Strategy For You: Building a Bridge to the Life You Want

by Rich Horwath

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER Do you have a plan for life? Think back on your life and how you arrived at where you are today. Did you envision where you wanted to be and then map out a strategy for getting there? Or, have you bounced around like a bumper car from one thing to the next? New research shows that only 15 per cent of adults have a written plan for their life. But what if you believe that you have more to offer? Much more. In this book, world-renowned business strategist Rich Horwath provides a five-step plan for building a bridge to the life you want. Using the foundational principles of business strategy, Horwath lays out the five steps you can take to create a more fulfilling and successful life: Discover: Uncover your purpose through insight; Differentiate: Identify your unique strengths; Decide: Allocate your resources; Design: Develop your action plan; and, Drive: Execute your plan. The book gives you the opportunity to maximise your true potential at work and at home. Are you ready to build a bridge to the life you want?

Genres: Business, Self Help, Personal Development, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Rich Horwath is the CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, and has helped more than 100,000 managers around the world develop their strategic thinking skills. He is the author of seven books, including StrategyMan vs. The Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan. He is a former Chief Strategy Officer and professor of strategy at the graduate level, and has spoken to managers at companies such as Google, Intel, FedEx, Bank of America, and L’Oreal.

Reviews

[Tnoblelaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book for coaches.

[Crassenstein]

Most people have spent their lives randomly bouncing around like bumper cars, never arriving at the life they want. If fact, new research shows that only 15 percent of adults have a plan for their life. But what if there was a way, a proven way, to experience more of what life has to offer?

In Strategy for You world-renowned strategist Rich Horwath provides a proven plan for building the bridge to an exceptional life. Based on Horwath's ground-breaking work in the field of strategic thinking, the book helps readers apply the time-tested principles of business strategy to their lives. The author incorporates GOST (goals, objectives, strategies, tactics), SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), and other business tools into a five-step plan that enables readers to:

Discover the purpose in their lives
Differentiate their unique strengths
Decide how best to allocate their time and talent
Design an effective action plan
Drive their plan to ultimate success

To help readers get from where they are today to where they want to go, Horwath illustrates his five-step plan with examples of people who have successfully used strategy as a bridge to realize their destinies. Strategy for You gives readers the opportunity to maximize their true potential at work and at home and build that bridge to the life they've always wanted.

[Raz Pirata · Rating 3 out of 5]

“To many of us strive for mediocrity and unfulfilled potential, that is what our behavior indicates”

Do you have a plan for your life? Have you done more than just day dream about houses you want to own, trips you want to take, cars you want to drive? Have you put your thinking cap on, put the pen to the paper and your nose to the grindstone? If you’re like most, the answer is probably not. And maybe that is ok. If it’s not ok though, and you have dreams you want to turn into a reality but don’t have even the foggiest idea of where to start, Strategy For You might be just the thing you are looking for.

Rich Horwath, author of Strategy For You, is the CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute and a New York Times best-selling author on strategy. What he has done with this book is condensed and simplified all the strategic knowledge he has accumulated over the years into a tidy 140 pages.

“We do and see things in the same ways, we conform and blend in”

I have to admit here that I was going to include a diatribe on how shockingly juvenile and condescending I found the bridge metaphor in this book. Really, it has the feel of one of my nieces grade 5 reading textbooks, like, c’mon, a little effort and creativity right? And if that wasn’t enough to upset me, then the 5 stages of ‘building your bridge’ and the fact that they all start with the letter ‘D’ (as in discover, differentiate, decide, ugh) would absolutely push me enough to ensure a ruthless and deserved criticism of the book. And the snooze fest stories from those who use the strategies in the ‘bridge in progress’ inserts, they would get a justified lambasting as well. But then I got especially busy with other things. And while I was busy, I kept thinking about things I’d read in the book. I saw people in various stages of trying to construct their own bridges but floundering. Then, more shocking to me than anyone, I began to quote and reference the book. Retell the stories and, lord have mercy, even recommend it to someone. What happened?

“To see what you haven’t seen before you will need your eyes open and be willing to exchange the old for the new”

Here is my most educated guess. The book is dull, but memorable. The stages are elementary and therein lies their appeal. The stories are simple, but not weighed down with unnecessary complexity. This is not Dostoyevsky, this is strategy, bare in its bones from a guy who knows about strategy. This book I liken to screwdriver. It’s not fancy, it just works.

Touche, Mr Horwath, you have done something difficult to do, make something as endlessly complex as strategic thinking and make it accessible, memorable and useful, and that is no small feat.

Overall score: 3.0 / 5.0

In a sentence: It’s a screwdriver of a book, works every time you need it to.

[Ram · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short read and to the point. Don’t expect any fancy strategy stuff but a clear step wise plan on applying strategic thinking in our personal life to reach where we want to go from where we are now.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apesar de ter apenas 141 páginas demorei uns 6 meses para terminar este livro, mas não tive pressa, pois realizei todos os exercícios que ele propôs à medida que avançava na leitura. Utilizando as mesmas técnicas de consultoria com faz com empresas, o autor descreve passo-a-passo o processo para que o leitor examine dentro de si mesmo e elabore um plano personalizado, ou na analogia que faz por todo o livro - uma ponte, para sua vida. A técnica se desenvolve em 5 capítulos: Descobrir, Diferenciar, Decidir, Desenhar e Executar. O fato de colocar no papel todas as descobertas que fiz foi muito valioso, porque tenho uma referência à mão sempre que preciso relembrar um objetivo ou fazer ajustes. Particularmente gostei de identificar quais são meus objetivos principais, e elaborar estratégias e táticas para que os alcance, criar uma Missão pessoal, e fazer uma lista das coisas que preciso "parar" de fazer para que sobrem recursos (tempo, dinheiro e talento) para as coisas que realmente importam.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Coming from a perspective of business planning to talk about life planning has some benefits. But it also has some draw backs. For instance, this book is deeply complicated. Which is weird because it's incredibly short. Right when you think you understand the action planning steps you have to take he dumps even more on you. It was an interesting short read, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Shouda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok, with little material that would stick immediately to your mind! There are other books similar to it with better content! The only good thing I found was that it resembled the road to success in life to a bridge!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. Focused, to the point, no-nonsense. For such a short book, it packs a lot of exercises into it. I'm still working my way through the exercises though.

[Lee Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very fast read, simplistic in concepts , but well done and enjoyable.

[Dave Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start for those who feel like Stu - http://i.imgur.com/s2CYx.png