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I grew up in Lola, a small rural farming community in Western Kentucky. The total length of Lola when it was a thriving little community was hardly even a mile long in any direction. In the sphere of this small town, both of my grandparents were entrepreneurs in their own businesses. On one side of town, my grandfather on my dad’s side of the family, owned & operated a Purina brand feed store. On the opposite side of town, my grandfather on my mom’s side of the family, owned & operated a Texaco service station. My dad’s passion, since he came into this world, did not revolve around either of these types of businesses; but rather in the ownership and training of Quarter Horses, especially emphasizing cutting routines with livestock. My own passion was sports, particularly baseball, which I began playing at around six years old.

Sometime around the age of ten or eleven, I saw an episode of the old television show The Outer Limits. In this particular episode, Cliff Robertson owned a radio station and increased the power to the point he was able to contact other planets. I thought this was incredibly cool. Also around this time, I saw two movies, which fueled my passion for broadcasting. One was American Graffiti. During the entire movie, Wolfman Jack was announcing on the radio in the background over various songs from the early 60s. Eventually in the movie, Richard Dreyfuss tracks down and encounters Wolfman Jack at the radio station on the outskirts of town. Bam, I thought. I love this. The other movie was Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me. In the movie, Clint plays a radio announcer who gets himself in trouble when Jessica Walter develops an obsession for him. All three of these productions caused me to get the broadcasting bug. I started working at the local radio station in Marion, Kentucky when I was fifteen in 1978 on Sunday mornings. I continued to develop my broadcasting career through school until I landed a management position in 1983. I worked my way up the ranks to get a major management position in 1985.

Sometime in 1986, I started experiencing something I call “career salvation.” I had a connection with a fellow named Charlie Mifflin. Charlie was a semi-retired chemicals executive who had been very successful. Charlie came to help run a company with me in 1986. I was failing pretty badly. Mainly because I was in over my head and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was long on youthful exuberance and horribly short on real work business experience. I had studied the industry I was in a great deal for the previous ten years or so. But with the exception of my experience in our family business, I had not spent much time on business fundamentals. Charlie was awesome. He started identifying my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. He started teaching me about business and financials. He started teaching me about negotiation. He was giving me a real world MBA.

This had a profound effect on me. I started thinking about the many others out in the world like me. Folks who had plenty of opportunity but not enough hands-on work experience. Charlie’s wonderful and valuable help to me as a young executive is what eventually led me to become a consultant myself. I know the real struggles managers can have in a complex business world in which they feel totally alone. Who do you talk to that you can trust? You are careful when you to talk to your bosses, because you don’t want them to lose confidence in you. You have to be selective in who you talk to in your reporting line because you want them to believe you know what you are doing and you don’t want to appear clueless or weak. Consultants and coaches like myself provide leaders with that confidante you can trust. Someone who can provide the advice and guidance without being emotionally connected to your organization or your work.

One of the things I did during the time spent with Charlie was to develop a zealous journaling habit. I wrote down everything. I wrote as I was learning. I also developed a zealous reading habit. I wrote down everything I read that was significant. I purchased audiotapes and videotapes of experts teaching various subjects. I journaled it all. Everything I experienced on the job, I recorded in my journal. I wrote down what I was thinking and what I was feeling. Today, I still have all those journals and I still like to go back and read some of the things I wrote down thirty-some years ago. There are many, many things I would have forgotten had I not written them down. There are things even today that I publish on my blog or in published articles that I actually wrote many years ago that have never been public. As time progressed, writing became a passion for me. In 2004, when we started our consulting business, I started blogging and have written something new at least once a week since then. Often, I write something new every day.

In late 2012, I started writing what I called “Big Idea Memos” centered around—yep, you guessed it—Big Ideas. Generally, I would write the memo blog posts on a Sunday morning to have them posted on our website the next Monday morning and then we would email them to our clients and subscribers the Monday following in a newsletter. My thoughts at the time were to sit down and write about something I believed would be on the minds of executives, managers and entrepreneurs. Something, which either had occurred, was occurring, or would occur sometime in the future. Each time I would write one of the Big Idea posts, I would envision a person sitting and reading it and being thankful someone either had been through a similar issue or was thinking of ways to at least provide some advice or direction.

This book is laid out in a fashion in which the Big Idea memos are organized into sections that correspond with my Galaxy of You model. The Sun is power and is the primary energy source your entire galaxy revolves around. In the Galaxy of You, the same is true. You are at the center, providing the energy and power for the entirety of your life. That is why when you improve or get better, everything in your sphere of influence or galaxy improves or gets better. As you expand your knowledge and talents, you expand yourself, which expands your Galaxy of You.

Section One is all about leading yourself.

I picked some of my favorite Big Idea Memos, which have to do with personal and professional development. The subject matter here covers everything from finding your purpose, vision, managing pain, goal setting, doing the work of leadership, to spiritual matters. You can’t possibly begin leading others or leading your organization until you have spent some time working on leading yourself.

Section Two focuses on leading others.

Section Three is about leading your organization.

Section Four is about leading in your community.

The book is structured so you can use it as a weekly self-improvement session or at your own pace. Some of the points you may need less than a week to work on while other may need more time. Each Big Idea comes with suggested focus points and action steps for you to think about and implement. I am sure you know developing yourself, especially if there is change involved, is more of a process than an event. Just reading a book is not enough; you have to put action with your learning. My philosophy in developing leaders has always been to follow a very concentrated three-step process. Explanation-Demonstration-Practice. So, in each memo, I put forth an effort to explain in a couple of paragraphs the concept of the memo, then demonstrate the concept in the focus point and give you something to practice in the action step.

It is my most sincere desire for this book to be a very beneficial and powerful tool for you to develop more of the endless potential you have as a leader. I have found that the majority of people are at their most fulfilled stage in life when they are operating as excellent performers while creating limitless value for themselves and their organizations.

That is my wish and hope for you.