Summer Reading; Summer Films; Summer Themes; Summer Recovery

HEADLINES: (celebrating the summer solstice for us northerners!)
 

Summer Hires — reminder June 22, 2pm ET — complimentary Topgrading webcast – overview of new 12 step process.

Summer Read — Hip entrepreneur Chip Conley's third book was released earlier this year. Emotional Equations is a quick read, but worthy of some deeper contemplation as he provides his formulas for happiness, regret, authenticity, and wisdom. Take it on vacation and read by the pool or beach. Copies are being sent to book club and Gazelles 200 members; and Chip is one of two celebrity CEOs keynoting the FORTUNE Leadership Summit Oct 23 – 24, Phoenix. BTW, Jim Kouzes, the famous co-author of The Leadership Challenge, my absolute favorite leadership book, is keynoting as well.

Summer Quarterly Themes — If you haven't already, check out GiveMore.com. They're creating some great stuff that will help you "adrenaline" your quarterly themes and team meetings. Short books and booklets, videos to kick off or open a meeting or event, complete meeting packages and cool reminders (really). No-fluff. No-fill. These are fresh messages by Sam Parker, bestselling author of 212 the extra degree that will help you create that special team of people that make good things happen. Check them out here…..

Summer Review — and this from Gazelles 200 member Maddock Douglas (courtesy of Wes Douglas) – a visual review of the recent FORTUNE Leadership Summit. He also creates a similar visual summary of each 9@9 daily huddle posted so everyone can review the highlights. Here's a link to a sample of these fun summaries.

Summer Viewing Pleasure — if you've not discovered serial entrepreneur Ted Leonsis's online venture called SnagFilms, you're missing some great free "edutainment" – a site hosting the best documentaries on every subject imaginable. Notes CEO Rick Allen, "We have a number of films telling interesting stories of entrepreneurs, in addition to Welcome to Macintosh – here are some examples:

• From the Quest series, we have a look at the advantages of private sector space missions; this 2009 film anticipates the success of the SpaceX Dragon mission. Here's the link to that film.
• Garbage Dreams tracks the efforts of three street entrepreneurs in Cairo, part of the world's largest garbage village. Members of a religious minority that provides most of the garbage collection for one of the world's largest cities – and these three entrepreneurs recycle nearly 100% of what they collect.
• We have three short films about women entrepreneurs : A woman entrepreneur's business in Afghanistan provides opportunities for other women in Kandahar Treasure; proving that entrepreneurs aren't all focusing on new technology, Letterpress Amy finds success in a slower approach; and eight Israeli widows create a unique cooperative in Pickles Inc.
• Young Agrarians tells the story of young farmers pioneering sustainable agriculture.
• Little Lady Fauntleroy is a very bizarre tale of what appears to be a child entrepreneurial prodigy who took Britain by storm in the 1990s for his exceptional talent at spotting valuable antiques in unlikely places. But the story only starts there and progressively becomes more jaw-dropping as each chapter unfolds.

Summer Fatique — feeling super run down? In response to my ongoing fanatical support of IV Vitamin C and other alternative health approaches – and in the spirit of "it takes a village of gurus" – this note from Lance Pederson, COO of Fairway America: "In January I went to a naturopathic doctor I found via the link you had sent with the database to get the Vitamin C IV's. I was feeling super run down and exhausted so I figured it was worth a shot. Our 7 year old daughter had just been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis in November and it really hit us pretty hard. The doctor ended up diagnosing me with Adrenal Fatigue after running some tests. The treatment plan was weekly nutrient IV's (vitamin C, B vitamins, etc), hydrocortisone and some other herbal supplements to help repair the adrenals."

Summer Recovery — continues Pederson, "I made some good progress in many areas but I still was feeling like I had to talk myself into everything on a daily basis which isn't like me. A few weeks ago she decided to run another blood test to test my testosterone levels. The test came back that I had plenty of testosterone but my sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) levels were elevated. I guess SHBG binds to testosterone which stops it from fulfilling its other functions. In affect you feel how you'd feel if you had low testosterone levels which isn't good!

Summer Sleep — concludes Pederson, "She ended up prescribing me with another supplement called Nettles Root. Within a day I was totally back to feeling like myself again. In fact, better than I've ever felt because along the way I overhauled my diet (Paleo), started exercising regularly (Crossfit), hired an ADHD coach to help me stay on track and forced myself to get 7 ½ hours of sleep a night. I'm now a firm believer in this whole "holistic" thing. It just proves that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. It is a combination of many different things that go into feeling your best so that you can be your best."