Spend the day relaxing at spa. Spurge on a fancy meal at your favorite restaurant. Soak in the sunshine at the beach. Get yourself a gift. Sleep in. Have a party.
Take Your Birthday Off  & Do What Every You Want!

PCelebrating your birthday should be filled with fun energy! Everyone should take their Birthday off!  I’m so passionate about this that when I used to manage direct reports, I’d gift them their birthday as an extra day off each year.

In fact, I engineered a whole “NATurally Powered Birthday System!” 
​Depending what day your Birthday falls on, positively power it up like this:

What I love and find energizing about this book:
"5-4-3-2-1 -> Go!" This simple 5-second rule can literally change your life! 

I finally snagged a copy of this book by Mel Robbins on Audible, and I kicked myself for not doing so sooner! Someone had told what the 5-Second Rule was, so I figured I didn’t really need to read the book – Boy, I was wrong!

I learned some much about the science behind why the 5-Second Rule works and how you can use it for so much more than just getting into action! Her book is full of so many powerful examples of how she and her clients have used it transform their life, their work and their confidence everyday.  (I''m using it now too and I'm a believer!)

I love having it on Audible, because I  quickly and easily re-listen to any of the chapters when I need a kick in the pants on whatever is holding me back in the moment. Narrated by Mel herself, I also appreciate her honest,  upfront and real discussion on emotions, fears & vulnerabilities that make us all human.  
                                            Click here to order from Amazon!

PS - Check out her four Audible Originals books too: 1) Start Here with Mel Robbins2) Take Control of Your Life, 3) Work it Out, and 4) Kick-Ass with Mel Robbins! ​

This post includes affiliate links.

Summertime is a great time to fuel your mind!  With the longer days and warmer weather, there are lots of ways to start reading again, or catch up on your current reading list.
 
You can enjoy reading while sipping your morning coffee on the porch.  Lose yourself in a page-turning novel, while swaying in a backyard hammock with the warm summer breezes dancing on your skin. Or flip pages, sitting on the beach blanket in the sun, or leaning against a tree in the shade. And when a pop-up summer thunderstorm hits, you can curl up inside and escape into an engaging story.

While I definitely recommend reading my energizing book, Ignite Your Leadership and Jack Canfield's The Success Principles, I put together this summer reading list of some of my other favorites for you:
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1. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg. A heartfelt read, written by Charles Lindberg’s wife of her reflections, meditations, and musings on aging, love, family, peace, and solitude written during one of her brief vacations by the sea.
   
   
2. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael Gelb. My father gave me this book for Christmas in 1998, and it’s one of the first books that fueled my love for personal and professional growth. Based on his notebooks, inventions, and artwork, it’s a creative look into the mind of the famed da Vinci. By revealing seven principles to guide you in a personal and professional renaissance, it includes many fun exercises and self-assessments to help you cultivate and engineer your own "Da Vincian" mind.
   
   
3. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. From the publisher, of SUCCESS magazine, this small book of fewer than 200 pages, packs a powerful punch on how small consistent actions, taken daily, multiply to drive extraordinary success over time.
   
   
4. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. While a children’s book, and a really quick read, this book always melts my heart and lifts my spirits when I read it. It takes me back to my childhood, and how like the boy in the book, I had a favorite tree in the backyard that I love to climb, felt a connection with, and often comforted and grounded me when I sat within her branches.
   
   
5. The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & John David Mann. A short, playful fable, about how downshifting being a “go-getter” and plugging into the power of giving leads to generating unexpected returns for fueling success.  
   
   
6. The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore – a historical novel about the Current War, the infamous feud between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to determine the electric grid of our modern world. (Do you know who won?) The story is told from the perspective of Westinghouse’s lawyer, and I loved how Moore includes a timeline of actual events and where he took liberties for a more engaging read, at the end of the book. 
   
   
7. The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly. A great book gifted to me by my friend and co-worker, when I transitioned to a role. An inspirational read of stories, simple strategies, and reflective questions to help you discover your passions, explore the possibilities, and plug into a more purposeful everyday life.
   
   
8. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. A favorite novel of mine, and an enjoyable love story, between the dashing librarian, Henry DeTamble, and passionate artist, Claire Abshire. The book is creatively written from the perspective of Claire through her chronological timeline, while woven with Henry’s perspective time travels into the past and future of their untraditional love story.
   
   
9. The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews. A book, I picked up at the library in Lake Geneva, WI, while vacationing there one summer. An enjoyable parable about a once successful executive, now working a part-time, minimum wage job, and his transformational journey to explore life lessons on the attitudes that make the difference between success and failure.
   
   
10. Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel, and Charles Lindbergh by James Newton – a memoir of the author’s experiences with five of the most notable and accomplished men of the 20th century. An insider’s perspective their business relationships, friendships, and the ultimate mastermind group contributing to their success.

​
I'd love to hear from you!  Drop me a comment below to let me know what you plan on reading this summer, share your favorite book recommendations, or circle back with me to let me know how you enjoyed reading any of the books above. 

An experience that still feels a bit surreal for me and strange to say, because when I was first introduced to the Law of Attraction, the idea of creating your reality through your thoughts, seemed just too “woo-woo” for me. 

They say you need a picture to prove it, so here’s a picture of the home that was on my vision board vs. a picture of my new house -->

Have you ever doubted the Law of Attraction, or wondered if it really works? 
​
I know I was extremely skeptical and doubtful. I used to think “Seriously, you’re telling me that if I sit and visualize what I want or put pictures on a poster board, these things will magically start showing up in my life?”

Yet as an engineer, I had to test this idea, so I started running experiments to prove it. So, I started with small things like thinking about the perfect parking spot downtown and hoping they would put out brownies for the afternoon snack at the conference I was attending. And on the occasions where these things would show up, I chalked them up to coincidence.
 
Yet I kept playing, in the fall of 2010, I started a bootcamp class. My instructor had been a drill instructor in the Army, and he lined us up in formation, called us by last name, and ran us through a PFT, Personal Fitness Test, every 6-8 weeks.  
 
Our PFT included a push-ups drill, to measure the total number of push-ups we could do in two minutes. I could barely do 2-3 push-ups, when I started the bootcamp, before dropping to my knees to finish out the set. Push-ups on your knees didn’t count.
 
In March 2011, I was once again was hearing about the Law of Attraction and visualization. I was reading The Success Principles, and doing a year-long Train-the-Trainer Program training with the author, Jack Canfield. In one of our sessions, he shared the results of a visualization study run by Dr. Biasiotto, at the University of Chicago.
 
In the study, three test groups were measured on their ability to improve the number of free throws they could make with a basketball. A baseline free-throw test was run and then over the next 30-days – one group continued to practice, one group visualized practicing, and one group did nothing. The study results revealed that the group who physically practiced and the group who visualized practicing showed similar improvements, while the group who did nothing did not improve
 
While I’d worked my way up to 55 push-ups during our 2-minute PFT drills, I saw another opportunity to experiment. One in which I would both practice doing and visualize doing my push-ups. (This had to supercharge it right?!) I’d run a 30-day Visualization Experiment leading up to my next PFT, where the results would be measured during my next 2-minute push-up test.
 
For the next 30-days, I’d head to my 6a Bootcamp, where I’d do my daily push-ups, then weave in a couple more later in the day against the stairs in my house or during commercial breaks, will watching tv. 
 
And every night before, I shut the light out, I set a timer for 2-minutes and visualized doing my PFT. Counting in my head as I went - down/up – 1....down/up – 2.

I ran through images in my head with all my five senses:

1. Seeing myself doing the push-ups – down/up  – 15...
2. Hearing my partner count– down/up – 25….
3. Feeling the burn in my arms as the numbers increased, down/up – 36…
4. The taste of saliva in my mouth – down/up Up – 48…..
5. Smelling the wet morning grass and dirt as my nose reached towards the ground – down/up Up – 5…and so, on until the timer rang.

 
The first couple weeks, my visual push-ups hovered in the 45-50 range, and then they started to grow to 55-65 then 65-75. The night before my PFT, I felt ready.

Although I have to admit, I still believed the result would be a function of the actual push-ups I was doing daily.
 
My alarm rang, the next morning and I headed to class, ready to put visualization to the test – ready to not really “prove” it once again.
 
“Ready – Begin!”  My strategy was to crank out as many push-ups as I could do non-stop, before slowing down to short bursts for the remainder of the 2-minute drill. That pause came just over a minute in and I was at 65 push-ups! I kept going…70…75…80…
 
My arms were burning, my back was sore, and I could no longer burst out sets of 5. I kept going…87…90…92. The pauses between became longer. I was at 93..94…95.
 
“STOP!” – when the time was called,  I’d cranked out 102 push-ups!!! 
 
I was in disbelief. My partner counting couldn’t believe it either. My instructor thought we were joking when he asked “How many for Osborn” and heard “102.”