture hall” at JimCollins.com.

Assess yourself

How’s your spiritual condition? What are your obstacles to growth?

Find out at Assess-Yourself.org, a web site that provides free self-examination tools designed by researchers at Regent University. The online tests take between 5 and 15 minutes to complete and cover a handful of topics. As the web site states, “self-examination is a Biblical mandate because it’s a pathway to growth.”

These simple tests may be well worth your while, whether they confirm what you already know or reveal a habit or personality trait that may have escaped your attention. Either way, I hope it moves you to make a positive change.