John C. Maxwell
How Successful People Grow (the link is to Amazon.com, which has the table of contents) is a tiny book, which I bought for less than $10 (I think about $5 because of a sale). Once in a while, I look for practical books, where I can put together all the various observations an analyses I've made, to do whatever it is I have observed and analyzed. Often, people who write concise books like this one have been through the hard knocks of life, and have created strategies to get them to where they want, and they often get there, hence their books.
Here is a little on John C. Maxwell, the author of this book.
Although I may be doing it wrong, I started on Chapter Eight of the book: Making Negatives into Positives:
A. Bad Experiences:
1. Everyone has them
2. No-one likes them
3. Few people make bad experienced positive experiences
He then lists his "pain file" such as:
- The pain of inexperience
- The pain of incompetence
- The pain of disappointment
and how he found his way out of these negatives.
The interesting thing, I think a good thing, is that Maxwell is also a pastor. I didn't expect that when I bought the book, and realized so as I read his online profile. I thought he was a hard-core financial guy, maybe even on Wall Street.
I think it is in the spirit of happy people (a more sophisticated word would be "optimistic" people), who are innocent enough to believe that things can get better, and to believe in messages like "how successful people grow." It is also a very American spirit.
I think such belief is how God intended us to behave. The first words in the Bible are:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
It is a book of action, of creation. Contemplation and philosophy come along with this action.
I think this is also the spirit of Hildebrand, who could have remained a philosophy professor, and found ways to "explain" the horrors he was seeing around him.
Instead, he opted to act; to create a world that was better (and that would refute) the world he was watching devolve around him. He became active.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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