Spartan Up! A take no prisoners guide to overcoming obstacles and achieving peak performance in life.  Joe De Sena & Jeff O’Connell. 2014. ISBN 9780544285187.  The author started the Spartan series of races. He was an ultra marathoner who felt the need to create the uber challenge type race.  The Spartan Races are getting famous as severe challenges to one’s ability to meet unexpected challenges.   This book describes his journey ( An the incredible challenging races he has run) as well as the creation of the phenomena of the Spartan races. He also deals out a generous helping of the motivational advice and anecdotes from many famous people and athletes.  If you are serious about your life and life choices, this is a good book for you. I really liked it.

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The Sports Gene. Inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance. David Epstein. 2013.  ISBN  9781101622636.  The author has compiled the current status of the science of athletic performance and covers topics such as chess, track and field, hockey,  skiing, football, soccer, Alaskan sled dogs, the original 10 000 hrs to mastery research  and more. He covers the areas where it seems like the bulk of great athletes come from ( Kenya, N Jamaica, Ethiopia, ) It is interesting how he addresses nature and nurture wrto performance.  I found it a page turner that answers a lot, debunks some of the Malcom Gladwell “truths”   and raises even more questions.   For one I was pleased to find out that human genome research is uncovering even greater depths of complexity with no easy answers to be found there, but more questions.  Very worthwhile book

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Sales Process Excellence. Michael J. Webb. 2014. ISBN 9780977107223.  Michael sent me this book to review almost a year ago. I let it sit on my review shelf for far too long.  Our firm has used Six Sigma Sales and Marketing as a guidebook since it first appeared in 2006. That book not only impacted how we looked at sales and marketing but what we counselled clients to do.  This has contributed to many successful projects over the years.

This book is even  better than the first. It is long overdue for sales and marketing  to be looked at and improved through a process view.  Taking from the work of  Deming, TQS, Lean and many years of applied experience, the author has built a fully functional analysis model to improve the sales, marketing and service components of your business in bringing increased value to the customer.  This material is as modern as you are going to get in the sales and marketing field.   There are many other great sales and marketing books out there, but they all seem to address just part of the process. This book will drive your company to take the waste out of your Sales and Marketing and drive customer value.  Its a must have for business leaders who  want to really succeed and grow.  To buy it go direct to http://salesprocessexcellence.com/

Mahatma. A golden treasury of wisdom- thoughts and glimpses of life.  Sri. Meghshyam T. Ajgaonkar Ed.  Selections of his words and descriptions of his actions. It is a short little book, but gets right to you with self-evident truths. Good insight into what thoughts drove his life work. Highly recommend it. I grabbed a sense of what philosophical differences still exist between our Western consumer driven society and India belief in minimalism.   I picked up my copy in Mumbai at the not to be missed  Gandhi Museum.

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