Executive Stamina: How to Optimize Time, Energy, and Productivity to Achieve Peak Performance [Hardcover]

Marty Seldman (Author), Joshua Seldman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2008

Executive Stamina combines the wisdom and methodology of the best executive coaching with the cutting-edge training techniques of world-class athletes to help busy, stressed-out executives achieve peak performance. This holistic approach to executive performance uses practical tips and tools to help you maximize your career potential, maintain your physical health, and stay aligned with your personal values. Executive Stamina is all you need to learn how to optimize your time, energy, and productivity to achieve more and live better.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

What does stamina have to do with executive success? Consider the following: stamina gives you the ability to remain consistently focused on and energized about the task at hand. Being overworked, overstressed, and exhausted increases your chances of making career-damaging mistakes. With e-mail, cell phones, and Blackberry devices increasingly blurring the line between work and personal life, stamina is no longer simply an asset for executives; it's an absolute necessity.

In Executive Stamina, you'll learn all the skills, techniques, and positive practices needed to create a sustainable path to achieve your full career potential. Renowned executive coach Marty Seldman and endurance coach Joshua Seldman will introduce you to the revolutionary training system they've used with great success on top executives and endurance athletes. You'll find hundreds of tips and tools that will help you maximize your career potential, while maintaining your health, staying in touch with your values, and avoiding costly tradeoffs in your personal life.

It starts by learning how to align your career ambitions with your core values, commitments, current priorities, and long-term goals. You'll learn to determine what is most important to you, whether your schedule is actually aligned with your priorities, and how to find your career sweet spot.

You'll build stamina and optimize your job performance through:

• Progressive workout plans

• Stamina-building nutrition programs

• A personalized stress-management plan

• Identifying high-payoff activities

• Taking control of your calendar

• Dealing with distracting people who waste your time

• Recognizing change and understanding its implications

You'll also find inspiring profiles of executives from a wide variety of industries, whose extraordinary stamina has enabled them to maintain consistently superior focus, judgment, and leadership skills. You'll discover the secrets of their personal success and be able to apply them in your own career.

Whether you're trying to make it through a grueling project in one piece or planning for a lifetime of repeated success, Executive Stamina is your key to developing and maintaining the physical, mental, and emotional power needed to come out on top.

Dr. Marty Seldman is one of the world's most experienced and successful executive coaches. He is the author of five books and has designed impactful seminars like Organizational Savvy, Optimizing Differences, and Executive Stamina. Currently he is the President of Optimum Associates. For more information, contact www.optimumassociates.com.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Executive Stamina

"Seldman is a world-class executive coach. Executive Stamina is a brilliant how-to book. It will help anyone maximize his or her full career potential and live a more balanced, integrated life. His advice is priceless."
—Michael White, CEO, Pepsico International, and Vice Chairman, Pepsico

"Whether you've just gotten a promotion, or have been CEO of a Fortune 500 company for eight years, or if you just want a better shot at realizing your dreams, Executive Stamina?will provide you with pearls of practical insight and wisdom which will guide your journey. I can think of many colleagues, friends, and family members to give this book to, including my two sons."
—Edward Ludwig, CEO and Chairman, Becton, Dickinson and Company

"Life wouldn't be interesting if there were no challenges.?But you could end up being totally stressed out if you are not smart about managing them. You can get a lot smarter if you learn from this book."
—Sam Su, CEO, Yum! Brands, China Division

"In each of his books, Seldman has shown a talent for combining deep insights with practical application, based on years of experience coaching hundreds of executives and managers. Executive Stamina is no exception. Even the most effective

executive is sure to find new ways to enhance his or her impact."
—Ed Bernard, Vice Chairman, T. Rowe Price Group

"With its focus on work/life balance and health, Executive Stamina is a remarkable gift to senior staff leaders?in both the private and?not-for-profit sectors. This book is wise, practical, and clearly grounded in many years of hands-on experience?with the real lives of executives. It should be compulsory reading for every manager who yearns to be successful, while also being content and?healthy."?
—Melanie Macdonald, President and CEO, World Neighbors

"Executive Stamina provides great insight for executives or busy people in any field to find a balance in their work and personal lives. It was very helpful for me, but I think the younger generation of leaders will find it even more helpful as they put work/life balance at a much higher priority than their predecessors did."
—Al Carey, CEO, Frito-Lay

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (April 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470222905
• ISBN-13: 978-0470222904
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keeping your life in alignment so that you don't come to a crashing end..., May 24, 2008

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Executive Stamina: How to Optimize Time, Energy, and Productivity to Achieve Peak Performance (Hardcover)

As tempting as it is to think you can be effective at work without paying attention to your physical health, the reality is much different. Your ability to operative at full capacity is limited by your fitness and stamina (both physical and emotional). This subject is covered in the book Executive Stamina: How to Optimize Time, Energy, and Productivity to Achieve Peak Performance by Marty Selman, PhD. and Joshua Selman. This is something I wish more people understood for themselves, as well as management understanding about others who they are pushing beyond limits.

Contents:
Part 1 - Work/Life Alignment: What Is Most Important to You?; Is Your Schedule Aligned with Your Priorities?; The Minimums and Shifts/Drifts Systems; Finding Your Career Sweet Spot
Part 2 - Building Your Stamina: The Impact of Stress; Increasing Your Fitness; Your Lifelong Fitness Plan; Nutrition; Stress Management - Your Individual Plan; Yoga at the Office
Part 3 - Optimizing Job Performance and Results: Identifying High-Payoff Activities; Taking Control of Your Calendar
Part 4 - Career Management: Reaching Your Full Potential; Avoiding Career Management Mistakes
Part 5 - Personal Relationships: Maintaining Positive Relationships
Conclusion
Index

As you can see from the contents, the authors split up your professional life into five different areas. In order to run at optimal capacity, you really do need to have all these areas in alignment. Realistically, you'll see some areas crying out for attention more than others. For me, I was drawn to the first area about work/life alignment (as many say I must not sleep). Learning to align my schedule with what's most important is something I keep putting off. The "urgent" overruns the "important". I was also intrigued with the Shifts/Drifts system. That's a way to track certain behaviors that you've considered key. You can set the "minimum" activity necessary to move forward towards some goal. Then by tracking drifts, you can notice if you're straying from that commitment. All too often, we end up in a place we don't want to be and wonder how we got there. It wasn't an overnight occurrance in most cases. It was a slow drift from your path that didn't become obvious until it was too late. Checking those drifts can do wonders for keeping you focused, at a point in time where corrections are still easy and possible. The chapter on finding your career "sweet spot" was also timely. We're going through some reorgs at work, and I had to give some thought to a potential move into a new role and position. The reality is that I'm currently in a "sweet spot" right now, a time when my "good at", "like to do", "interested in", and "fits with values" all align in a single job. While a new position could mean more pay, it would also take me away from what I really enjoy doing (and away from what I'm really good at). After reading that chapter, I realized that moving "up" because it's expected is not the right choice.

Actually, *all* the chapters and sections are of value. You could read this book a number of times and pull away something new and different after each reading. What's important though is to understand that you can only push so hard and so long before everything starts to break down around you. Executive Stamina can help prevent that breakdown before it's too late and you've done irreparable hard to your body, emotions, and overall life.