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Today is the birthday of LEGO inventor, Ole Kirk Kristiansen (1891-1958). In his memory, here is a excerpt from Chapter 1 of my book Toy Box Leadership entitled Legos: Relationships • Building begins with connecting.

What would make a corporate lawyer give up his six-figure salary to make $13 an hour? One word: LEGO. (more…)

Randy Mayeux and Karl Krayer lead the First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas, Texas. Each month they provide fresh insight into the most current business books on the market. In December, they were kind enough to feature my book, Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons From The Toys You Loved As A Child. Here is Randy:

A copy of their excellent synopsis is available at here.

Thanks Randy and Karl. It look liked you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Get your copy of Toy Box Leadership today.

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Harry K. Jones at AchieveMax® pick up my new book Toy Box Leadership and learned some lessons that he didn’t count on. Here’s his blog entry:

Toys as Mentors

This is not a book review. However, there will be a review of this particular book in the next set of ten reviews we add to our website, bringing our total to 190 book reviews.

The book I speak of is Toy Box Leadership (Leadership Lessons from the Toys You Loved as a Child). It recently reminded me of a very valuable lesson I learned years ago and sometimes tend to forget. That lesson was very simplistic, and I guess that’s why it’s so easily forgotten. That lesson: “NEVER ASSUME.”

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If you had the ability to ask John McCain and Barack Obama just one question, what would it be? Would you query them about their economic policy? The War in Iraq? Education? Taxes?

Even with all the accusations of media bias swirling around this election, I’m not afraid to ask the really tough question: Which toy best represents each candidate’s leadership style?

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Anna Farmery maintains a great blog entitled The Engaging Brand.

The Engaging Brand supports companies and individuals who want to create engagement with their brand. Anna is popular speaker throughout England on areas such as social media, personal and employer branding, and leadership. She lives and breathes Web 2.0. Her blog is ranked in the Top 100 in AdAge and has been recognized as a “must read” leadership blog. The Engaging Brand podcast was nominated for the Best Business Podcast at the Podcast Awards in both 2007 and 2008.

I was honored to be her guest on the latest installment of The Engaging Brand podcast to discuss my book, Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons From The Toys You Loved As A Child. In this podcast interview we talk about: (more…)

What would make a corporate lawyer give up his six-figure salary to make $13 an hour? One word: LEGO. It all started on Christmas 1978 in Colville, Washington, when five-year-old Nathan Sawaya unwrapped his first set of LEGO bricks. As an adult, Nathan’s LEGO interest was merely a hobby until 2004 when he entered a contest, sponsored by the LEGOLAND theme park, in San Diego to find the country’s best adult LEGO builders. After winning the contest he became a LEGO Master Builder assembling elaborate replicas. Making only one-fifth his lawyer’s salary didn’t matter because he was living his dream.

It is estimated that more than 235 Billion Lego parts have been manufactured since the first (more…)

Brian Rice at Leadership ConneXtions wrote a review of Toy Box Leadership and really nails it’s “stickiness” - a factor that every communicator hopes to capture:

Toy Box Leadership

This was definitely a case of a cover/title selling the book. I read it on the plane ride coming back from Santiago, Chile.

(I was sitting in the very last row of the plane, in the center section of three seats, by myself! God is good. I was able to lay down on three seats and actually sleep for about five hours on this trip. But, before and after sleep, I read the book.)

Okay, it is a nice little book on leadership. Good ideas, good illustrations, great quotes, very accessible in its understanding. But there is something that I think takes this book to a different level and that is its “stickiness factor.” (more…)

My wife and I went to see Journey To The Center Of The Earth. I love Jules Vern but I was a little hesitant about seeing what some were calling a “dumbed down” version of the novel. The tipping point was that it was in 3D. I admit it - I love the glasses. These were not the traditional paper 3D glasses, instead, they looked like they were from the Buddy Holly Signature Collection. So there we sat looking like members of the Elvis Costello fanclub. Watching my wife swat the 3D bugs and duck out of the way of the overhanging rocks was generally more entertaining than the movie. There was, however, one part that I sat up and took notice of. (more…)