Becoming Your Best: The 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders (BUSINESS BOOKS)

Becoming your best by Steven Shallenberger is a guide to leadership, it is packed with valuable advice and success strategies than can be applied in our personal and professional lives. There is also an accompanying website and app that can be used to help put the 12 principles into action.As a manager I have seen first hand and recognize the value and benefits that the tried and tested strategies described in this book. It is well written, clear, engaging, interesting and easy to understand. It also contains lot of quotes from famous and successful people to underline the message. The twelve principles are discussed chapter by chapter and summarized at the end of each section as "leadership action steps".This helpful feature makes it very easy to refer back for a quick refresh of key points on any of the topics.The first section stresses how essential it is to be true to your character and stresses the importance of ethical behavior in business and general life. The fact that this critical point is made right at the beginning shows us how fundamental it is to achieving long lasting success and happiness.The next section talks about how to define your vision, which is the first essential step towards pursuing your dream stressing that every success story whether related to your personal life or career begins with a well defined vision.The following section talks about setting goals and explains the method for doing this effectively touching on the elements of the highly effective technique known as SMART goal setting. Pre-week planning is then covered introducing the concept of scheduling your priorities rather than prioritizing your schedule, which is a powerful tool for making the best use of limited time in your different roles in life such as work and family. After that there is a section on how build and maintaining trust, which also points out how trust can be lost in an instant and sometimes never regained. After that there is a chapter on communication and feedback, also explaining effective techniques and providing essential advice for effective leaders but that can also be applied in everyday life.How to innovate through imagination and the power of curiosity as a driver to new discoveries and inventions is the theme of the next section. This talks about how to leverage creativity and imagination in a group by organizing brainstorming sessions. Accountability relationship agreements and how to establish accountability are covered next and also the importance of not proctastinating and avoiding distractions summarized as "do it right do it now". This is followed by a section on applying the power of knowledge, I particularly liked the self reflection technique "continue, start, stop", which and I plan to start putting into action. The book goesw on to talk about living in peace and balance, which introduces a very helpful tool called the "circle of peace and balance" that allows us to asses and orient ourselves and our current work/life balance. This is followed up with a chapter on living in peace and balance, which covers basic meditation and self-affirmation.The final chapter is called "Never give up" and emphasizes the need to fail in order to succeed and to also to reject negativity and maintain a positive outlook.All in all there's so much useful material in this book and it is so well condensed and summarized that makes it a book that I intend to keep close by and refer back to so I can stay on track with the leadership strategies. This is a book worth reading several times to really internalize these powerful techniques.

I just revived my copy this past weekend and if I could give it more than five stars, I would. It has changed the way I look at being a leader, how I engage with those around me, and how I engage with myself. It’s an engaging read and has really impacted my understanding of what it means to be my best. I’d recommend this to anybody, in any position, who is searching for ways to become their best, too!

This is an awesome book. I am in sales and as a leader of a sales team my team and I work on one principle every single week. This is changing the way we do business and helping us to be more successful. I am personally investing my own money into going to the workshop in April and I'm very excited about this. I've had an opportunity to participate in two workshops that Rob, Steve's son, has done at my company and it's absolutely wonderful. This book changes the way you look at yourself and the people around you. You truly begin to understand what's important in life by studying these principles. This book guarantees that if you follow these 12 principles that you will be successful and I am here to tell you that this is absolutely true. My relationship with my husband and my children are better and my sales are going up.

I wonder how I ever navigated life before I wrote this book. It has been so helpful to me in all of my pursuitsfor becoming not only a better person but better writer. I would highly recommend this book for all ages. The younger the better!

I just love this book. It's a must read. One can use all the principles in any aspect of life, work, home, and everything else.

Highly recommend this book. It is easy to read and understand. Principles are so helpful for making the most of the time we have.

I was surprised at the quality. Even though the book was advertised as used, it was basically brand new. There were no messed up pages, and the spine was in great condition.

Great book and great program. Would highly recommend you go to one of their seminars if you can afford it. Steve and Robert Shallenberger are amazing people that you would value knowing.

This book shared many inspirational insights and great stories/ case studies. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.