We can officially declare our new book, Humanize, to be launched! I got my author copies last week, as shown in the picture, and it is now in stock at Amazon (still “pre-order” for some reason on Barnes and Noble), and I know you can download it in iBooks and for Kindle. I’m told you won’t find it in brick and mortar stores for another few weeks, but the book is really out there. We’ve even spotted a blog post about it (from someone we don’t even know!). It’s really exciting to see the book in real life. So there are a couple of things to say.

The first is thank you. Thank you, readers of this blog, for listening and commenting and engaging me on all things leadership over the last six years. Writing this blog has been at the heart of my own professional growth, and it wouldn’t have worked if you guys weren’t reading it and talking to me about it and talking to each other about it. If this blog hadn’t taken off, I never would have met Maddie, and the book wouldn’t exist. So thank you all for supporting me in this journey. I couldn’t have done it without you.

The second thing to say, of course, is please read the book. I guess that’s self serving, but it’s not about royalties–we really want you to read this. We want to know what you think about it. We want to know how you’re putting it into practice. We want to know where you disagree with us. This book is a launching point, not a destination. So we want people to take it and run with it. I view this book as a living, growing thing, whose boundaries extend well beyond Maddie and me. It will grow through conversations. I am eager for those to start, and they begin by you reading the book.

And don’t forget about the free, downloadable worksheets. As you get into each of the four main chapters of the book on how to be open, trustworthy, generative, and courageous, you have access to a 20-page worksheet that will help you assess your own organization and develop an action plan to make changes.

I will be posting about the book a lot in the next few weeks, and as more people start their part in the conversation with blog posts, I’ll link to them (so ping me if you write one). Let’s get this conversation rolling.