Winning in the Game of Life: Self-Coaching Secrets for Success [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Tom Gegax (Author), Deepak Chopra (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1999

Hungry for a different kind of winning? According to entrepreneur Tom Gegax, in the game of life, effective self-coaching is the first step to success that encompasses every aspect of life. Gegax should know; he thought he had it all until a three-ring wake-up call of divorce, cancer, and a business in crisis changed his game forever. Through a self-designed program of personal and professional evolution, Gegax recovered and now enjoys a life rich with family, friends, peak health, and a thriving company.

Winning in the Game of Life, Gegax's integrated plan, merges the lessons of home and work into lessons of life. This unified approach helps you identify your purpose in life -- your guiding mission -- and teaches you the strategies that put it in play, including the Seven Take-Action Steps. Strategies for effective communication, better organization, and time competency smooth the way. Self-coaching plans for real wellness of body, intellect, psyche, and spirit plus ten lessons to ensure lifetime learning help keep you on a winning track. Integrating the best of Western business models, mind-body techniques, and spiritual wisdom, Gegax's comprehensive game plan will dismantle barriers to a fuller life and awaken your true potential.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Even those who don't buy into Gegax's complete program will get their money's worth out of this ambitious guide to a holistic whole-life makeover from a surprising source: the founder of the Midwest-based Team Tires Plus, a $200 million retail tire chain. When he faced simultaneous crises in his marriage, business and health, Gegax undertook an array of New Age activities (meditation, body work, spirituality grounded in A Course of Miracles) in addition to such traditional practices as psychotherapy, exercise and improving his diet. Seeking answers to his problems with the same determination he used to build his business, he successfully reengineered his life. Challenging his readers to follow his lead, Gegax packs his volume with lessons and his philosophy, along with a plan for developing and integrating all aspects of what he calls the "Inner Team": an individual's physical, intellectual, psychological and spiritual strengths. The sections on finding one's life mission and refining one's personal qualities (e.g., caring, optimism, passion, persistence, discipline, spirituality) to achieve it are among the best, although the spirituality chapter is less clear than others. Gegax smartly synthesizes the work of a wide array of personal development gurus, from Andrew Weil to Daniel Goleman to Marianne Williamson, but he may be too aggressively self-actualized for some readers. Nevertheless, business executives and others who enjoy his competitive tone will find much to think about, especially his advice on time management, selling, communication skills and mentoring. Agent, Kim Witherspoon; major ad/promo; 13-city author tour. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Gegax got cancer, got divorced, and got stuck with a failing businessAand then turned his life around completely. Here's how he did it.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1st edition (August 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609603922
• ISBN-13: 978-0609603925
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,934,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Best-selling author Tom Gegax served as Chairman and CEO (head coach) of Tires Plus Stores for twenty-four years. By the time Tom sold the company he founded to Bridgestone/Firestone in July 2000, it had mushroomed from a napkin sketch into a market leader with 150 upscale stores in ten states and $200 million in revenue. The company was so tightly managed that Tom bypassed outside investors to retain ownership control.

Pioneering the tough-minded, warm-hearted "coaching" style of management, Tires Plus under Tom had a healthy corporate culture that was legendary in Midwest business circles for its focus on the well-being of its employees and customers (or teammates and guests). The unique pairing of hard-nosed efficiency and a caring environment was a core ingredient in the company's secret sauce.

Tom's management methods have been featured in national newspapers and magazines and on television--The New York Times, Fast Company, ABC, FOX, CNN, CNBC, PBS. He has been named a Midwest Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine and Ernst & Young, and was the youngest inductee into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame.

Tom has served on numerous corporate boards, including Pacific Booker Minerals, Great Clips Haircutters, ABRA Autobody, APU Solutions, Deepak Chopra Enterprises, and Engineering America, Inc. Tom has also served on many nonprofit boards, including Center for Science in the Public Interest, Waterkeeper Alliance, World Business Academy, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures.

Some of Tom's speaking and consulting clients include Farmer's Insurance, Detroit Chamber of Commerce, Al Gore Enterprises, International Franchise Association, National Association of Women Business Owners, Deepak Chopra International, Domino's Pizza, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Sandler Sales System, The Star Tribune, and Michelin.

Tom's Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business By The Seat Of Your Pants is endorsed by America's leading business minds, including Ken Blanchard (The One-Minute Manager), Harvey Mackay (Swim with the Sharks) and Richard Schulze, Founder and Chairman of Best Buy.

Tom founded Gegax Advisors in 2000, with offices in Minneapolis and San Diego, to share his Big Book Business Management System with growing companies.


More info at www.gegax.com, call 612-920-5114, or [e-mail]
Follow Tom on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/tomgegax
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-gegax/a/295/1a6

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Outstanding book for those seeking powerful living, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Winning in the Game of Life: Self-Coaching Secrets for Success (Audio Cassette)

Having experienced more than my share of "enlightening" coaching, seminars, experiences in my professional and personal life, I give Tom a resounding "5 stars" for a book that is currently and very powerfully changing the course of my life. What Tom has been able to do in this book, is to present a very realistic and usable road map "out" of the "normal" day to day grind that most of us (if we are willing to be honest about it) quietly suffer through. If only read, the book is entertaining and useful, but to me its real power is in using and applying its contents. In many other "how to" books and disciplines, we are left to follow rather strict and limiting paths...no so in this book. I find it extremely easy to apply in my day to day life and yet it hits very,very hard at the heart of things....once again, if you are willing to avail yourself of that. For anyone seeking coaching in having your life work out alot better than it currently is........grab this book and devote time and energy to its contents...you will be glad you did. If you get this book and it does not provide you a wealth of useful and impacting value...then you are probably comitted to a life of misery. There's alot of books out there that deliver the promise of gold but very few that truly deliver the road map to get it.....this is one of them..

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthusiastic, Purposeful, and Helpful, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Winning in the Game of Life: Self-Coaching Secrets for Success (Hardcover)

Winning In The Game of Life is one book that should be on everyone's bookshelf. It is a great guide and reference for those needing help to nail down (or fine-tune) their purpose in life.

It's about lifelong learning and working to be the best you can be and continually reflecting on what you do right and where you can improve--without being critical or judgemental--but in a nurturing way. From the perspective of individual wellness, this book is it. There is nothing more important than how you feel (health and otherwise). If you aren't well or working to be in balance, then everything that you do and say, how you act and react to things is going to be dictated by your present state of being. "Winning" helps you feel good about you and your actions.

From the business perspective, I wish more organizations embraced this way of thinking and doing. There are more ways to measure the success of a company than the bottom line. If corporate and social responsibility were the measuring stick, then we'd certainly have a much more conscious business community if they followed the secrets for success outlined in Gegax's book.

"Winning" reads quickly and has very practical information to incorporate into your life right away.

It is definitely worth reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read on the Mission Statement alone, September 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Winning in the Game of Life: Self-Coaching Secrets for Success (Audio Cassette)

I thought the core of the book for me was in the first 2 chapters, where the author expressed the importance of a personal mission statement, writing about his own example as well. After that, I found the book a bit repetitious.

Nevertheless, the mission statement section was a worthwhile read alone, if only to stress the importance of having one for your own personal life. Just like many corporations are starting to have a mission statement, individuals should have a life mission statement. Once this mission statement is determined and articulated, your actions and choices in life can be measured against it. Part of your journey though is to think about and determine your mission statement, a journey/process of self-determination which only you can undergo.