Cup of Joe

Nightingale-Conant celebrates Joe Caruso as one of the “50 of the greatest minds on personal development.”

I am also deeply honored to be included in the new release of Nightingale-Conant’s 50th Anniversary Celebration CD.  N-C, the largest publisher of personal development audio books in the world, has compiled the teachings of 50 of the top leaders in Personal Development in a new CD set called The Personal Insight Library.

At the request of Nightengale-Conant, I—along with Steven Covey, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dwyer and other legends of the industry—recorded special messages to create an unprecedented, powerful new audio book to help N-C celebrate their 50^th anniversary.

If you would like to learn more about Nightingale-Conant and this great NEW collection, visit their website.  As a participant in this collection, I can pass along their current offer of 65% off of the list price. Or, if you’ve never had a chance to check out my N-C audio book, The Principles of Authentic Power, you can download mp3 files of any session individually, or the entire collection, on the Nightingale-Conant website.

If you would like a special and unique gift idea for a friend, loved one or colleague, you can send them a personally autographed copy of Principles of Authentic Power.  Simply link to my website or call our offices with your order and I will personally autograph your copy.

I would like to congratulate Nightingale-Conant on their 50th Anniversary and thank them for many years of a great partnership.

Happy Anniversary Nightingale-Conant!

Most of us like it when things go our way.  That’s just human nature.  But always doing just what we want whenever we want isn’t always good for us.  As Dr. M. Scott Peck pointed out on page 53 of his mega-bestseller, The Road Less Traveled, “It is natural to defecate in our pants and never brush our teeth. Yet we teach ourselves to do the unnatural until it becomes second nature.”

Experience has taught me that if I really want to maximize opportunities and outcomes, I need to ignore my immediate desire to take charge and instead think about how I might use compromise in order to optimize. This means learning to go against my nature and letting go of my natural human desire to have everything go my way.  This life lesson has served me well through the years—both personally and professionally.   I can’t possibly count the times that an event, an evening, an outcome, a relationship or an experience wasn’t in some way improved because I chose to not assert my will on something.

Pick Your Battles

When I work with CEO’s, salespeople, board members and other high-powered professionals, one of the critical aspects of my job is to help them learn which “battles” they should be taking on and how to engage when doing so.  More often than not, we end up discussing which battles are worth fighting for, and which issues to leave alone.  I suggest that they might be more effective leaders, have a greater chance of getting their desired outcome, and even avoid their greatest fears by carefully selecting their battleground. Learning how to choose our battles is one way we exercise the notion of going against our natural desire to attempt to control all circumstances and events each and every minute of the day. Sometimes when we give up getting our way, we gain a better outcome.

When we focus on what’s really important in terms of desired outcome, whether it’s a business deal, a closed sale or perhaps an enjoyable evening—and learn to compromise other less important issues, we have a chance to discover the great opportunities that others can contribute. This kind of compromising can bring opportunities that we probably couldn’t have brought about, left to our own devices. In this way, it’s not the goal we’re compromising; it’s merely our human nature in the moment.

Sometimes human nature doesn’t serve us as well as what we choose to make our second nature.  When we learn to compromise to optimize in a way that it becomes second nature to us, life can be more rewarding.  It’s simple.  Not easy.  But definitely worth it.