The Strategic Stop: Taking Back Your Life in a World Obsessed with Busyness

In his book The Strategic Stop, Dr. Greg Nelson is calling into question our culture's tilt toward doing in contrast to being.

The highest value in our workplaces has been productivity, and while that seems normal to us, we have paid a price as individual workers, teams, and organizations. We are jeopardizing the soul of our greatest resource: the human being side of our doers; knowing and honoring each other's strengths, preferences, and unique experiences as human beings; the challenge to bring all this essential humanity into a deeper innovative collaboration.

This constant clamor of our 24/7 nonstop culture has been labeled by the World Health Organization a modern plague. Why? Becaus we are literally killing ourselves with one To Do list after another. How? We are neglecting some of the most significant human experiences vital to producing a life of well-being and fulfillment.

The truth is, the human system is designed to optimize life by means of regular pauses. But not just stopping. A strategic stop.

Drawing from the fields of neuroscience, business, sports, and the world's wisdom traditions to make the case, The Strategic Stop lays out nine vital pauses designed to increase human well-being and effective living in and out of the workplace; nine practices to include in the regular rhythm of your life: Start with rest, Shape your recovery, State your Why, Strengthen self-awareness, Shift limiting beliefs, Sharpen strengths, Surround yourself with support, Solidify the ballast of your leadership and organization, and Sabbath your time.

These nine strategic stops will transform the way you work, manage, and live because you are you choosing to be more intentional about the kind of life you want to live. You are refusing to allow the urgent to dictate your priorities. You are taking back your life in order to really live your life. You are allowing yourself to come face to face with your fullest human potential by embracing your identity as a human being not merely a human doing.

Whether you're a leader who manages a team or heads up a company, or an independent contributor, or a parent faced with unending responsibilities to your family and work, if you've ever felt like you're in bondage to your busyness and nonstop schedule and have lost a bit of yourself in the process, this book is for you. It will guide you to pay attention to these vital habits that will help you thrive not just survive.

Here's what you will get in this book:

• You will get a vision for what it means to shape Strategic Stops in your work and life and why it's so vital to your well being
• You will identify what your most significant Strategic Stop needs to be in order to bring more fullness to your life
• You will outline specific personal and professional steps for how to maximize your stops
• You will learn how to optimize rest and resilience in ways that leverage your own energy style
• You will deepen your self-awareness to increase confidence, purpose, and well-being
• You will deconstruct limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering beliefs that liberate you
• You will learn how to build more healthy relationships on your team at work and beyond that provide you far greater support and collaboration
• You will bring clarity to your purpose that increases your impact and influence in your organization

  By building more strategic stopping points into the regular rhythm of your life, you will take back your human being side and live more fully alive.

Our workplace culture desperately needs to restore balance to our humanity by valuing human well-being. And when we pay attention to this priority, our engagement and productivity become more human-centered and, in the end, more effective.