Mark Hodgkin 9/18/19 Mark Hodgkin 9/18/19

Mark and Kevin Talk Adversity in Episode 30 of The Sports Leadership Podcast

Adversity is one thing that will visit us all whether we're ready or not. In Episode 30 of the Sports Leadership Podcast, Kevin DeShazo and Mark Hodgkin discuss ways to prepare for it, manage and lead through it, and use it as a way to improve.

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Mark Hodgkin 9/3/19 Mark Hodgkin 9/3/19

Episodes 28 and 29 of the Sports Leadership Podcast

Episode 28 and 29 of the Sports Leadership Podcast have been released.

In Episode 28, Kevin DeShazo and Mark Hodgkin begin a series on popular leadership axioms, by discussing the premise that "How we do anything is how we do everything." A recent blog post by Ryan Holiday prompts the conversation and leads to a discussion on what's really important to focus on.

With the dawn of a new college sports season, Episode 29 tackles the importance of starting a season strong and preparing to commit to a strong workplace culture over the long haul. Making your leadership personal and giving your team a concrete vision for why what they do will help them internalize your mission. And it's also worth taking a few minutes to be thankful for working in this industry.

If you have not yet, please subscribe to the Sports Leadership Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.

Mark Hodgkin 12/27/17 Mark Hodgkin 12/27/17

My Method for Taking Notes from E-Books

While perhaps slow to e-books (“books are to be held, felt, etc.”), I’ve 100% converted to the Kindle lifestyle when reading. Besides books I already own or ones given to me by friends or via the #SportsBiz Book Exchange, I read exclusively on my Kindle.

In the past year, reading has cemented its place in my routine, but I always felt that I was not retaining enough of the material. I began making extensive highlights on my Kindle* and saving them in Evernote notebooks (Note that this can be done on any device in the Kindle app, you don’t need an actual Kindle device.).

This allows me to keep an outline of each book I read, as well as a searchable database of the most important points. I can quickly scan the outline and refresh my memory of the contents.

Here’s How.

Make highlights throughout the book you’re reading in the Kindle app. I try to highlight a basic overview of the book, organized with chapter and section titles. I also make a “note” if it is something particularly interesting or tied to a project or topic I want to dig more into. Here’s the Amazon overview on highlights, bookmarks and notes in Kindle.

Amazon keeps a record of all notes and highlights at https://read.amazon.com/. Visit this page, and select the book you’d like to get your notes and highlights from the left side navigation. You’ll see an outline of your notes and highlights as below.

Unfortunately copying and pasting from this page comes out a mess. That’s where Bookcision comes in.

Visit https://www.norbauer.com/bookcision/ and install the Bookcision link in your browser. This will make copying and pasting a snap. With a book selected, you can hit the Bookcision link in your browser toolbar, and a screen like this will show up.

You can copy to clipboard (if you have Flash), download a TXT file or simply highlight it all and do an old fashioned copy and paste.

Now I go into Evernote, and create a new ‘note’ in my ‘notebook’ called “Books”. I create a new note for every book I read an paste the highlights from Bookcision into Evernote.

I put the title and author in the notebook name and associate some tags to help me stay organized. For some books, I’ll dive in a little more and add links to podcasts, YouTube videos or related articles. I’ll also typically add some bold and underlines to call out the most important points. Sometimes i’ll get a little more organized with the formatting. If you’re going to reformat, I’d recommend downloading the TXT file — it looks worse at first, but has less funky formatting than the copy-paste method.

Having this in Evernote, I can easily scan the key points from any book I’ve read as well as have keyword search for anything I might be looking for but forgotten where it’s from. Evernote also gives you the ability to snap photos easily into notebooks (I use this for paper reads) and a bunch of other worthwhile features.

Would love to chat with anyone more about my system and hear more about yours. I encourage you to come up with a system that works for you and helps you retain more information from the books you invest time reading.

Mark Hodgkin 2/13/17 Mark Hodgkin 2/13/17

Introducing the SportsBiz Book Exchange

Last year, I read more books than I ever have. I do not think it is a coincidence that it was also a year of tremendously positive growth and evolution. I am 100% convinced that reading more — and better — is a crucial piece of success. In today’s cluttered and chaotic landscape, I think it’s more important than ever to invest time into reading things that make us better people and professionals.

I also love the #SportsBiz and #SMSports communities. I have gotten to know so many of you through Twitter and eventually IRL (in real life ;)).

So today, I’m launching a project that will hopefully bring these two great things together, The #SportsBiz Book Exchange.

Here’s how it will work:

Tell us your name, address, and a book you’re willing to share by clicking on this link.
We’ll follow up with a list of submitted books and ask you to select the ones you’ve already read.
On March 1, you’ll receive the name and address of someone to share your book with. Mail them the book with a short personalized note.
Wait for your book to come.
We’ll repeat steps 2–4 every month or two. You’ll forward the book you received to someone else, with another note.

I hope this will be a way for like-minded sports professionals to share knowledge and expand their network. I think reading and networking are two important pillars to growing your career and hope this exchange will enrich all those who participate.

Mark Hodgkin 1/31/17 Mark Hodgkin 1/31/17

The Sports Leadership Podcast - Episode 7

What is influence? Essentially, it’s your ability to impact those around you. It’s crucial for your career as well as your personal relationships.

When people meet you, the instinctively ask the following questions:

Can I trust you? (Character)
Do I like you? (Chemistry)
Do you know what you’re doing? (Competency)
Can you help me achieve what I’m trying to achieve? (Credibility)

Positive answers on those questions can take you beyond mere transactions and build meaningful relationships. But all of us are wired differently and have different strengths and blind spots.

In Episode 7 of the Sports Leadership Podcast, Kevin DeShazo of Fieldhouse Leadership and I discuss the Four C’s of influence and how to identify and develop them in your career (link below).

In our next episode we will discuss self preservation, which is one of the big roadblocks for unlocking meaningful relationships and true influence.

As mentioned on the show, we all have a natural “voice”. For more on this topic, visit http://5voices.com

If you have not yet, please subscribe to the Sports Leadership Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.

Mark Hodgkin 12/27/16 Mark Hodgkin 12/27/16

The Sports Leadership Podcast - Episode 4

If you have not yet, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play

In Episode 4, Kevin and I discuss the "Support/Challenge" matrix. All of us bring certain levels of support and challenge to our team, but finding the right mix is what separates great leaders from the rest. Find out how to take the steps needed to be a "Liberator".

Here is the Support/Challenge Matrix:

For more, visit: https://www.giant.courses/ — For more, visit: https://www.giant.courses/

Listen to Episode 4 below:

Mark Hodgkin 12/21/16 Mark Hodgkin 12/21/16

The Sports Leadership Podcast - Episode 3

In Episode 3 of The Sports Leadership Podcast, Mark and Kevin discuss the best books they read in 2016 and the overall importance of reading to leadership.

If you have not yet, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play

Among the books discussed on the episode were Ryan Holiday's "The Obstacle is the Way" and "Ego is the Enemy".

Mark broke down his full list of books over on Medium. You can also find him on GoodReads.

Other books mentioned on the show (full lists below SoundCloud embed):

Kevin:

Mark:

Kevin's Full List

Mark's Full List

*Using the above links to purchase these books on Amazon does not affect the price but helps support the podcast. Thank you!

Mark Hodgkin 12/14/16 Mark Hodgkin 12/14/16

The Sports Leadership Podcast - Episode 2

Do you return from a weekend still tired and stressed? Are you constantly connected with your device but increasingly detached to those around you?

We all have different ways of resting and recharging, but it is crucial for all of us. In Episode 2 of The Sports Leadership Podcast, Kevin DeShazo and I discuss the importance of rest and recovery - and how to do it effectively.

Kevin outlines our "5 Gears" and we discuss how to move throughout them to optimize our work and rest time.

Listen to the full podcast below and please consider subscribing via iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud to get new episodes of The Sports Leadership Podcast as soon as they come out.

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