The Top 5 Things We Learned In 2020

In a year where we have been challenged greatly, we need to remember that we have grown and adapted immensely, and we can take the lessons we learned into the future. So, we would like to share with you our five biggest takeaways from 2020.

We need to take care of ourselves

While this sounds obvious at first, when we face hardships in our lives our self-care is the first thing to be removed from our day-to-day activities. Rather than replenish our energy with rest and activities that give us energy, we tend to spend longer and longer hours working, effectively burning the candle from both ends. In a year where we have faced prolonged hardship and challenges, taking time to rest and recharge can be a much more effective strategy to be able to bring our best selves to our profession. This can look like seeking self-care resources, creating a self-care oriented morning routine, getting outside, or blocking out days in our schedule where we completely unplug from work.

We need to prioritize learning

In an environment where everything is consistently changing, our growth and learning is paramount to our being able to adapt and thrive. At PFD, we believe that all of the knowledge we could need already exists - it is our job to find it. So, we prioritize reading books and articles, and attending webinars and events to better ourselves.

It’s all about Great People

In an environment that is so extraordinarily challenging, we need amazing people on our teams that fit our cultures to drive our growth. We have found that, when our environmental pressure is increased, having people on our team that are B or C players or don’t share our core values is incredibly damaging. On the other side, having the right people in the right roles can be transformational to our resilience and health. We need to be consistently recruiting and promoting our team to make sure we have the right people to handle the challenges and opportunities that we come across.

We need to support great leaders in driving change

In 2020, there were many hardships we faced that were exacerbated by a lack of great leadership. For example, this pandemic has worsened widening wealth gaps in the United States, the impacts of which will be felt decades to come. This adds challenges and hardships to an already heartbreaking situation. If there was anything that this pandemic has taught us, it is that we need great, visionary leaders that will drive us into a more just and optimistic future. At PFD, we believe it is our job to support diverse leaders to drive this change. Our community is very important, we’re genuinely better together. When we invest in leadership and community, we can create a team of teams and tackle complex issues that span the globe.

Our outlook is everything

When we can’t control much in our environment, we must focus on what we can control - our attitude. It was so easy to get discouraged this year and give up, or let ourselves become passive. The real strength comes in looking at the brutal facts of our situations, and believing wholeheartedly that we will make it through. It is finding reasons to be grateful when our circumstances offer little to be grateful for. It is knowing that disruption brings opportunities, and diving into those opportunities head-first. It is deciding to be a positive force in the lives of our teams and communities, even when positivity is scarce. Our attitude shapes our ability to wholeheartedly impact those around us when they need it most, so we need to have the best attitude we possibly can.

Thank you, 2020. You were tough, but you taught us these valuable lessons that will help us to become better people and leaders for the rest of our lives.

2020 Was Brutal. We Can Undoubtedly Make 2021 Better.

Admiral James Stockdale -
U.S. Navy File Photo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As written in the Jim Collins' book Good to Great, The Stockdale Paradox refers to Admiral James Stockdale, who was a prisoner-of-war during the Vietnam war. Being highest-in command at the Hanoi Hilton POW camp, Stockdale held the responsibility of creating conditions to increase the survival rate of his men, while also enduring horrible torture and no certainty if he would make it out alive.

It was in these conditions that Stockdale created a very simple formula (the Paradox) to triumph in the most challenging and uncertain of circumstances: 

Acknowledge and confront in every way the brutal facts of your situation and hold onto the unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end.

 As business leaders, we know that 2020 has been tough. As we reflect on the end of this year, we are fully aware that this year has brought challenges unlike anything we have ever seen before. Before this year, we had never used the term “social distancing”, nor had Zoom ever been so popular. We have heard the words uncertainty and unprecedented more times than we could count.  We celebrated birthdays and holidays virtually, we did “drive by” graduation ceremonies, and we became used to working from home or in masks. We watched with bated breath as we saw the racial turmoil unfold, and our hearts sunk as we saw the economy suffer because we knew that meant the loss of jobs and livelihoods for people who really needed it. This year has been undoubtedly difficult, and we would have good reason to perseverate on the challenges this year has brought forth. If we were to take the advice of Admiral Stockdale, we should not only the brutal facts of 2020, but also go forth into 2021 with hopeful optimism that we will prevail through these circumstances.

In short, we ask you to persevere in your vision.

We know that this is no small ask. To succeed in this time doesn’t just take the spirit of perseverance, it takes a well-founded strategy and steadfast execution. Further, it takes seeing the vast opportunities in a market that only seems to have readily visible challenges. There is reason to hope, for a better 2021, and we will need to be able to set ourselves up well to be able to capitalize on some opportunities. After the last pandemic in 1919, the United States saw the roaring 20s, with abundant wealth and a prosperous economy. Experts suggest that 2021 will see a similar economic boom, even if it will take time to get there, with the economy getting worse before it gets better.

So, what’s the secret to capitalizing on all of the opportunities that 2021 has to offer?

Creating a rock-solid annual plan with your senior leadership team.

The end of the year is this extraordinary time to be able to look towards a better future. The annual planning process is crucial to making that future a reality. This process becomes to really step back and look at the market in a meaningful way. Further, we can use this time to reengage with our customers to understand how their needs are changing and evolving. With our leadership teams, we should be asking great questions of each other, having productive and honest conversations - thoroughly hashing out our strategy. Through these conversations we can come to understand where the white space is for our businesses, and we can end up on a much better, simpler path that we can effectively execute. Our teams understand fully the brutal facts of 2020. It is our job to, with unwavering faith, create a strategy and execution plan that will allow us to prevail in 2021.

At PFD, we’ve been really blessed to have a fantastic methodology and effective virtual tools to be able to facilitate annual planning sessions. If you would like to know more about our process to scale businesses or book an annual planning session for you and your entire senior team, please fill out the form below.

New Day: The Importance of Creating Space and Routine Each Morning.

We have all heard the adage, “New Year, New me”. The idea that with the new year will bring forth prosperity and an renewed sense of self is not new – in fact, it dates back to 4000 BC in ancient Babylon, where the Babylonians would make resolutions for the year in a religious ceremony preceding the planting of crops. This tradition was present in other parts of the world throughout history – as a similar practice was used in Ancient Rome and with Early Christians. Today, the idea of New Year’s Resolutions is commonplace, especially in the United States, as it is estimated that 45% of Americans make them.  

At PFD, we believe in New Year’s resolutions. In fact, it’s our job help leaders and entrepreneurs set and reach meaningful 1-Year Highly Achievable Goals (1HAGs)  so that they can make progress on their Big Hairy Audacious Goal and scale their businesses. While New Year’s Resolutions are genuinely helpful, today, I would like to focus on a much smaller period of time: the new day. At the beginning of the New Year, those who make resolutions begin with excitement and tenacity for what they can accomplish, but these feelings tend to fade rather quickly. Rather than try to sustain these feelings for a year, what if we started out each day with a similar optimism and excitement? What if we intentionally took time out of our day each morning to create a positive mindset that sets the tone for the rest of our day?

“ “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

For anyone who knows me, they know I am a morning person, so I might sound biased when I say mornings are an incredible and magical time of day. On the best days, I will get up around 4:00 AM to pray, journal, meditate, work out, and prepare for my day. When I take the time to do these things, I find that my days are exponentially better. On these days, I have more energy, I feel more centered, I plan my day better, and I am more productive. Studies show that getting up in the morning has been linked to better stability, increased proactivity, and lower rates of depression. As we end this year of innumerable challenges, we need to give ourselves a fighting chance against the stressors in our lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a mental health crisis in America, and we need to be proactive in reintroducing a sense of normalcy and routine in the ways we have control. Our mornings are a great place to start.

Recently, I have read Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs, and it has reinforced my firm belief in the power of routine and the mornings. The author, Hal Elrod, recommends a six-step process to implement in a morning routine – captured in the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S.

This acronym stands for:

Silence – This is the first part of the morning that is dedicated to mindfulness. As business leaders, we can often find ourselves guilty of checking our texts and emails as soon as we turn off the alarm. Experts suggest that starting your day this way actually impedes your ability to focus throughout the day and makes you more prone to distraction. Instead, take some moments to be silent – use this time to meditate, pray, reflect, etc. This will set you up to be more productive and less stressed throughout the day. During this time of prolonged stress, reducing cortisol levels is going to be paramount to your health and wellness.

Affirmations – This step is critical to reshaping your mindset. As leaders, it can be extraordinarily challenging to maintain confidence and faith in yourself and your business, especially when we have been hit with so many unforeseeable circumstances in the past year. When we take the time to recite the goals we are committed to, as well as understand wholly that we can become the type of people to achieve those goals, the results are astounding.

Visualization – In this step, leaders should take the time to picture a compelling image of the future, and what it would look like to live out of this reality. This will give us clarity and motivation to reach this future in actuality. 

Exercise – Exercising in the morning is paramount to living a healthier life and setting the tone for a positive day. Even if you would rather do a larger work out later in the day, even a short work out in the morning could be beneficial. This has been linked to increased energy throughout the day, as well as improved nutrient uptake.  

Reading – As business leaders, we should be consistently learning to be able to improve ourselves and our organizations. So many problems we face have already been solved – we just need to find it. Devoting 15 – 30 minutes to reading in the morning can help us to learn faster so we can more effectively scale our businesses. Not sure what book to start with? Check out our monthly reading lists here.

Scribing – In other words, write. In this part, journal your thoughts for 5-10 minutes. It can be something that’s been on your mind or reflection on what you just learned. This will help you gain clarity that will carry throughout the day. In addition, you could try your gratefulness practice (write 5 things you are grateful for each day) to help reframe your mind to be more positive.

After this brilliant morning routine from Hal, my best days also include a workday startup routine. This helps me to refocus on the most important things I need to accomplish in a day so I can make the most out of my day.

This routine includes:

1.     Reviewing my preparation for the morning stand-up meeting. I will do my prep work at the end of the day before, so it usually takes a quick glance to remind myself of what I need to bring to the discussion.

2.     Writing down my tasks and my schedule for the day in my planner. After this, I choose my top three priorities for the day, ensuring that these priorities are critical, align with the metrics for which I am responsible, or will help me to make progress on my quarterly goals.

3.     Meeting with my team for the daily stand-up.

4.     Emptying my email box.

After this routine, I am caught up and prepared to embark on the day. While there is so much that is out of our control right now, it is vital that we have healthy, productive morning routines as it will drastically improve our lives.

The New Year is a chance to start fresh, as it is a time where we have energy and drive to make possible our aspirations. We can apply that same energy to each new day by implementing healthy routines that foster growth, self-improvement, health, and focus. 

Some Suggestions –

1.     Read Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.  He goes much more into depth about how you can optimize your morning to be productive.

2.     Write down your workplace start-up routine – no more than 10 tasks that will help you feel equipped and prepared to take on the day.

3.      Schedule your morning. You don’t have to wake up at 4:00 am like me, but understanding and committing to doing different tasks at certain times will improve your intentionality with your morning.

Recommended Reading: December 2020

As a part of our continued commitment to providing the best resources for leaders to better themselves and thrive, for our December Reading List, we recommend these three books: BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company by Jim Collins and Bill Lazier, Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise by Horst Schulze, and The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. These books provide perspectives about business excellence from extraordinarily successful thought leaders and entrepreneurs.

BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company - Jim Collins & Bill Lazier

What's the roadmap to create a company that not only survives its infancy but thrives, changing the world for decades to come?

Nine years before the publication of his epochal bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins and his mentor, Bill Lazier, answered this question in their bestselling book, Beyond Entrepreneurship.

Beyond Entrepreneurship left a definitive mark on the business community, influencing the young pioneers who were, at that time, creating the technology revolution that was birthing in Silicon Valley. Decades later, successive generations of entrepreneurs still turn to the strategies outlined in Beyond Entrepreneurship to answer the most pressing business questions.

BE 2.0 is a new and improved version of the book that Jim Collins and Bill Lazier wrote years ago. In BE 2.0, Jim Collins honors his mentor, Bill Lazier, who passed away in 2005, and reexamines the original text of Beyond Entrepreneurship with his 2020 perspective.

The book includes the original text of Beyond Entrepreneurship, as well as four new chapters and fifteen new essays. BE 2.0 pulls together the key concepts across Collins' thirty years of research into one integrated framework called The Map. The result is a singular reading experience, which presents a unified vision of company creation that will fascinate not only Jim's millions of dedicated readers worldwide, but also introduce a new generation to his remarkable work.

Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise - Horst Schulze

CEOs. Leaders without titles. Startups. Corporations. For-profits. Nonprofits. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do - you want to become the best. You want to win, every time.

Horst Schulze knows how to win. In Excellence Wins, Schulze, in his absolute no-nonsense approach, shares the visionary and disruptive principles that have produced immense global successes over the course of his still-prolific fifty-year career.

As the co-founder and former president of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., Schulze fearlessly led the company to unprecedented multi-billion dollar growth, setting the business vision and people-focused standards that made the Ritz-Carlton brand globally elite.

Schulze's principles are both versatile and utterly practical to leaders of every age, career stage, and industry. You don't need a powerful title or a line of direct reports - you have everything you need to use them right now. If you're searching for the blueprint to beating the competition and out-performing everyone around you, look no further than Excellence Wins. Schulze pulls no punches as a masterful guide to becoming the very best in a world of routine compromise. Unleash the disruptive power of your true potential, own your career trajectory, and experience the game-changing proof firsthand: Excellence Wins.

The Infinite Game - Simon Sinek

From the New York Times bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, a bold framework for leadership in today’s ever-changing world.

How do we win a game that has no end? Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games, games with no finish line, like business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go. The rules of an infinite game are changeable while infinite games have no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers—only ahead and behind.
The question is, how do we play to succeed in the game we’re in?
In this revelatory new book, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. On one hand, none of us can resist the fleeting thrills of a promotion earned or a tournament won, yet these rewards fade quickly. In pursuit of a Just Cause, we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will build it week after week, month after month, year after year. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and our life meaning.
Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead us into the future.

The PFD Manifesto: A Declaration of Our Commitment to Serving

2020 has undoubtedly been a tumultuous year. Throughout this year, we have been challenged like never before - trying to navigate ever-present circumstances out of our control. At PFD, we think the end of this year is an excellent time to share with you our manifesto. Our manifesto has three elements: our Core Values, our Core Purpose, and our BHAG. By reconnecting with what we stand for as a company and envisioning the big picture of where we are going, it has helped us tremendously with our resiliency. This is because the elements in our manifesto allow us to remain steadfast while continuing to pursue a greater mission despite the uncertainty in the world. Because it has been helpful for us, we want to share what we created with you. Further, as a part of our continued commitment to serving our business community, we wanted to share with you how to create and roll out your own manifesto in your organization as a source of inspiration for your people.

Step 1: Decide the Elements - your Core Values, Core Purpose, and BHAG.

Your first step in creating your manifesto is to create the different elements that go into it. Below, you will see a description of the different elements to include. These elements are tricky, so if you need assistance in creating them, please reach out to us. We would be happy to help.

Manifesto Element I: Core Values

 Your core values ask this question: what are the consistent, accepted behaviors of your team members? The key to core values to drive behavior, and they are utterly meaningless if CEO isn’t protecting and stewarding them. These core values drive everything that we do, and the communicate to the world what we stand for. The purpose of your core values is to empower your employees – they will never not know what to do in a situation because they have very specific values there to guide them in making decisions. Your employees should never get in trouble for following the core values – when they follow them, this means they are self-initiating productive behavior that holds true to the best interest for the company. 

At PFD, our Core Values are:

Grow to Give

We take on a growth and learning mindset so we are best equipped to help our clients ability to grow and scale their impact. We strive to have a servant leader mentality so that we are able to approach everything with humility and to best serve others.

Create Client Value

We serve as the trusted guide for the CEO and their leadership team through finding better ways, providing exceptional service, anticipating needs, and seeing around the curves.

Communicate Proactively

We lean in and have the conversation so that there are no surprises.

Invest in our team and community

We are better together. We mentor and serve each other, and we steward the lives around us.

Be the Confidant

We nurture a culture of confidentiality, trust, and vulnerability. When our clients reach out to us, they share their greatest opportunities and challenges.

Manifesto Element II: The BHAG

The BHAG is a concept from Jim Collins, and it stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Our BHAG creates our North Star that we can use to navigate our companies. It is our 10-to-30 year goal that allows us to have something to work towards, despite the rockiness of the circumstances around us. The importance of the BHAG should not be understated. It creates a compelling mission for the company – an inspiring, unifying focal point that stimulates and energizes the team to make vast progress.

At PFD, our BHAG is to steward a movement, that, no matter where you are born, anything is possible. 

We believe that business can be a force for good in the world around us. We strive to empower the leaders we work with leverage their businesses to make a positive difference in their teams and their communities. We know that the average person will spend 90,000 hours working in their lifetimes, and this gives us tremendous opportunity to create meaningful and empowering workplaces that allow people to get to anywhere they want to go. We know that we can’t do this alone, so we will intentionally spend our time inspiring and empowering workplaces around us to make a meaningful difference in the lives around them.

Manifesto Element III: Core Purpose

The core purpose answers one very specific question: why does your company exist? It’s a very simple concept, but it is critical that everyone in your organization knows the answer to it. If everyone knows what your core purpose is, you are able to keep on track with your strategic vision, because it creates alignment toward your way of being.

At PFD, our Core Purpose is to steward lives. We believe stewardship is a very powerful concept. Simply put: we are blessed to have the resources we have, and we want to leverage those resources to positively impact the lives of the people around us.

Step 2: Design a graphic.  

In this day and age, design is everything. We recommend creating a graphic that shows the manifesto so that it comes alive. Rather than just being words on a document somewhere, we want to create a dynamic image that captures the eye, to draw attention to our team and the world what we stand for.

At PFD, one of our in-house designers, Emmalee created our manifesto. The source file was created in Adobe Illustrator, meaning it is a vector image, so we can make it as big or as small as we like with no pixelation. This makes it very versatile, so we can use our manifesto in many ways, both digitally and in print. If you don’t have a designer on staff, we recommend that you commission a freelance graphic designer to put your manifesto into a graphic. Fiverr.com is a great resource to find people that excel at this sort of work. Make sure to give your designer any brand guidelines as well as the information on the elements that need to be conveyed in your Manifesto.

A source file of the PFD Manifesto in Adobe Illustrator

Step 3: Repeat, repeat repeat.

The final step is to repeat your manifesto – everywhere. Get it printed and hang it in the office. Put it in your digital war room. Reference it at meetings. Repeat these foundational elements so often that your team is making fun of you – that’s how you know it’s starting to sink in.  At PFD, we begin every quarterly and annual offsite with our manifesto to remind the team of who we are and where we are going. Your team should know the core values, core purpose, and BHAG inside and out. What’s more, they should be able to take action to live them. Creating and repeating a manifesto is an incredibly grounding and empowering exercise for everyone, and we have found it to be transformational as we continue to navigate this uncertain world. While there is so much out of our control, we still have the power to decide the people we want to be and to take action to create a better future.

The manifesto is just the first step in creating resilient, growth-oriented business. We believe there is no better time than now to prepare ourselves for a better 2021. We would love to help you shape your future: one where you have the confidence and clarity to scale your business to create a better world around you.

If this mission is resonating with you, we would love to support you and your senior team. We would be happy to talk with you about your strategic plan for the upcoming year. Please reach out to us to schedule a call.

Recommended Reading: November 2020

In keeping with our commitment to providing resources to leaders in our business community, our November reading list has this book:

Love is Free. Guac is Extra.: How Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Curiosity Built an Unstoppable Team - Monty Moran

In this book, former Co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill Monty Moran explores how vulnerability, love, curiosity, and a unique understanding of empowerment builds an extraordinary and effective culture. Moran discusses the shaping experiences he had that led him to scaling Chipotle from a regional chain to a Fortune 500 Business, including befriending the homeless as a teenager, navigating the ever-challenging Co-CEO relationship, and personally interviewing 20,000 employees to understand their experiences. This is a book that showcases Monty’s humility as a a leader, and it helps us better understand servant leadership in a business context. Further, Moran also shows us how we can both be loving leaders and have a culture of excellence. At PFD, we can’t recommend this book enough for its insight to leadership development as a catalyst in creating amazing companies.

Diversity & Inclusion: An Interview with Kenneth Morris

An Attitude of Gratitude: Finding Meaning and Empowerment During Times of Difficulty

Dr. Viktor Frankl

With a world that seems so extraordinarily out of our control, it is easy to feel stressed and hopeless. Granted, there are many reasons to feel that way, but we believe that it is extraordinarily important to recognize our own agency and to intentionally shape our attitudes accordingly. This is not to minimize the impacts of the stressors people are feeling right now, rather, it is to provide a source of empowerment. There is a renowned and prolific psychologist that we would like to acknowledge when making this assertion – Dr. Viktor Frankl. Dr. Frankl is best known for creating logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy, after being the sole surviving member of his family from the Holocaust. During this time, he showed extraordinary resiliency, experiencing four different Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. In his creation of logotherapy, Dr. Frankl asserted that humans are motivated by a “will to meaning”, which means that humans have an innate desire to find some meaning in life, and that they can endure the most challenging of circumstances if they are motivated by their meaning.  Frankl wrote:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

Even if we cannot change a single thing about our circumstances, we can change our attitude to those circumstances. At PFD, we recognize the challenges that face leaders today, and we know they are numerous and difficult. This being said, we encourage leaders to take action to change their attitudes and to find meaning and empowerment despite this particular season.

One of the ways that we have found changes our attitudes is by simply introducing gratefulness into our day-to-day routine. Amie Gordon, PhD, a research scientist at the University of California, has said “gratitude is a powerful way to boost well-being”, and we have found that to be the case. Studies have shown gratefulness to be linked to improved quality of sleep, self-control, relational harmony, happiness, and generosity. Gratitude has also been shown to reduce depression and have lasting neurological positive impacts on the brain.

At PFD, November has kicked-off a month-long celebration of gratefulness. For us, per a logotherapeutic lens, we have been thankful for the relationships that we have in our lives. We are also grateful for the opportunity to continue supporting our clients in doing great work throughout this pandemic. The chance to focus on others has helped tremendously helpful when we have felt stressed, as it has taken our focus away from our challenges, and towards helping others. We are grateful that we have meaning and purpose for our business, to aid in stewarding a movement that creates world, no matter where you are born, anything is possible. We are grateful that we are able to safely get outside to the mountains in Colorado, and that the wildfires have greatly slowed with the snowfalls in the past few weeks. Finally, we are grateful to be a part of a network of leaders who, despite the outside circumstances, are relentless in their fight to make the world a better place.

In the midst of this extraordinarily challenging season, we remind you that you have control over your attitude, and it is important that you take action to positively shape your attitude. At PFD, we have found that gratefulness to be an important first step.

A session with one of our clients - Hometrends - that has shown great resiliency and commitment throughout this pandemic

Actions You Can Take:

1.     Commit to a daily gratefulness practice: write down five things every day that you are grateful for.

2.     Verbally express your gratitude each day. Saying “thank you” can be a knee-jerk reaction, so try changing the words you say to be more intentional about expressions of gratitude. For example, instead of saying “thanks for helping Jack with his homework today”, try saying, “I am very grateful that you helped Jack with his homework – it reduced my stress and it was really helpful to him”

3.     When you hear negative news, actively remind yourself of the positives in your life as well as actions that you can take that are within your control.

Recommended Reading: October 2020

As a part of our continued commitment to providing the best resources for leaders to better themselves and thrive, for our October Reading List, we recommend these three books: The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni, Titan by Ron Chernow, and How I Built This by Guy Raz. These books provide diverse perspectives about entrepreneurship and self-improvement through the lens of effective narrative structures.

THE IDEAL TEAM PLAYER - HOW TO RECOGNIZE AND CULTIVATE THREE ESSENTIAL VIRTUES - PATRICK LENCIONI

In his book The Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni provides actionable tools on how you should invest in your current team and hire going forward. At PFD, we share Patrick Lencoini’s passion for having healthy work environments. Since becoming CAPA Pro members, we have been able to share Lencioni’s foundational tools with our clients, and we have found that the ideal team player exercise has been worked well during this time of continued uncertainty. The ideal team player is a compelling framework for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players, talking about that these people are happy, humble, and aware of their impact on other people. The applications of this framework span all areas of life, from how we better ourselves, how we hire and develop our current team, how we parent, etc. It is an insightful and useful book, and we can’t recommend it enough.

TITAN: THE LIFE OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, SR. - RON CHERNOW

Ron Chernow’s Titan creates a captivating portrait of an entrepreneurial giant - John Rockefeller. The biography details two sides of this imperfect but brilliant figure in history: one side being the businessman whose aggressive practices created an empire, and the other of a philanthropist who donated bountiful amounts of money and was committed to educating marginalized populations. We recommend this book during this time because we find that it is important to tell stories of really strong leaders of different times and draw from the lessons that they have to share. This book is relevant today, because it shows how one leader navigated a time of political uncertainty in US. Further, by reflecting on Rockefeller’s life, we can critically think about the legacy that we are leaving behind, incorporating Rockefeller’s brilliance and commitment to philanthropy into our legacy, but also taking heed to not repeat the more infamous parts of his history.

HOW I BUILT THIS: UNEXPECTED PATHS TO SUCCESS FROM THE WORLD’S MOST INSPIRING ENTREPRENEURS - GUY RAZ

This book from Guy Raz tells stories of entrepreneurial brilliance. Raz is the mind behind and the host of NPR’s podcast by the same name, and it tells stories of innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the movements they built. This book is based off of that podcast, which is the top business podcast on iTunes, with over 200 million downloads to date. By telling these stories, this book offers insight to entrepreneurs on wisdom on how to overcome every problem, and it inspires us to strive for the same level of determination. We at PFD recommend this to our readers to broaden their perspectives and learn lessons from professionals who spent years learning these lessons themselves.