Recently, I watched the author platform conference online. This was a series of interviews with authors, bloggers, marketers and other experts to help writers, speakers and bloggers be as effective as possible.

Below are the lessons from each interview that I watched:

Jonah Berger

1. Create a connection with your book. Give something to people so that they make a concrete connection to what you are saying. At book events, he gave out tissues with the word Contagious: Why Things Catch On on them for his book and made the connection of “wouldn’t your like your ideas to be as contagious as the cold?”

Chris Brogan

1. Be married to the outcome more than you are to the idea. This will allow you to enjoy the content you create.
2. When it comes to branding, people think about people. The person sticks in the mind of people if you know who the person is.

Chad Cannon

1. Books that sell come from authors that hustle.
2. An author needs to provide value to the audience outside of their book.

Chris Ducker

1. Writing a book is not like writing a blog post. Editing is by far the hardest part of writing a book.
2. Just be you. Your readers and listeners will know if you are being real or not.

John Lee Dumas

1. Failures happen when people don’t listen to their intuition. Successes happen when we do listen to our intuition.

Carmine Gallo

1. Ideas are the currency of the 21st century and you are only as successful as your ideas.
2. Most speakers fail because they don’t have their message down, they don’t know their story.
3. The difference between a great speaker and a good speaker is the great speaker is always looking to improve.
4. The 3 components to any great presentation: Emotional, novel and memorable.

Jeff Goins

1. Activity always follows identity.
2. Offline relationships still do matter in the midst of our social media worlds.

Chris Guillebeau

1. A lot of people can launch a book well, but successful authors need to think about how to make it successful in 3, 6, and 12 months.

Derek Halpern

1. The best way to promote yourself is to help others, to give a benefit to someone else.
2. Content is not just about what you say, but how you say it.

Michael Hyatt

1. Know your audience, who they are, what their needs are, and what questions they have.

There was some incredibly helpful things in these videos.

The post How to be a Better Writer appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Every year on our kids birthday I sit down to write them a letter. This isn’t your normal birthday card greeting.

This is a practice I started with our daughter when she was born.

One of the things I believe a dad can do it help to tell the story of their child’s life to them. I feel like with the rise of technology and pace in our lives, we lose an aspect of stories and remembering.

So, every year on their birthday I write them a letter about what happened in their life in this past year. How our family changed, how they changed, milestones in their life. I save each letter and will give them to them when they turn 18 or graduate from college. I haven’t decided yet.

My hope is that this will be a chronicle of what happened, a way of showing them how they became who they are, where they came from. As I talk to a lot of young adults, there seems to be a loss of not only who they are, but where they have come from. A rootless feeling for many.

I want them to see their heritage, so that as they move into the world as an adult, they know where they came from and who they are.

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It’s that time of year again, the time to share my “best of” lists of the year.

It started with the top sermon downloads from Revolution Church, then my almost best books & almost best albums of the year. Then I shared my favorite books of 2013. Today is the last list: my favorite albums of 2013.

Enjoy.

13. The Civil Wars | The Civil Wars

This band is just incredible. It’s too bad they can’t stand each other. Still an incredible album.

12. Sleeping at Last | Atlas: Darkness, Atlas: Light, Atlas: Space 1

3 incredible EP’s from this Ryan O’Neal. So good.

11. The Head and the Heart | Let’s Be Still

This album took some time to grow on me, but now I love it. Definitely a good step from their last album.

10. The Lonely Wild | The Sun as It Comes

I could’ve paid $8 to see this band in Tucson over the summer, but didn’t. Still kicking myself for that because of how great this album is. So much heart in it.

9. Kodaline | In A Perfect World

Just discovered this band. Wow.

8. Andrew Belle | Black Bear

I’ve been a fan of Andrew Belle for a few years. This is his best and most ambitious album yet.

7. Hey Marseilles | Lines We Trace

According to the Seattle Times, “Hey Marseilles is a contender for a local rock band to break out in a significant way in 2013.” This album is that good.

6. Vampire Weekend | Modern Vampires of the City

This album is higher on a lot of other year end lists. I think because of my high expectations, it hurt this album. Still good, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

5. Gregory Alan Isakov | The Weatherman

Wow.

4. Sigur Ros | Kveikur

Katie and I saw Sigur Ros in April. If you can ever get to their show, you need to. Wow. This album is off the charts.

3. Marble Sounds | Dear Me, Look Up

This is such a good album. It would be #1 if not for how good the next two are.

2. The National | Trouble Will Find Me

Not quite as good as High Violet, but such a good album. In fact, until I heard the next album, this one was #1.

1. Bastille | Bad Blood

I can’t believe this is the debut album for this band. So, so, so good.

How’s my list? What albums did I miss? What albums did I rate too high?

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Every Saturday morning, I review a book that I read recently. If you missed any, you can read past reviews here. This week’s book is Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, & Relationships that all of us Have to Give up in Order to Move Forward (kindle version) by Henry Cloud.

As the title indicates, the book is about how to know when things have run their course. It looks at how life, business, church, relationships and organizations all have a life cycle. We all know this. We aren’t friends with everyone forever, we don’t have ministries that run forever (although it might feel that way at some churches), we don’t have products that last forever. Things end. People move on. Sometimes that ending is hurtful and sometimes productive. But they happen.

What Cloud does and it is something every leader needs to learn is how to know when that ending is happening (before it’s too late) and how to end it and move on in a healthy way.

For the longest time I’ve been terrible at this. I hold onto relationships too long. I let people who hurt me stay in my head for years. While I’ve grown in this area, I’m nowhere close to where I need to be, which is why I found this book so helpful.

Here are a few things I highlighted:

• For there to be anything new, old things always have to end, and we have to let go of them.
• Getting to the next level always requires ending something, leaving it behind, and moving on. Growth itself demands that we move on. Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them.
• In many contexts, until we let go of what is not good, we will never find something that is good. The lesson: good cannot begin until bad ends.
• Often, there are no good business reasons for waiting to do something that should be done now.
• In the simple word pruning is the central theme of what a necessary ending is all about: Removing whatever it is in our business or life whose reach is unwanted or superfluous.
• Make the endings a normal occurrence and a normal part of business and life, instead of seeing it as a problem.
• One of the most important aspects to any high performance is the ability to separate one’s personhood from any particular result.
• the great leaders make “life and death decisions,” which, as he pointed out, were usually about people. Those are the decisions that cause big directional changes in businesses, where the life or death of the vision depends on someone stepping up and acting.
• What is not working is not going to magically begin working
• If you comb the leadership literature, one theme runs throughout everyone’s descriptions of the best leaders. The great ones have either a natural ability, or an acquired one, as Collins says, to “confront the brutal facts.”
• In the absence of real, objective reasons to think that more time is going to help, it is probably time for some type of necessary ending.
• When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.
• People resist change that they feel no real need to make.
• In my experience with businesses and individuals, not paying attention to sustainability is one of the most common reasons that they get into trouble, sometimes unrecoverable trouble.

As a leader, this is a book worth picking up. I think for many pastors, knowing when to end a ministry, a relationship or how to handle a leader who is not performing, this book can be extremely helpful.

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I love books. This isn’t a secret if you’ve been around my blog for a long time. You can see what I’ve read recently here and read my book reviews here. When I meet other leaders and pastors, at some point what they are reading comes up. I get some funny looks from some guys about what I read, as I don’t always read books written by Christians or books from my theological stream. Which made me think about how many leaders limit themselves in their reading, much to their detriment.

So, here are 8 ways to know if you are limiting your reading.

1. Every book you read is from your camp. There are a lot of crazy theological ideas out there, so you need to be wise about what you read. But the reality is though, you don’t know everything and you certainly don’t have the bible and every theological idea all figured out. I don’t either. It is good to read authors who believe differently than you so that you can be challenged. I disagree on almost every theological point with Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, but their writings have forced me to ask good theological questions and made me stronger for it. Now a short note, if you are new in your faith, this isn’t a good idea as you don’t have the foundation to question yet. If that’s you, ask your pastor or a respected Christian for some book recommendations.
2. Every book you read has bible verses in them. You should read some books by authors and leaders who don’t follow Jesus. There are great leadership and living ideas in books that have no bible verses in them. You should read health books by people who think we evolved from monkeys. One of the reasons is to learn how to communicate, but also to see what people who walk through the doors of your church believe.
3. Every book you read confirms what you already believe. This is similar to the first one, but if you put a book down and are not challenged in your faith or leadership, you wasted your time.
4. You finish every book you start. I get asked a lot why I don’t write negative book reviews. Every book you review you say that you like is what I’ve been told. The reason? If I don’t like a book by p. 40, I put it down. Life is too short to read a book you don’t like or aren’t being challenged by. If it’s poorly written or boring or not challenging, it’s off the list. Don’t feel the need to finish every book you start or to read every chapter of a book, they may not all be relevant.
5. Books don’t challenge your heart. Similar to point 3, but you should be challenged. You should find ways to improve your preaching, leadership skills or your faith, being a spouse or parent. If not, put it down. If a book does not put the magnifying glass up to your heart and life, it isn’t worth the time.
6. You never read a novel. I love novels. I love novels about spies or lawyers in particular. Throughout the year, I stop my reading list and pick up a novel. Some of my favorite authors are Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, John Grisham and David Baldacci. Baldacci’s Camel Club series is still one of my favorites. Every pastor should read at least 1 novel a year just to give their brain a break.
7. Every book you read is for a sermon. You should read books that have no application in a sermon. It also sometimes happens that you are reading a book that you discover something that will work in a sermon, that’s great too. If you are doing a series on marriage, you should be reading a book on money or grace just to keep growing in other areas.
8. Every book you read is by a pastor. You should read books by CEO’s, bankers, doctors, trainers, money managers, scientists, not just pastors or speakers.

What would you add to the list to know if your reading list is too narrow?

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