Receiving the Gift We Give.

A step-by-step breakdown of key personal motivators and how they can be combined for individual—perhaps even global—fulfillment.

Campbell’s nonfiction debut is openly spiritual and Christian in its groundings. “[T]here is never a time you are not with God,” he writes. “God is always with you and you know it.” Yet in elaborating on his perspectives of personal responsibility and fulfillment, his approach is not only straightforward but almost entirely nondenominational. “What we are and how we behave affects our family, friends, and acquaintances,” he writes, adding that all of us from presidents to CEOs to street people have the potential to influence thousands of other people in the course of our lives. As he simply puts it, “[W]e shape our world.” Campbell identifies five “core drivers” in the human emotional makeup, and he views the perfecting of these core drivers as the essential ingredient in achieving what he calls “Oneness”—a kind of maximized potential, both individual and collective. Pointing out that “our collective vehicle has stalled,” he’s frank about how far modern society has fallen from any kind of Oneness, but his confidence in human perfectibility remains upbeat throughout the book. “Love is stronger than fear,” he writes, Campbell “joy is more attractive than misery.” In the book’s signature assertion, he says: “[O]ur best at any given time can be astounding.” Campbell compares these humanist declarations with the kind of cutthroat thinking prevalent in today’s business world, that winner-take-all attitude he views as empty posturing. “Deep within and beyond all the threats and bravado,” he believes, “no one is a mean and hard-nosed negotiator.” He returns frequently to accounts of his own personal religious faith, and although he says that “we have a natural connection with God at birth,” he maintains a flexible, fluid approach to personal growth, one that warns against dogmatism of any kind—an attitude that should appeal equally to nonbelievers. His explorations of human potential might be inspired by God, but they don’t require one.

A stirring, revelatory program for rethinking and reorganizing your life.