Strategy Newsletter

Hey everyone,

LaDon Linde, Jr. and I have put together a newsletter and hope to send one out monthly. We hope this will help us stay connected and share a variety of things with one another i.e., experiences from our jobs, books we are reading, cool websites, finance tips, spiritual topics, challenges, and any other tidbit that can help us stay connected and learn from one another. We realize this is the first of hopefully several to come so please send us feedback. We really want this to be a valuable resource to all of us. Please feel free to contact either of us with any ideas or feedback you might have, or to simply tell us how you are doing.

LaDon Linde, Jr.: ladon84@hotmail.com 509.901.1558
Nate Lawler: natelawler@gmail.com 951.526.7840

Below, are three write ups by Charles Barrett (Innosight--Boston, barrett.charles.e@gmail.com), Jeff Brownlow (Bain--Dallas, jcbrownlow@gmail.com), and Neal Watterson (Aon--Chicago, nealw33@yahoo.com ). We asked them to tell us about their experiences and sent them questions that we thought would be interesting to hear about. Thank you guys for taking the time to write these up--we appreciate it!.


Book of the Month--"Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi

Dr. Godfrey suggested that I read Never Eat Alone, a book about networking. It was well worth it and is something I would recommend to everyone. Networking is an overused and misunderstood word. Ferrazzi does a good job explaining what it is, how important it is, and what’s the right way to go about doing it.
The biggest key: give, give, give. Look for ways to reach out to people and help them (because you care about people--not just to get things). For example, as a result of this book I wrote a guy that had wanted to interview me for a job (but I was lucky enough to have one) and asked if he’d filled the position. He said no, so I connected him with another good friend of mine who was looking for a job. My friend told me that if I ever wanted to use his family contacts for anything (his grandpa and two uncles went to Harvard, and his other grandpa is very wealthy) I could. That offer was given because I was looking out for him the best I could.

Ferrazzi explains well that truly caring about people and working to improve their lives is really the key to networking. You will receive as you truly give. It's something very analogous to church service. While some believe that church service leads to blessings, really church service is the main blessing. It brings with it a lot of great things. So it goes with networking--give and you naturally receive. When you read the book you'll understand this better. Thanks Prof. Godfrey for helping me learn this lesson! LaDon

Interesting Articles

1) In Search of the Science Behind the Healing Powers of Art

Interesting article on art having power; I believe the mind has a lot of power to affect attitudes, perception, beauty, etc. These ideas are fascinating. It’s also a reason why being careful and wise with music that we listen to or images that we see are very important.

2) A Reckless Congress
Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history
Religious Tidbit

LDS Conversations: Elder and Sister Bednar

Very good conversation with the Bednars! Seriously excellent!

They talk about reasons they travel to certain places as GA’s (i.e., even though they go to set apart a new Stake President, usually there’s another reason they are sent to a certain place), bring up mistakes they’ve made, give advice, etc. As candid a discussion as we get with members of the Twelve.

Website of the Month

Mint.com

I am sure several of you have already heard about this site. I heard about it over a year ago and find it to be very useful to organize my finances.

www.addall.com - if you wan to get a cheap copy of Never Eat Alone

Social Networks - remember to follow us on Twitter and join the LinkedIn group

Twitter

LinkedIn

In the search box: search "byu strategy" under groups