Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

DIY with expert guidance

My wife and I are having some remodeling done to make our house more hospitable for her father, who can no longer deal with stairs.  We’ve had some excellent assistance from a contractor for “big stuff” like adding a shower on the ground floor. 

In addition, we’re taking the opportunity to perform some other maintenance and updates, but are doing those ourselves to try to save some money.  One of the projects was to repair or replace a pocket door in one of our rooms, and it wasn’t obvious to me just how to do the job.

In the process of researching the topic, I came across “Ron Hazelton’s HouseCalls” site.  This is an excellent resource for do-it-yourself home repair jobs.  I started with “How to Repair and Replace a Pocket Door,” but you can search the site and there are tons of relevant, practical tutorials from Ron.

Each one has very clear, step-by-step instructions (with pictures), tells you what tools you’ll need, and offers printable instructions.  Most of the topics even include videos you can watch online to see how things ought to be done.

This resource is a real time saver and confidence builder.  If you’ve got home repairs that you want to tackle on your own, check out Ron’s site.

What about you – any favorite DIY resources to share?

The Encore Effect

“The Encore Effect” is subtitled, “How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do.”EncoreEffectCover   A pretty tall order, eh?  Well, I must say that author Mark Sanborn has put together a very solid set of techniques that really can help you achieve noteworthy results in what you do.

The name comes from the notion that, if you deliver remarkable performance it’ll be like at the end of a great concert; others will applaud and call you back for more.

To achieve this effect, Sanborn offers a “formula” that centers around Passion, Discipline, and Action.  According to Sanborn, these three elements combine to drive the excellence that leave the crowd wanting more.  Each of these critical elements is covered in a separate section of the book.

Create the magic

“I simply set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.” – John Wesley

It’s one thing to have passion, but quite another to be able to direct that passion toward a goal.  In the section on Passion, Sanborn talk about a number of techniques you can use to amplify your passion but, more importantly, he follows that up with a lot of coaching on how you can increase your chances of success through Preparation, Practice, Performance (engaging your audience), Polish (paying attention to the details), and how to anticipate and respond to Pitfalls.

Each aspect is dealt with in a concise chapter with advice that feels “right on the mark” to me, based on my experience.

Share your magic

Once you’ve mastered the art of producing encore-worthy performances, Sanborn encourages you to inspire, coach, and encourage others to achieve their own remarkable performances.  He offers some useful advice on how to cultivate the pursuit of excellence in others and I enjoyed reading his counsel.

If you’re feeling like you’re stuck in a humdrum, lackluster world and want to add some “wow” to your performance, I suggest you check out “The Encore Effect.”  It’s short and easy to read, but beneath its simplicity there is a lot of advice you can really use to be more awesome.

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New Year, New Focus

Happy new year, everyone!  After an enjoyable break the week and a half or so, I’m jumping into the new year which, for me, means lots of reflecting and planning for the future.

I’ve read a couple of awesome books in the past couple of weeks and will be posting reviews here in the next week.  Meanwhile, if you’re prone to setting goals at this time of year, here are a few randomly selected resources to get your juices flowing:

  1. If you’ve written your resolutions but are concerned about keeping them, you owe it to yourself to read the (always insightful) Gretchen Rubin’s post on the magic formula for keeping your New Year’s resolutions.
  2. If becoming more physically fit is on your list, you can get a free (and equipment-free) regimen that is just excellent at the “hundred pushups” site.
  3. In the only post I wrote during my absence, I have an idea for how to make two lists to increase your productive focus in 2009.  It’s over on Joyful Jubilant Learning.
  4. Finally, you’ve procrastinated this long (or are just prolonging the experience) there are some “best practices” for setting resolutions at Persistence Unlimited that may help.

Here’s to an awesome 2009!

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Reality Check – on the house

I just found out that Bill Baren will be interviewing Guy Kawasaki on Wednesday, December 10, at 12 pm PST (3 pm EST) to discuss Guy's new book "Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition."

I wrote about Bill’s Time Experts Teleseminar offering in the past, and still think it is pretty cool.  However, I’ve heard from folks who don’t want to pay for the Time Experts program, so this is a great, free alternative (either to soak up Guy’s thoughts or get a free test drive of the Time Experts offerings).

Guy has also offered the first chapter of his new book as a free download to all registrants.  You can sign up at  http://timeexpertstelesummit.com/guy.

If you’ve never heard Guy speak before, you should definitely check it out – he is awesome to listen to.

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