Today I’m talking to Mark Pearson, publisher and president of Pear Press. I came across Mark because I was interested in a book he published by John Medina, a N Y Times bestseller, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work.
The business model of traditional publishers is to publish 100 or so books per year, knowing they’ll have a few great books, a lot of good ones, and some bad ones.
Pear Press is doing things differently, and it’s a fascinating, admirable approach. They only publish one book per year, and they pursue it with full-hearted gusto. It’s gotta be a quality “great” book that can knock it out of the park and hit some bestseller lists.
In this interview, Mark and I discuss:
- Standing out in a sea of 800,000 new books published each year
- “Cut out the crap”: the advice Steve Jobs of Apple gave to the CEO of Nike, and what publishers can learn from this lesson
- Why exercise is important for the brain and taking a break from your desk is not slacking off
Visit Pear Press at www.pearpress.com.
Listen to my interview with Mark Pearson
Posted on August 26, 2010
Here’s a full and frank declaration: Andrea J Lee’s one of my very favourite people on the planet. She’s as funny as she is generous as she is smart as she is innovative. She’s been hanging out at the edge of coaching and also what it means to be a thought leader for as long as I’ve know her.
She was the COO of CoachVille, then the largest coaching community in the world. She’s written several books, the most recent being Money, Meaning and Beyond. She runs large events engaging people on the quest to be a thought-leader and a successful entrepreneur. And she’s constantly practicing what she preaches as she reinvents herself and her business time and time again.
In our time together we chat about:
- How the Tiananeman Square protests – Andrea was in China at the time – helped awake one of the deepest choices about Great Work
- The power of ‘galvanizing energy’ – and how to find it
- An inspirational insight from Buckminster Fuller that will help you play your life out fully
- And why cleanliness is so much more than a good bar of soap
The doorway to her various enterprises – including her blog – is www.AndreaJLee.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @andreajlee
Posted on May 6, 2010
You know the movie Lord of the Rings? Yep, that one. In the final part of the trilogy, the vast Army of Darkness advances on the Silver City intent on doing it some harm. At the head of the army is a particularly ugly looking orc, all pink lumpy flesh and evil sneer.
That, my friends, is Mark Bowden.
He’s not only a super accomplished actor, but also an author and absolutely terrific trainer on increasing your influence and impact through the way you communicate. (As a full disclosure, Mark and I run various training programs together.)
His new book Winning Body Language is top-notch, combing the latest neuroscience with a wide range of simple and powerful techniques to significantly make a difference in the way you communicate.
And our interview is a blast too. We talk about:
- George Bernard Shaw’s observation that, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it’s taken place.”
- How managing your body changes the way you communicate
- How to master “The Yes State”
- How to dampen the influence of your reptilian brain
You can learn more about Mark here, and follow him on Twitter at @truthplane.
Posted on April 9, 2010
Kevin Carroll has an amazingly cool background. Raised by his grandparents in Philadelphia, his first job really was with the U.S. Air Force where he served as a language interpreter and translator. And in those ten years he became fluent in Croatian and Czech and Russian and German. But while being fantastic at languages, he was also an athlete and soon an athletic trainer. Leaving the Air Force, he worked his way up to be the head athletic trainer for the Philadelpha 76ers. So he’s already cool. But then he was tapped on the shoulder by Nike. He spent a number of years at Nike helping to deepen their understanding of athletic performance and team dynamics and interpersonal connection, basically helping Nike become one of the forces it is today.
And then things shifted again, and he put his experience and wisdom into a terrific series of books, starting with the Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. In this interview we talk about:
- How it was a ball that saved and changed Kevin’s life.
- Why ‘encouragers’ are so crucial to sustaining success
- The role of curiosity and play in connecting with your great purpose and Great Work
- The role of “lonely work” is setting up for success.
You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KCKatalyst and find him on the web at www.Kevincarrollkatalyst.com.
Posted on March 10, 2010
