Verified by 
Five years ago, Robert Glazer created a small experiment. In attempting to give himself something useful to do in the mornings and his employees a dose of inspiration to kick-off the weekend, he started writing short inspirational stories and emailing them to his team every Friday morning. He called it Friday Inspiration.
He didn't expect much, but after a few weeks, he started getting some surprising replies. His employees were loving the emails. They gave something positive and hopeful to end the week on. And many of his employees reported making positive changes in their lives as a result of reading the short Friday stories.
Glazer then told several of his other CEO friends about the impact of his "Friday Inspiration" emails. Many of them began forwarding the emails to their own teams, which led to the shift in the name to "Friday Forward." In a short period of time, an Inc. Magazine article was written by someone about the impact of Friday newsletter, and five years later, Glazer has over 200,000 people who read his Friday Forward messages.
Glazer is the Founder and CEO of the global performance marketing agency, Acceleration Partners. He's now a known expert of transformational leadership and inspires many people. Over the past five years and after sending well over 500 emails with short stories, he recently collected the best ones into a book, Friday Forward: Inspiration & Motivation to End Your Week Stronger Than It Started. The book is 52 bite-sized stories for leaders and anyone who wants to improve their lives.
As someone who got my Ph.D. in organizational psychology, and actually did my dissertation on transformational leadership, I wasn't expecting to find anything revolutionary in the book. Not that I didn't respect Glazer. Actually, I'd never read his emails before reading this book. I'd only met him a few months ago when he read and graciously supported the launch of my latest book.
Like many other writers and people in business, I read a lot. More than a book per week. Glazer's book was much better (and deeper) than I expected. I got a lot out of the book and think he structured it very thoughtfully. It's suited for a coffee table or nightstand when you just want to read for five to 10 minutes max. Each chapter is around two pages. It's simple, practical, and effective. Glazer suggests you read it during your morning routine.
The book is broken down into four parts:
- Spiritual Capacity: Improving who you are; having a purpose and destination for your life.
- Intellectual Capacity: Improving how you think, plan, and execute; setting and achieving goals.
- Physical Capacity: Improving your health, well-being, and physical performance; dealing with stress, managing fatigue.
- Emotional Capacity: Improving how you respond to challenges and creating deeper and more transformational relationships.
Here is a small sampling of the chapters that immediately stuck out to me, which I read first, and which gave me a surprising dose of insight and inspiration.
- Myth of work-life balance
- Freedom to fail
- Stop-doing list
- Goals and standards
- Putting yourself first
- Four benefits of travel
- Embracing relationships
Glazer makes the argument that "work-life balance" as we traditionally view it is not only unachievable but undesirable. Rather than equally allotting our time in the various aspects of our lives, the true goal is being fully present and available in the key areas of our lives. I agreed with Glazer and it reminded me of a recent insight I had about psychological "flow."
Flow is about being fully absorbed in what you're doing, and from my perspective, flow is about being focused on one outcome at a time. As an example, I'm currently writing this article, so the one outcome I'm focused on is finishing this article. Every action we take as human beings is outcome-driven, even if the outcome is simply to relax, check our email, feed ourselves, etc. The more we focus on just one outcome at a time, the more flow we will experience. The more in flow we are, the more we will get out of everything we're doing.
This, of course, can be hard, if we're addicted to technology, email, work, etc. Just one outcome at a time. As a husband and father of five kids, I can attest to the importance and difficulty of this principle. It can be easy while I'm home and the kids are out playing to want to pull out my phone and sneak a peek at my email or YouTube. And often I kill my flow (and the flow of my family) by grabbing my phone and trying to squeeze in another outcome. I am getting better. And as Glazer explains, it's not about the amount of time I spend on each aspect of my life, but the amount of flow experience in each aspect of my life.
Conclusion
There are several more nuggets throughout this book that I believe would be helpful for both leaders and anyone seeking to improve themselves. Friday Forward is a great read. Many of the suggestions in the book are backed by research in psychology. Glazer has done his homework, and he and his writing are relatable, hopeful, and helpful.
