An inspirational story that offers insights from a life-changing feat.
A man who summited Mount Kilimanjaro shares the Christianity-based leadership lessons that he learned along the climb.
Wilbanks, a procurement and packaging executive, guides readers through his arduous journey up the tallest peak in Africa. After his divorce, the author says, he grappled with a midlife crisis. His initial intent in summitting the mountain wasn’t aligned with his faith, he says: “I did not set out to climb Kilimanjaro to find God. I set out to prove something.” Operating “without Him,” Wilbanks faced many rude awakenings on his journey to the summit, including a serious back injury just before his ascent. Choosing pride over wisdom, he pressed on. The author shares transformative lessons on faith and leadership as he relates his journey; he frames an encounter with snakes as a representation of life’s temptations, for instance. Each chapter offers questions for reflection, as well as “key takeaways.” Overall, the author says that he shared his story “not to impress or to preach, but because [he] discovered that faith and leadership are not separate conversations.” He includes verses from the Bible at apt moments: “Jesus promises in Matthew 11:28: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ Rest, however, was the one thing I never allowed myself.” Wilbanks also uses passages from his journal that effectively ground his story in reality; specifically, this line hauntingly reveals how he was gripped by fear when wind threatened to throw his team off the mountain: “It felt as though death itself had entered our tent.” Throughout, the author’s prose is engaging, as when he tells of an impoverished boy who returned money that the author had dropped at a market. The book has moments of redundancy, though; for example, the author follows a similar pattern when doling out lessons, often stating what something isn’t before stating what it is: “The final ascent was not about conquering Kilimanjaro. It was about being conquered by grace.” This pattern becomes less effective with each use. Still, the author’s main takeaway—“Gratitude became leadership fuel”—effectively reverberates throughout the narrative.
An inspirational story that offers insights from a life-changing feat.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9798895740583
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morgan James Faith
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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