Nothing like a rainy day cozied up with a cup of Jasmine tea and some Hobnob cookies to help you finish a book!

I selected this one because a group of women at my church were reading it. The timing of the meetings conflicted with my long distance runs so I ended up moving ahead on my own.

Author Jenni Catron is endorsed by ultra famous author John C. Maxwell. She’s a local luminary having been an executive leader at local Menlo Church here in California and proving herself on both coasts also at Crosspoint Church in Nashville.

While I found the 4 Dimensions hard to read, I got some good nuggets out of it and plan to return to it in 6 months. You may see it again in my Project 52. Here are those nuggets:

• A whole heart, passionate soul, brilliant mind and relentless strength are the 4 dimensions of an extraordinary leader. There’s a self-assessment in the book. Leaving the superlatives aside, I am over-rotated on mind and strength, full of logic and discipline and in need of more heart and soul.
• Pray for wisdom for your team. Why didn’t I think of that before!!!
• Teams need time to dream and time to celebrate. Ahem, heart and soul.
• It is a delight to pair the gifts of an individual with the needs of an organization. I got this value from working for HP and still use it today.
• Visionary leaders understand how to be a bridge from reality to possibility.
• Recognize that every relational connection with those you lead has the potential to increase your influence.
• Without vision the people perish. Proverbs 29:18
• Have a clear vision of the type of experience we plan to offer. This is making me think of all kinds of customer experience things that we could do at work.
• People need purposeful work and jobs that fit clearly within the context of their career. Helping people change, develop and grow is a heart felt purpose of mine that is reflected in what I do for a living as a Dean of a corporate university. If you’d like to find out more about that you can visit a blog entry Performing Together: 8 essential elements for building better Marketing teams that I wrote on LinkedIn.

Catron has plenty of food for thought. I am looking forward to putting into practice what I have learned so far and revisiting the book in a few months.