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I wrote my mission statement a couple of years ago before I met my wife and well before my son was born. It’s pretty good and has served me well to keep my values clear.

Lately I’ve been taking parenting classes and restitution theory has come up. I’ve also been involved in trying to change the culture at my work and paying a little attention to Tim Sanders. This has led me to look at my Personal Mission Statement more closely. He just posted a series of videos entitled “The end of suffering.” In these videos he talks about developing a quality mission statement. He believes the only truly useful mission statement is one that ties into reducing other peoples suffering. Not ending hunger or bringing about world peace, just ending the suffering we all go through in our everyday lives. It’s the only concept that we can grab onto that will guide us in all circumstances. My personal mission statement is not totally centred on this idea, but the tool at Franklin Covey’s website does a decent job. Over the next few months I’ll give my mission statement a tune up and I’ll be thinking about how I can bring about the end of suffering.

The End of Suffering part 1:

The End of Suffering part 2:

Tim Sanders has written an excellent book on the nitty gritty part of networking. Unlike other networking books, Love is the Killer App explains three required differentiators: Knowledge, Connections, and Compassion.

The section on Knowledge is all about finding a way to add value to as many people as you can. In here, Tim gives you detailed steps on how to read, highlight, and annotate you books. He even covers how to choose what to read. He then covers how to put this information into a conversation.

The section on Connections is all about finding a node on your network can help this person solve their pain. He’s very clear that it’s not about throwing two people together to see what sticks but instead it’s a thought out, focussed connection between two people that can clearly benefit from each other.

The section on Compassion is interesting. Tim explains how to communicate emotions in todays workplace. He even recommends ignoring your own feelings of embarrassment and just taking a chance. There’s lots of material on how to communicate compassion using body language as well as verbal communication. I still have problems with this section of the book, but it’s just my reserved nature.

Whenever I heard about Love is the Killer App, the title would send up red flags in my head. I just couldn’t get past it. Finally, I stumbled across it in the library and thought “What the heck?”. It turned out to be a quick read and after reading it, it’s the perfect title! This is a book that I would recommend buying and will pick up as soon as I have some spare cash.

Take a look at my reading list and recommend something to for me to read!

Books mentioned in this post: