I’m a big believer in continuous learning. Every year, I make sure I sign up for a few professional development seminars, and pick a few good business-related books to read.
Fortunately, I get a lot of outside ideas from my CEO group, Vistage. (Read my previous post about Vistage here.) At most of our monthly meetings, we have an outside, world-class speaker who shares state of the art information with my group. Whether it’s on sales, the economy, finance, or personal health, it’s a great way for me to stay current on what’s going on in the business world.
Once a year, Vistage hosts an annual conference and last November I attended the three-day event in San Diego.
The speaker on the first night was the amazing and world-famous Guy Kawasaki. If you’ve been around the business world for a while, you’ve probably read one or two of his books. “The Art of the Start,” “The Macintosh Way,” and “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy” are just three of his titles.
But what is really fascinating about Guy is that he was the Chief Evangelist for Apple Computers. He started working in the Macintosh (aka MAC) division in 1983 and his mission was to convince developers to create Macintosh-compatible products. He was the MAC guru.
This Guy rocks! (pun intended)
So at the Vistage conference, he was there to talk about his soon-to-be-published book, “Enchantment.” When he took the stage and started describing the art of enchantment, I was mesmerized.
Guy defines enchantment as the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea.
He talked about real stuff. How to smile. (There is a way to tell if you are sincere.) How to dress and why you should not over or under dress. The importance of storytelling. He spoke for two hours and he was truly Enchanting.
When I got home I could hardly wait for his book to be published in April.
And like many people do, I got busy and never got around to ordering it. Thank goodness for my good friend Tina. When my birthday rolled around last month and I invited a few friends over for dinner, she walked in the door with a beautiful ribbon wrapped around the gorgeous bright red covered book.
| Guy Kawasaki’s latest link to Amazon.com |
Tina and I share a love of books and we often chat about our latest finds. (I admit she is a much more voracious reader than me.) We had discussed Guy Kawasaki’s latest book many times. So, I literally beamed ear to ear when I saw my gift. How perfect.
Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, had passed away just a couple of weeks before my birthday, so everything APPLE and MAC was top of mind. I imagine when Steve and Guy worked together, that as driving and relentless as Steve was, Guy was there to balance him. Guy was the schmoozer, the charmer. The one who took the time to talk to clients, developers and many others.
It’s not a surprise to me that he wrote a book called “Enchantment – The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.” Isn’t that what Steve Jobs and Apple Computers did for the world?
Karen