I discovered John Maxwell several years ago; his books are without doubt among the best in the personal development world.

Born in 1947 John Maxwell has become an acclaimed author speaker and pastor and has written in excess of 50 books, the main focus of these is on leading and leadership. With sales of over 19 million copies across over 50 languages it is no surprise that some have reached the New York Times Best Seller List.

One of the most enlightening books for anyone who doubts them selves is ‘Failing Forward‘ in this book he shows us how to turn mistakes into stepping stones for success. Other well known and great titles are ‘How Successful People Think‘ and ‘Developing The Leader Within You‘

He has become a legendary speaker for fortune 500 companies, sports organizations, governments and many high profile groups throughout the world.

I recently discovered his daily video ‘A Minute With John Maxwell’. Once you sign up you will get a daily email from johnmaxwellteam.com with a link to a video on a different word each day. It is enlightening to hear how he can so accurately describe his perception of each word in approximately a minute.

I would recommend A Minute With John Maxwell to all who aspire to greater success in life and business. There is no one who cannot spare a minute a day to improve themselves.

Click here to visit A Minute With John Maxwell

The alarming thing about good habits is that whilst it can take considerable effort to start them, it is extremely easy to break them.

This blog is a fine example of my proof of this having not posted anything for a good year.  Frankly this is only because I have allowed other activities to stop me investing a small amount of time to placing some regular posts and updates. These new activities have all been positive and productive, but should not have stopped me developing my blog.

Along with my blog other important daily routines had slipped like reading. I know without question the power of reading the correct books and absorbing positive information, however I had allowed myself to reduce my reading to almost nothing over the last few months.

At this point it would be very easy for me to simple make plausible excuses for my slip from some commitments; and indeed I could describe the valuable areas my time has been directed to recently. However the energy and time spent on voicing any of these reasons, excuses etc. is far better spent on positive action.

It has occurred to me that often the catalyst for action can be a tiny influence; in my case one of these tiny influences has been the arrival of an ‘i phone’. Now I know that many readers will find these single statement odd, but having used a certain very fruity communication device for some time I have only very recently jumped ship to the ‘i phone’. The connection for me has been ‘i tunes’; again you might ask how a music streaming site can get me back on track.

The answer is simple, ‘I tunes’ also provide speaking books. To be fair this is far from new to me and the small amount of ‘reading’ I have been doing for some months has been in this form. The concept of listening to a book rather than reading from print was introduced to me a good 2 years ago and I discovered for myself how much more effective it can be to absorb information in this way. The ‘i phone’ has simply improved the portability of the medium to such a degree that the time spent absorbing positive information has quickly raised back to a far more influential level.

Whilst this post is not an advert for ‘I phone’ it is an example of finding the tiny influence that can help maintain the activities that keep us on track with our good habits; so I will be revisiting this blog with a renewed vigour and look forward to hearing positive stories from my readers.

Wooden Toys are growing in popularity massively. Many of the traditional designs have found new life and are being made both for sale and by avid craft enthusiasts alike. I am fortunate to have trained in carpentry and joinery and have always found the subject of wooden toy making fascinating. The reality is that although many lucky kids will be given wooden toys for play and education; a great number of these wooden masterpieces will actually be kept for display.

One of the dreams on my goal list is to have a fully fitted out workshop where I can spend time making all sorts of items out of wood. Buying books and plans for making many items including toys and furniture from wood is a great way to visualise this dream. It has become apparent to me that there are many people out there who would also like to be able to find out how to make all sorts of wooden keepsakes etc.

So I have launched Best Wooden Toy Plans to provide a resource for interesting articles, reviews, videos and as a directory of the best books, plans, tutorials and suppliers I can find. The range of toys and models that can be made from wood is pretty near endless; Cars, Doll Houses, Trucks, Trains, Cranes, Earth Movers, Farms, Games and even Toy Boxes and Toy Chests to store all these toys in, can be made from wood.

If this is a subject you would like to follow, take a visit to Best Wooden Toy Plans and enjoy.