Bookmarks 31

Weekly Bookmarks
31st Edition — September 8, 2019

All models are wrong, but some are useful.
George Box – Famous Statistician

1. The Bible for Executive Business Coaching

If I were a full-time executive coach, I’d only use 3 books for ongoing reference. One of those is 10-Minute Toughness by Dr. Jason Selk, a former sports psychologist for 2 World Series championship teams in Major League Baseball. His book is on pace to become the top sports psychology book of all time.

I enjoyed listening to him at a speaking event this week. I was immediately hooked when he opened his presentation by asking the audience to define the following 2 words:

Done Well

He then gave his answer–anything that promotes growth personally or professionally even by an inch. Needless to say, the room got very quiet as he uttered those words.

2. Predictable Revenue ​

I love helping B2B organizations boost their tactics in generating solid leads. Accordingly, I’ve been helping 2 clients with cold emailing practices along with pointing them to decent software for this activity.

For further inspiration, I reached for my all-time favorite book on SDR development (sales development reps). While the book is aging, the wisdom provided by Aaron Ross in Predictable Revenue is essentially timeless.

3. Know Someone Who Should Be Reading More?  

Reading Nothing to Something Everyday grabbed my attention in my Medium feed this week. The author states how he gradually started reading –

+ he invested the time to select books catching his interest
+ he carried the book he was reading everywhere
+ he kept his book next to his bed while putting away his phone

He writes, “I went from reading nothing to reading something every day. The result was surprising. I finished 23 books in a year …”

4. It’s Tax Time Again

If you live and work in the U.S., you might know that we have another tax deadline fast approaching. I thought the timing was right to ask my favorite accounting firm what tax resources they suggest for every CFO, controller, or accounting manager. Kevin Leggio of the BKD Kansas City office was gracious enough to offer some suggestions:

• Tony Nitti, a senior contributor at Forbes and a tax partner at RubinBrown (Mark’s take – he’s witty and writes conversationally – great suggestion)
•  The Tax Adviser by the AICPA (Mark’s take – wow – it’s a bit more technical, but that’s okay)
• Thoughtware by BKD (Mark’s take – I just signed up)

5. Need a Stats Primer?

Unless data science is your full-time job, you have not studied statistics since college, right? Some of you took 1 class, and those of us in accounting and finance had to take up to 9 hours. But are you an expert?

I like recommending a small HBR guide to clients as a reference only. I’m not calling it great, but it helps you to know how to ask the right questions to those working in this space. The title is HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers. This is a case where I like having the hard copy so I can write notes by hand – we remember more when going old school with pen and paper.

Recent Bookmarks – 30 | 29 | 28 

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Take care and have a great week. Always be learning.