Over the Independence Day break, I spent some solid Poolside time (both my address and recreation) and continued some renovations – both exterior and interior. My kitchen has a new sense of depth with a splash of red.

While stationed nearer to the waters, I knocked off two books. Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith (which admittedly, I’s a little late in reading) tells the true life story of two preachers-. The first is Mitch’s childhood rabbi whose holiness seems inaccessible until he asked Mitch to provide his eulogy and, therefore, compelled the author to get to know him better. The other is Pastor Henry Covington, an inner-city pastor with a sinful past and a hole in the rook of decrepit church. Lesson learned was simple holiness is built upon where your focus lies.

The other was Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I must be preety up to date on the latest change materials in business… I found the book interesting and a good read; but not too much much new ground covered. Actually, there is a common lesson to the previous book:  If you want to lead, the core of your life must be alignment with your faith, dreams, hopes, and passions.

Also spent time off in the theaters as well. Page One: Inside the New York Times was an object lesson in change, more than Enchantment was. Watching the newsroom deal with new media and wikileaks and the economic impact on technology upon newspapers was very telling.  While many embraced the workplace of the times as a “place where great ideas happened and were done,” the very earth of their business was shifting under their feet. The prestigious “old guard” finds “new and different” to be, well, new and different and confusing. The line of the movie comes from David Carr who describes his new media colleague by indicating that “I still can get over the feeling that Brian Seltzer was a robot assembled to destroy me.” Catch it is you can.