Author Jason Womack is known for his book, Your Best Just Got Better, and for providing business leaders and executives with practical methods of maximizing tools, systems and processes to achieve a quality work/life balance. He shared some of those ideas during a Samford Business Network breakfast Nov. 12 at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover.
"Why do you do what you do?" he asked his audience, and then gave his own answer: "Because I am joyful when I feel the sense of completing." He urged the group to "be bold" and see beyond just what is. He suggested several tools that move him from where he is to where he wants to be, including psychology and sociology.
With a diagram of the brain, he compared the psychology of understanding how people work to a reporter trying to solve a problem by breaking down the whole into parts of why, how and what.
It is in the area of sociology that people do what they do, he suggested, and it is usually with people close to them or people with influence. "Reputation is what you are," he said. "Your portfolio is what you have done."
He concluded his presentation with two audience participation exercises dealing with efficiency and opportunity. For efficiency, he suggested breaking down the day into 96 blocks of 15 minutes each. "First of all," he cautioned, "that is the attention span most people have. Secondly, it is long enough to matter and, third, it is short enough to remember."
To take advantage of opportunities, Womack asked each participant to note three persons to "reach out" to before the end of the year and offer help.
The breakfast was hosted by fi-plan Partners and its president and CEO, Greg Powell, a Samford alum and former president of the school's national alumni association. Powell took the occasion to welcome and honor U.S. veterans, asking all in the audience to stand and be recognized on Veteran's Day.
Womack also spoke on campus in Brock Forum later in the day in a program open to business students and faculty and staff. His topic was "Small Changes, Big Results: Improvement as a Lifestyle."