Category Archives: Books

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

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Here’s the first YouTube video in the ’15 and forgiveness’ series mentioned in the ‘15af for career changers‘ post.

‘Just5Rules‘ is my YouTube channel for personal growth and career change material.
By clicking the YouTube ‘Like’ button you increase the chances that the video content will be seen by others.

Part One: 15 And Forgiveness – Introduction

Below is the embedded video, and underneath is the transcript.
Enjoy! (And please remember to tweet this post to help get the message out.)

15af – Introduction – Edited Transcript

Hello and welcome to markmccluretoday.com.

This is Mark McClure and I’ve got a special treat for you.

It’s an interview I did with Al Secunda, the author of ‘The 15-Second Principle‘.

I’ve called it ‘15 and forgiveness.’ (15af)

And when you download and listen to it, I think you’ll find out why.

But just before we start the interview, I’d like to introduce you to Al and his work,
and why it had such a big effect on me.

And how I think it can help career changers and people with major life changes, in
fact, make progress towards their dream goal or vision.

Some people dream of making big changes for the better in their life or career, yet create only ‘castles in the
air‘. Others set specific goals but avoid ever taking action.

One man who has faced all the above in his own life and finally decided to do something
about it, is motivational speaker, workshop leader coach, and author of ‘The 15-Second Principle’, Al Secunda.
(Al’s wonderful book is available on Amazon.com and really helped me keep going when I began my mid-life career change journey some years ago (2005).)

In fact, I found his approach so helpful in moving forward that I finally plucked up the courage
and asked him to do a telephone interview, my first; so you can imagine I was a little nervous.

(The interview’s) all about using the 15-second principle.

In just under two hours, Al Secunda shared freely from his experiences and knowledge, and we covered a lot of topics, and had a bit of fun too. I’m going to read out just five highlights from the first thirty minutes:

    • 1) Connecting fifteen and forgiveness with your dream goals.
      (This is probably the crux of the whole interview really.)
    • 2) The Zen-like answer to, “what can you do in fifteen seconds?”
    • 3) Why pleasure before precision helps learn a new skill.
    • 4) Discover how ‘faithing’ and ‘taking action’ go hand-in-hand.
    • (5), Getting comfortable with discomfort; what he calls the ‘inclusion factor’.

Now, there’s a whole lot more in the remaining hour or so, so you should (probably) get a pencil and a note pad out, if you’re wise, and take some notes.

(Because) It’s really valuable information.

As far as downloading the interview is concerned, I recommend if you have a cable broadband or faster internet connection, you should be able to download it no problem.

It’s a twenty five (25) megabyte file and it took me about five minutes to download the same (file) sitting here in Japan, with the file on a server in the US. So, if I can do it over (under?!) the Pacific, I think you should be able to do it with a cable broadband connection, if it’s reasonably reliable.

Now, before you start listening, I recommend that to get the very best from the interview, you first think of a big goal or dream you’ve been putting off starting for ages.

So, typically for career changers, it is in fact making progress on figuring out what they can change their career to, or moving on to something different.

Apply Al’s 15 and Forgiveness Approach Today

Have that in mind – what’s holding you up, what that dream is, then listen to the interview, and then right after it, as soon as the interview is finished, NOT the next day, not two hours later, but right away, apply Al’s 15 and forgiveness approach, and see what happens.

And if you want some support, or you want to let others know how you are getting on, just drop by my blog, at markmccluretoday dot com, and let me know. Leave a comment in one of the posts, the latest post, and i’ll see it. And if you’ve got something useful to share, I’ll make sure everybody else knows about it too.

Okay, let’s start the interview now. Enjoy.

- Mark McClure

PS: The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:
http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

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15af for Career Changers

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This is the opening post in a series designed to highlight the wisdom and experience of motivational author, Al Secunda. I first wrote about Al over four years ago in this post titled, “15 and Forgiveness in Action“. His book, ‘The 15-Second Principle“, is one of my favorite personal growth books, partly because he’s been up close and personal with very successful A-list Hollywood stars, as their some time tennis coach.

Al’s counterintuitive approach to goal setting has as its premise a seeming contradiction.
I’m roughly paraphrasing here but “either you don’t really want this goal OR you’re scared to death of it.”

Career Change Faint Heart

There’s a lot of nonsense talked by so-called gurus and coaches who trumpet the “do what you love” mantra to often unhappy people looking for direction in their choice of vocation.

It’s nonsense because it appeals to people who dream of career change but would run a mile if they actually had to engage critical thinking skills, and then do it. Alas, some of them get caught in subtle co-dependency marketing webs spun by ‘teachers’ whose primary aim is to build their own streams of income, usually at their clients’ expense.

Far, far better for these “castles in the air” dreamers to discover by themselves, and mostly for free, that career change is probably NOT for them.

Al’s book is a guide to helping you ditch goals you thought you (or often, someone else in your life) wanted to achieve before much harm is done, or time and money ‘wasted’…

… leaving you freer and happier to pursue those goals that really DO scare you to death!

15 and Forgiveness now on YouTube

Although the original two-hour mp3 audio interview still gets downloaded, I want to present the content to a much bigger audience than this blog. I also want to add a transcript for people to skim through.

I will therefore be adding the interview to YouTube as a multi-media series with a link to each transcript on this site.

I encourage you to share these YouTube videos with your friends and followers using social media tools such as FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus and others.

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

This video introduces Al Secunda and his book, The 15-Second Principle, setting the scene for the interview itself.
The video is 4m 47s and the transcript is around 700 words.
Click ‘15af – Video 01 – Introduction‘ to watch this video and read the transcript.

The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:

http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

- Mark ‘scared-to-death goal setter‘ McClure

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First Book: Self-Coaching For Career Change And Personal Growth

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In 2008 I had an information product idea called, “Self Coaching For Career And Life Change“.
Alas, this went nowhere because of two career-related changes I made, and one that Nature imposed quite suddenly:

  1. I started a freelance writing business.
  2. I stopped coaching clients directly and decided to let my words here be my ‘coaching voice’.
  3. The earthquake and tsunami disaster in North-Eastern Japan on 3/11, last year

Almost four years on from that post and I’ve been thinking about writing a book – a real one, not an eBook. Despite the rise of tablet computers and eBook readers, there is still a very large market for physical books.

The Effortless Authorship System – What?

What convinced me to start writing a book was an email from my good friend James Brown, a successful Internet Marketing consultant, and also based in Japan. He had been working on his own book (due out in 2012) with an experienced business ghostwriter, Michael Levin. Of course, being the consummate marketer that he is, not only did he create a book with Mr. Levin’s assistance, but he also partnered with him to promote Michael’s effortless authorship system for ‘writing’ and self-publishing books.

The Effortless Authorship System is designed to get rookie authors past the roadblocks (both physical and psychological) that often frustrate writers and destroy their publishing dreams. I purchased the course during an ‘early-bird’ marketing launch and also signed up for the monthly mentoring option to see what I can learn about writing and self-publishing books ‘behind the scenes.’

Which Book should I write?

I’ve been thinking about the theme of my first book for a few weeks now and it’s clear that there are two possibilities.

Book choice #1 is centered on the topic of (mid) career change and personal growth; something this blog has focused on for over four years.
Having been through two career changes so far (in my mid-20s and again in mid-life), I have learned a lot and would like to pass on that knowledge to others.

By ‘others’, I mean people who want to make changes in their life or career (the two are often inter-linked, in my experience) but hesitate to put plans into action, or falter on following through.

Of course, I could compile a top 20 list of posts from this blog and use them to publish an e-book. These posts might even be sufficient to publish a 100+ page book. However, I’ve been selective in what I’ve shared here, while the blog itself has changed direction as my plans have changed e.g. from offering coaching products and services, through to describing my transition from coaching to freelance writing and teaching.

While I hope ‘markmccluretoday‘ is still interesting to readers, I don’t think it’s the only ‘communications vehicle’ to get this message into the world. I believe that a book, well-planned and researched, is also able to reach a wide audience.

Book choice #2 is focused on how to get the best from content marketing assets in the Asia-Pacific region; a topic that fits well into my freelance technology writer’s blog.
The ideal reader is a marketing manager for an Information Technology vendor or reseller; someone who is based in the Asia-Pacific region, and charged with providing marketing content (e.g. white papers, case studies, blogs and  social media conversations) that prospects and customers can identify with.

And The Winner Is…

From the post’s title you might have guessed that book choice #1 is going to be my first (self-) published book. The core ‘self-coaching’ message strongly appeals because I aim at living it every day. And I’ve had many conversations with friends (online and offline) and coaches who say they’d like to know more about self-coaching as a strategy for dealing with career and life change.

So, ‘Self-coaching for career change and personal growth‘ it shall be. That’s a working title and good enough for now.

What I will probably do is blog here about topics connected with the book’s theme, and post on justfiverules.com about the project of creating and publishing the physical book.

Book #2 Waiting for CSMA/CD Clearance

While my focus is on writing the self-coaching book, not much is going to happen publicly with the “content marketing in Asia-Pacific” book. I’m already planning at least one lead generation report for samuraiwriter.com. And there’s also a monthly newsletter launch to attend to.

Your Questions and feedback on book #1 are very welcome.

Mark ‘self-coaching book’ McClure

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Book Review: “Pure Heart Simple Mind” by Charlie Badenhop

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Charlie Badenhop’s new book, Pure Heart Simple Mind, has been my ideal reading companion this week on Tokyo’s efficient but sometimes overcrowded trains.

pure-heart-simple-mind-book-seishindo

pure heart simple mind

The book is only 130 pages and can be read in a few hours. However, just as the space within a tatami room adapts to fit the form required, some of these stories had a similar effect on my beliefs about life in Japan.

There’s much to ponder here and you could take almost any of these stories as a contemplation on life. Ten minutes spent doing so between Takadanobaba and Shibuya on the JR Yamanote line might a big change make…

The stories can also be enjoyed by themselves as fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary Japanese people. In that sense they are both interesting and educational. Of course, it helps that Charlie is an astute and patient observer of the world around him. He leaves judgment to others.

I have fond memories of the author’s Saturday afternoon workshops in Tokyo and his ‘somatic wisdom‘ has influenced my thinking since 2009. Looking back, I suspect the attention payed to breathing techniques in those classes, as a way of entering the body’s own ‘wisdom space’, led to my future interest in barefoot running and nasal breathing.

What is Pure Heart Simple Mind?

seishindo pure heart simple mind

In the book’s introduction (page five) Charlie describes the three Kanji characters that make up the name of his human potential discipline, sei-shin-do.

The first character he identifies with “refined and pure”.

The second is “heart” but in a life-living sense, beyond the physical function of the organ itself.

And the third he borrows from the “path” or “way” that followers and practitioners of Judo, Chado (tea ceremony), Shodo (calligraphy) and Aikido know well.

Taken together, these three characters compose and create Charlie’s “seishindo” response to the reality of life.
A response he defines on page five as:

“… an artful path for discovering your pure heart, simple mind.”

Now, as to the meaning of “Pure Heart, Simple Mind”?

I think this will be different for each reader.

There are no great secrets revealed in this book – the stories are taken from previously published Seishindo articles. But discoveries wait to be made and although I ‘ve never studied ‘Aikido’, I was drawn to accounts of Charlie’s experiences with this discipline and was surprised to learn how strong, yet gentle, the ‘ki’  appears to be.

My favorite passage from the book is on page 65, in a section dealing with peak performance, or “no mind”.
An architect is describing how he likes to be in this state and leaves Charlie with a quote from the “Tao De Ching”, a revered Chinese wisdom text. The quote reads:

Doors and windows are cut out from walls to form a room.
It is the emptiness that the walls, floor, and ceiling encompass, that provides a space to live in.

Thus, what we gain is Something, yet it is from the virtue of Nothing that this Something derives. 

Associating this idea with the emptiness of a traditional Japanese room now has me thinking about my family and our six-mat tatami room.

The final line on this same page is a very beautiful thought to behold, and I’d like to quote it here:

The experience of emptiness is an invitation to empty one’s thinking mind, so that a new, innocent reality might appear.

‘Pure Heart, Simple Mind’ is a wonderful book for the whole soul.
Thank you, Charlie, for writing this fine ‘body of work’. (^__^)

- Mark McClure

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Book Review: Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

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Months ago, I recall responding to a request for bloggers to review Guy Kawasaki’s latest book, “Enchantment”. The deal? Publisher (Penguin) sends the book, said bloggers then read and review it.

Well, alas my review has long missed that book launch, due to other committments.
I finally read the book piecemeal, while riding the Tokyo subway over a period of several weeks.

Alas, it did not grab my attention in either style or content. Perhaps because I’ve read too many books about doing business with others, and am now somewhat jaded when presented with the same basic ideas…

That said, any casual but interested reader (actually, a skimmer would be perfect) can learn a lot from reading just the subheads in each chapter. Someone has really thought these through and they probably contain about 80% of the book’s message. They certainly are visible proof of the power behind well-crafted words.

Should you Buy this Book?

Before deciding whether to buy a book I often check out the reviews on Amazon.com. Imagine my surprise on seeing that of the 220 customer reviews, 175 were marked as ’5 star’. While it was a decent book on “the Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, I certainly wasn’t that enchanted and would rate it as 3 stars for content and 2 for presentation.

Another way of making your purchasing decision is to check out the (61) slides-only view of Guy’s enchantment speech.

Enchantment v3.0

Guy, thank you for the opportunity to read and comment on your book.
- Mark McClure
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