Ultimate Productivity by Jim Stovall: Review

Jim Stovall is a national champion Olympic weightlifter, a foremost motivational and leadership expert, entrepreneur and author. He is co-founder and President of the Emmy Award-winning Narrative Television Network which makes movies and television which is accessible to visually impaired people across many countries through NarrativeTV.Com. He is the author of several books including the best-seller The Ultimate Gift , which has been made into a feature length movie starring James Garner.

Meaning of success

Ultimate productivity is the need of the hour. In this book, Jim Stovall strikes at the sharp contrast between success and failure. He says there are as many definitions for success as there are for people. No two success stories are alike and the only one that really matters is yours.

There are many books or systems that will teach you to set a goal, create milestones, pursue your passion and make changes in your world. These are indeed important steps, but unless one has the tools to achieve and succeed, one does not have a chance of success.

Jim Stovall begins with a point that only by accepting full responsibility for your past, which has resulted in your present, can you then take control of your actions today and create a successful tomorrow.

More people fail not because they are unable to reach their goals, but because they have wrongly defined both their goals and the meaning of success.

Productivity: A powerful measure of life

The word productive is a derivative of the word produce, which, quite simply means “to generate results”. In order to be successful one has to make choices, define success in their own terms and create a mission that will take him/her towards an ultimate productivity destiny.

“Just because you are moving, it does not mean you’re moving in the right direction. Visualise the hamster in the cage, frantically running on the spinning wheel. He has a lot of activity but no productivity. If the hamster runs even faster, he still doesn’t get anywhere.”

Never confuse activity with productivity. Just because we are running it doesn’t mean we’re really moving at all in term of productive progress towards our personalised success goals.

In some cases, activity can be counterproductive. If you’re moving down the highway at seventy miles per hour on a clear, bright, sunny day with very little traffic, you might think you’re making good progress and being very productive. In reality, if your destination lies somewhere behind you, in the opposite direction, your activity is actually counterproductive.

The most productive thing to do is to ask oneself several questions:

What is it that I’m really trying to achieve?

Do I really want to accomplish this?

Will this activity move me toward that end result?

Is there a better way to get from here to there than the way I am currently pursuing?

Remember to never confuse activity with productivity. Review each item in your daily, weekly and monthly calendar to evaluate if it is an activity of productivity.

Honest assessment

Jim Stovall narrates how Coach Wooden helped him understand that motivation, communication and implementation are imperative, but one has to work with each player and every team differently. Some players are motivated by a pat on their back. Other players need their pat a little lower and a bit harder. Some players need verbal communication and other have to see a diagram of the play drawn out on a board. Some players implement best with long, rigorous practices, while others need several sessions a day.

Hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches are all irreplaceable tools for a carpenter, but they are not interchangeable. The best carpenter in the world will have his productivity diminished or halted completely if he tries to drive nails with a screwdriver. Ultimate productivity in any specific field requires talent, hard work and dedication, By necessity, the farther you climb the ladder in one area, the less altitude you’re able to achieve in others.

Implementation is key

The author claims that no matter how well you have established your personal definition of success, crafted your mission, infused passion into your goal and regardless of how motivated you are and how well you have communicated all the elements of Ultimate Productivity, unless you implement, all is lost.

More people fail to start than fail to succeed. There is no shame in striking out while offering our best efforts and being willing to get up to the plate again. The shame comes in never having tried.

It is important that you systematise the implementation of your success. You want to eliminate as many variables as possible and make productive implementation a part of your routine.

Life and success come down to implementing on a day-by-day basis. Make a list of things that have to be done today if you’re going to get one day closer to your personal definition of success.

Most salespeople don’t like cold calls, so they habitually dread these calls and put them off until late in the day. This creates a situation in which negative emotions attached to the cold calls permeates all activities; therefore, if there are any interruptions at all, any unexpected obligations, the cold calls aren’t even made and the salesperson is one day farther from success.

Any worthwhile goal requires the implementation of tasks we don’t like. Set highest hurdles up first. Once you clear them, it’s downhill for the rest of the day.

Some people like to complete one task and then go to the next in a linear fashion, while others like to trade off a few minutes of each activity throughout the day. There are people who feel competent and professional when they are formally dressed for success, while others prefer to work from home, in their bathrobes. It is important that you find your own groove that works for you when you are implementing.

One should use the universal principles that work for everyone, but implement them on a personal basis that is customised. There are certain tasks that require everyone to perform the same way. Pilots and copilots have a standard routine as they go through the flight checklist. There is no room for creativity or individuality in the process.

The author concludes that you won’t succeed because you’re better than anyone else. You’ll succeed because success is defined by you, and there is no one ready, willing, or able to fill your unique role than you.

Productivity profile

One of the key takeaways that Jim Stovall offers is the Ultimate Productivity Profile. An access code found in the book will allow one to assess his/her own motivational triggers through a brief survey through the Internet. The profile report holds a mirror to the internal and external factors that causes us to perform.

The conclusion is clear that, if you will learn to work smarter and not harder, productively and not more actively, you will reach the destination of Ultimate Productivity, full of peace, serenity, joy and success. The book does bring about a transformational experience.

(The writer is Senior Manager- Human Resources, The Hindu Group of Publications, Chennai ).

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