But you and I have oodles to learn from him. Why? Because here in the Your Inner CEO Community, where as a group engaged in the study of the book of the same name, your first learning task is to articulate in 10 words or less—in non-business language—your crystal clear value proposition to the world. Taking our cue from brilliant psychiatrist Alfred Adler, we call this our “Style-of-Life.” SOL for short. This is a difficult task, and we enter into it experimentally and flexibly, actually in a spirit of play, because we’re not going to get it right, right away. But get it right eventually we will if we are to discover, articulate and bring our singular gleaming essence to daily living. This is value not limited to work, but applicable across our whole existence: work, love and community.

I’m confident Tiger Woods has not sat down and followed our guidelines to construct a formal SOL, but he is a meditative sort and clearly in a groove and very much at home with himself in the world. When you realize that not one-stroke difference occurred between the two finalists in the four rounds of the recent U.S Open Golf Tournament in San Diego, and that a fifth round was necessary, and even that required a sudden death extra hole to produce him the winner, you see how Tiger makes the difficult look easy. That he does it over and over again lets you know he’s tapping into something special.

Check out this piece on Tiger by David Brooks in the New York Times this past week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/opinion/17brooks.html

The lesson is not to “Be like Tiger” any more than it was to “Be like Mike” a few years ago. It’s to look into your mirror in the morning and think “Be like me.”

Allan

Greetings, READERS!

A few people in the Your Inner CEO Community (yes, there is one) have been lobbying for the launch of an online study group for the book itself: Your Inner CEO. In the beginning I wondered about the practicality and “doability” of it and then after pondering the idea for a couple of months became enthusiastic about it.

So we’re doing it! We’re going to do the book as an online reading group, much as many of you have no doubt done in reading groups among friends in each other’s living rooms or some sort of community facility. We won’t be face-to-face, of course, but we’ll go at our own pace and cover whatever we deem important at the time. I’m confident we’ll deepen our relationships and open up and deal with subjects, over not too long a time, in a spirit of trust and candor. I look forward to participating fully in this with you.

The day of the launch is—you guessed it—TODAY! Come explore. Find out more at the link below. As a heads up, newcomers will have to sign in to participate.

http://yourinnerceo.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1978871%3ATopic%3A2221

All the best,

Allan Cox

Been to a Starbucks lately? Have you noticed those brief quotes on their cups that are meant to be thought-starters to customers who’ll crank up the old coffee house type of buzz and energy? Well, Starbucks let me know recently that they’ve lifted a short passage from my book, Your Inner CEO, that they’re going to put on their cups sometime later this year. Here it is:

By the time executives get married, take on a mortgage, raise kids, cope with the crabgrass, climb the corporate ladder, do their best to manage career pressures, build their net worth and get into their 40s, they’ve lost touch with what they believe in and care about most deeply.

This downward drift up the corporate ladder is a puzzling fact, and I’m sure you don’t want this to happen to you in your work and life. Hold that thought while we move on from this puzzling fact to a riddle . . .

Do you know what makes the person special who hires people better than she is?

Because, most often, unlike she, they don’t!

It’s the hidden quality implicit in her action that outweighs their and her literal competencies.

Do you find this puzzling fact and riddle thought-provoking? Do you care why the woman in the riddle excels and others derail, even though early in the game they show exceptional promise? If you don’t, read no further.

Your Inner CEO Community

In “Your Inner CEO Community” your legitimate ambitions can be that you find energy and acquire wisdom by thinking and discussing such puzzles and riddles. That it can be a place where you not only are exhilarated by what you learn, take away and apply, but others who are here, too, also feel that way because of what you give by your gaining leverage in your work and life. By making yourself part of the gathering in this way, what you send out comes back to you. And so it is with your colleagues as well.

Your Inner CEO Community is an engagement. We’re here to tussle things through, thoroughly, together, climbing steadily, surely. The book, Your Inner CEO, is the guide to our conversations, projects, and thought experiments. Leaning on it, we share inquiries, successes, failures and suggestions with each other. Our tagline is Leadership from the core.

The Risk is the Downside

We start there. A handful of others before you have framed out a prototype of thought exercises based on their reading the book. Come see what these early travelers have drafted in the “Exercises” and “Archives” rooms right off our Lobby. Try your hand at an idea yourself. Sketch something out. If you feel like it, let us know what you’ve ventured. Or take issue with what you see there. If you’d rather hold your fire for awhile, that’s fine, too.

Where do we go from there in this new venture? Who knows? We have the tools onsite—Ning and Wiki, making more high impact insights available to more people. What can you learn and apply that people can emulate just by watching you?

Are you in, an early adoptor? Yes? What’s the risk? The real risk is saying No. That’s the downside. But the other side . . . well, the other side is the upside, your journey to the summit of your personal Everest.

I’ll be active, ascending right alongside you.

All the best,

Allan

Start right here: Your Inner CEO and click on “YIC Community”

NOW IS GONE

By Geoff Livingston with Brian Solis (Bartleby Press)

Communications has evolved more in the last 10 years than it has in the previous 100….

I’ve just read Now is Gone, a 187-page book written by Geoff Livingston (with an introduction by Brian Solis), two sharp public relations practitioners, for PR executives and companies looking to understand and incorporate the strategic principles of social network marketing. As these two can attest, PR is so valuable yet so underrated. Oftentimes, PR is a mechanical process aimed at pleasing company executives rather than the people looking for real news and information. That paradigm doesn’t work anymore. Now is Gone was written to change how you engage with customers. Their Motto: Engage or Die!

In Your Face

The book’s energetic, in-your-face approach shows readers the evolution of Public Relations and offers vision and wisdom to help you communicate in the 2.0 world. Sadly, many companies are still in the dark as to how to truly maximize their impact utilizing social media. PR today is a totally different playing field. Blessedly, Livingston explains the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of 2.0 marketing. Everything you need to work in the PR 2.0 world is right here at your fingertips. A practical handbook for corporations, it’s also full of relevant case histories.

Doesn’t Answer Questions Nobody’s Asking

Today, people have a completely different routine and process for reading, interacting and sharing information. PR 2.0 is defined by interaction and interactive publishing—making all content available to the masses. We have to communicate with people in the places they go for information. It’s a new world we live in. Understanding your customer is key. It’s a world of dialog—not monologue. These gentlemen are helping to create a new breed of communications professionals. We not only want to read and disseminate information, but to share and create content for others to experience as well. Social media users today have myriad resources at their fingertips. Peer-to-peer marketing has never been more relevant. Social media allows companies to engage directly with customers.

Don’t Read This Book Alone

This practical handbook brings to mind Tapscott and Williams’ Wikinomics and David Meerman Scott’s New Rules of PR and Marketing. The future of marketing integrates traditional and social tools, connected by successful, ongoing relationships with media, influencers and people. The future of communications lies in introducing sociology to marketing strategy. The book is a quick read, yet it carefully explains a great deal of information from a pro who knows how to build successful PR 2.0 marketing campaigns. Don’t read this book alone. Read it with your colleagues and discuss it together. Then keep it handy because you’ll return to it again and again. There’s a great deal of data here that will be helpful to all readers working to wrap their arms around their new Marketing Public Relations campaigns.

All the best,

Allan