Table of Contents

Foreword xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Part I Why You Need to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless 1 Chapter 1 Thoughtful and Ruthless 3 The Trigger Points for Thoughtfully Ruthless 3 Who Is Thoughtful? Who Is Ruthless? 5 Can You Name One? 6 Your Time, Energy, and Resources 7 How Thoughtfully Ruthless Are You? 15 Chapter 2 The Cost of Doing Nothing 19 The Cost of Delay 20 The Downward Spiral of Gloom 21 The Thoughtfully Ruthless Success Loop 25 Chapter 3 Your Selfish Charter 29 Your Sensibly Selfish Charter 32 Wishful Thinking Works 35 Chapter 4 Become Brilliant at Demonstrating Your Brilliance 39 Assessing Your Brilliance and How Brilliantly You Demonstrate It 40 Why Appearance Trumps Reality Every Time 42 How to Transform from Being Humble to Shameless 48 Your Action 50 Part II Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Time 53 Chapter 5 The Power of No 55 The Powerful Post-It 56 The Immediacy Effect 57 How to Be Productively Unproductive 60 How to Control Input Overload 61 Your Lost Discipline List 63 Thirty Ways to Say No 64 Chapter 6 SHUSH!: How to Create Silence, Space, and Time 67 Your Daily Silence 67 The Gift of Time 70 In-box in Control 73 Calendar Chaos 77 Meaningful Meetings 79 The Thoughtfully Ruthless Deadline Tracker 84 Part III Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Energy 89 Chapter 7 Becoming Imperturbable 91 How to Stop the Worry Trifecta 91 Rapid Thought to Action 95 How Imperturbable Are You? 96 Managing the Energy Leaks 98 Your Accelerators and Decelerators 100 Accelerating by Improving Your Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise 100 Chapter 8 Divorce Your Friends and Network 109 The Greenhouse Effect 110 Put Your Social Life on Autopilot 113 An Enviable Inner Circle of Advisors 115 Internal and External Connections 116 Communities 116 Perfecting Your Team's Connections 117 Surrounding Yourself with Believers 117 Chapter 9 Creating a Leapfrog Organization 119 Your Five-Year Leap 119 The Intentional Annoyance Phase 124 Building an Exemplary Board 127 Leaving Your Legacy 132 Chapter 10 The Thoughtfully Ruthless Team 135 Steps for Galvanizing Your Team 138 The Characteristics of a Galvanized Team 142 Do You Tolerate Mediocrity? 149 Chapter 11 Amazon versus Microsoft 155 Assessing Your Culture 160 Can You Take the Heat? 167 Reward the Results You Want 169 Unleashing Innovation 170 Using the Cultural Continuum 171 The Express Lane to Culture Change 172 Chapter 12 Mind the Gap 173 Evaporating Excuses 173 Prepare for Abrupt U-turns 175 Change Your View, Change Your Habits 176 Listen to Who You Listen to 177 Evidence, Patterns, and Observed Behavior 177 Practice Altitude Adjustment 179 Make Unpopular and High-Risk Decisions 179 Appendix 185 Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Time 185 Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Energy 190 Ninety-Nine Ways to Be Thoughtfully Ruthless with Your Resources 194 About the Author 201 Index 203

About the Author

VAL WRIGHT works with Fortune 500 executives to accelerate growth and innovation, and creates compassionate truth telling, fearlessness, and extensive creative, technical, and leadership gains. Her clients include household names such as Starbucks, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Financial Times, and DreamWorks Animation. She's an inductee into the Million Dollar Consultant (R) Hall of Fame and she is a regular contributor on CNBC, Inc., Bloomberg, Reuters, MSN and Today.