Book Summary: The Fire Starter Sessions, By Danielle LaPorte
This book was gifted to me and arrived to my house on December 31st, the perfect time of year for a book about contemplating who you are and what you want from life. I devoured it in three days.
QUICK SUMMARY
At it's core, this book is about being intentional with your life. There are three main sections:
Mojo: About defining who you are
Moxie: About dreaming big, challenging assumptions about yourself, and getting out of your comfort zone
Results: This spans things like money and time to impact and generosity to others
One of the unique features of the book is the format and the worksheets. On format, the margins are so wide that they are screaming for you to jot your thoughts in them. There is heavy use of fonts in different sizes and colors to draw attention to key messages. At the conclusion of each topic, called a fire starter session, there is a worksheet so you can react to the ideas and how they relate to you. I did this in a separate journal because the space in the worksheet sections was not big enough for all of the ideas that were in my head!
IDEAS THAT RESONATED
Easy is productive. [page 47]
The lesson is that it's ok to steer yourself in the direction of things that come easily to you and doing so doesn't mean that your work isn't of high value and quality, it just means it's aligned with what you're best at and have passion for. In my work, there is a competency that has always been friction filled for me. Between this book and a recent mentor session I'm ready to let go of forcing something that I don't enjoy for the sake of being "well rounded".
What if we first we got clear on how we wanted to feel, and then we designed our to-do lists? [Page 64]
The idea is that most people make goals based on what they want; a specific salary, schedule flexibility, a luxurious purchase. There is a vague, future-looking hope that those things will make you feel a certain way; accomplished, happy, satisfied, relaxed. What if we reverse-engineered it? Start with getting clear on how you want to feel and THEN find the things that make you feel that way immediately and long-term. It’s a paradigm shift.
Consensus can create mediocrity. [Page 151]
Creating consensus is not only my job, it's my core strength and the only way to get anything done in corporate America. It's so important to me that I teach others how to do it and even have a digital course called Consensus Creator. It's good to receive ideas that challenge your way of thinking, and the points made are not wrong: "When you decide that you have to agree on everything, it can stymie decision making, slow you down, foster risk aversion, and weaken your strategizing." That’s a truth bomb right there. I don’t know much about Danielle LaPorte, but from what I learned through this book, her career has been primarily entrepreneurial, she has a large hand in defining company roles and culture. She’s also not working in a heavily regulated industry, like banking or healthcare. Her points about consensus are well taken but not practical for most of us, who work as employees and need to get colleagues on board with our ideas in order for them to move forward.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
CliftonStrengths, Talent Assessment through Gallup
The section titled Mojo reminded me of the value and message of the CliftonStrengths assessment. Identifying and leaning into your biggest strengths is the path to maximizing your potential. If you want a more direct and tactical approach than LaPorte’s worksheets and prompts for reflection, CliftonStrengths may be right for you.
Check with your company’s HR group to see if they are subscribed for you to take this assessment for free, or as an individual you can purchase the assessment HERE.
Check out this episode of The Opposite of Small Talk for a discussion on CliftonStrengths.