Crossing the Rubicon

About the Book

Crossing the Rubicon: Seven Steps to Writing Your Own Personal Strategy is a mechanism to apply best practice business strategies to your personal and professional life. Crossing the Rubicon is a metaphor for releasing your potential, transforming your life and achieving personal and professional success. It helps you move from knowing about the best ideas and success techniques to doing something practical about the implementation of your life's purpose.

Crossing the Rubicon is a personal strategy exercise that provides you with a road map to pull all your thinking and ambitions together into one co-ordinated whole. Personal Strategy is beyond goal setting, career planning and personal coaching. It is personal leadership, talent management and motivational planning all rolled into one. It is about maximising your personal capital. It is about formulating a clarity, purpose and high degree of expectation to your current personal/professional situation and future direction. It builds a framework or set of tracks for your desired future. The primary objective of writing a personal strategy is to help you transform your life for the better and achieve the goals you set- this is the key- for yourself, not just to achieve the goals that circumstances deliver. A compelling rubicon strategy is 'an integrated whole' rather than a 'bits and parts' approach to personal and professional management. The term Crossing the Rubicon goes back to Roman times. In 49 BC Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon river and entered Italy from Gaul with a standing army. To do so was treason, an act of audacity against the Roman state and it effectively started a bloody civil war.

Crossing the Rubicon was the point of no return for Caesar. It was an act of war, an irreversible step with no turning back. He knew the implications of his actions. When he had crossed the river he said: "The die is now cast, there is no going back, ever again". He was irrevocably committed to that course of action.

Crossing the Rubicon is, therefore, a term for taking bold, decisive and irreversible action. It is the point of no return. When you write your personal strategy you cross the point of no return in that you take control of your own life and set a transformational course of action into play.

You effectively burn your bridges and face down your best excuses. Move from knowing about the steps to transform your situation to doing something very practical about it. 'To know and not to do is not yet to know' is how Confucius put it over 2500 years ago. Moving from knowing to doing is crossing the rubicon.

About the Author

John Butler has more than 25 years experience in leadership development, sales and marketing management, managing change processes and strategic organisational development. He is a highly respected speaker, author and business advisor in many parts of the world.

Professional Speaker

John Butler is a professional speaker who provides the valuable lessons from more than 25 years of leadership and business building experience to each of his speaking and consulting assignments. As a speaker he can tailor an after-dinner talk, conference, seminar, special event or motivational speech to your requirements in strategic planning, sales effectiveness, management, communication skills, personal potential, employee and customer relations, team building and personal development.

Visit www.centurymanagement.ie/speaker for a list of topics and presentations he has conducted.

His talks and seminars have given thousands of business people around the world the key to survival, profitability and growth. He has conducted speaking engagements for clients in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, Turkey, USA, United Kingdom and in his home country of Ireland.

Successful Author

John Butler has written several successful business development programmes and books including: The Business Management Consultancy Programme, The Competency Programme, Outstanding Customer Care, Managing Outstanding Customer Service, Professional Presentation Skills, Face-to-Face Communications and Relationship Selling Excellence. He writes frequently for business magazines on various management and business related topics. His book Successful Entrepreneurial Management: How to Create Personal and Business Advantage has been described as Ôthe new synergyÕ for 21st century management and business success, which has been translated into the German language and sold widely in Germany. His book Know Yourself, Know Your Customer is co-authored with Frank Scheelen, published in Hungary and Germany, and gives you an underlying insight into how people ÔnaturallyÕ think, feel and act and how to connect with more and more people to achieve a win/win result. Odyssey: The Business of Consulting is a process where he consults with consultants around the world.

Business Advisor

John Butler wears several consulting hats, depending on the client situation, such as: advisor, action planner, catalyst, challenger, change agent, coach, confronter, expert on-call, facilitator, listener, mediator, mentor, presenter, strategist, and supporter.

Careers in management, marketing, publishing, education, sales, distribution, consulting and organisational development are the bedrock of the wealth of experience and knowledge that he brings to each consulting and organisational development engagement. He is a practitioner, constantly learning, improving and passing value to clients. His strategy sessions have prompted thousands of business leaders to rethink their real/best contributions to their organisations. He is first and foremost, however, an entrepreneurial businessman and he is constantly applying these ideas and techniques within his own businesses, client organisations and consulting companies.