An empowering extended metaphor that yields an array of useful advice.
A pilot, minister, and business consultant outlines how to be “pilot in command” in order to achieve one’s unique purpose in this debut Christian self-help guide.
McFadden begins this book with an account of a time when he, a certified airplane pilot, got lost while flying. He then recommends the 12-step process that he used to complete his trip as a useful tool for “landing your life at the intended destination.” Steps 1 through 4 are focused on “getting on purpose”: embrace the idea that you are a “pilot” in control of your own life, not a passive victim; identify your present location (that is, your current situation); identify your destination (the “destiny” you’d like to achieve); and “Develop Your In-flight Recovery Plan”—a strategy that includes anticipating responses to obstacles. Steps 5 through 8 address the “Ah-Ha” part of the quest, after you’ve settled on what your dreams are: “Get some altitude” by getting a boost from mentors; “Keep Your Wits” about you, because your biggest obstacle is often yourself; “Maintain Proper Heading,” or ignore distractions; and “Tune In Appropriate Frequencies” by listening to the “voice of your original creator trying to reveal your true potential.” Steps 9 through 12 cover the last leg, during which you should manage stress; use all assistance available; shed bad behaviors; and finally achieve success “with grace and dignity for all.” Debut author McFadden, a Maryland-based Christian minister and the founder and president of The Leadership Training Company, offers an inspiring vision and helpful tactics for finding meaning and one’s ultimate purpose in life. His admissions of his own challenges, such as giving up early on “one of [his] callings” to be a lawyer, make him a relatable voice, and never a lofty one. Although the book’s biblical references and mentions of one’s “creator” may not appeal to everyone, he does provide a motivating, forward-looking method that like-minded readers may consider when navigating their own life courses.
An empowering extended metaphor that yields an array of useful advice.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-43489-3
Page Count: 109
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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