Monday, December 08, 2008

The Truth About You: A Review


I’ll be reviewing here The Truth About You by Marcus Buckingham. I first came across this online and read the bio and was immediately drawn in. He comes across as a very practical thinker who is very application oriented. As a young professional I assumed this book was a perfect fit for me.


For my review I’ll break things down into three sections; The good, the bad and the comments.


The strong points of this book lie with Markus himself. He is an incredible communicator. I know this because included in the book is a very useful DVD of him speaking. His demeanor and style immediately capture his listener allowing him to effectively communicate his very applicable ideas. The book is an easy read as it reads just like he speaks. Once you watch the included DVD you can hear him speaking as you read.


The other major strong point of the book is the application. The main exercise involves carrying a provided notepad around for two weeks noting every situation that makes you feel a specific way. I highly recommend this as I found it very useful. It allows for the book to have the full affect Markus intended.


My only drawback to the book is its depth. I would like Markus to take his reader to the next level. The Truth About You is a very good, quick read. Thus, as I spend time thinking through what I read I can’t help but think what he could have accomplished with another well written 100 pages.


Conclusion: I highly recommend this book. It is very much, well worth the two hours it will take you to read it and the two weeks it will take to carry around the notepad. After reading I can quickly identify 3 very personal strengths and 3 weaknesses. This will prove to be very useful information for a variety of situations one comes to in life.


Well written. Very useful. A bit on the surface, but highly recommended.








Preview the book: http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/widget.asp?sku=1400202264

Monday, October 20, 2008

Racism in America

This is hard to swallow. I saw this run on CNN a few days ago and now it's on their front page. Call it what you will, but it obvious, by-definition racism.



http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/20/centenarian.votes/index.html

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The enemy...

Found this today as I was reading. I thought it applied both to myself and to those around me and was therefore worthy of passing on to you.

It's from Chris Walke

"I don’t believe that anyone here really believes that Clinton or Obama or McCain or Huckabee is really our Enemy. We’re more intelligent than that. However, it is often difficult to avoid getting swept up in our passions at a time like this election year when so much inflammatory dialog is exchanged… We can easily get caught up in the Us vs. Them mentality that our political affiliation seems to promote; if you are not with us, you are against us. We can easily lose our perspective, and these days in particular when we are about to elect our country’s leader it is crucial that we do keep our perspective - a perspective based on the Bible, on the declarations and commands of Jesus, on the accomplishment of Christ risen."

"If Christ is your Savior, then he has forgiven your sins and promises to declare you righteous before the Father. Does that mean you no longer sin? Of course it doesn’t. Why? Because our own wickedness - the sinful nature that we inherited from Adam - has not left us. It lives in us, and it will be a part of us until the Lord returns and raises us… Until then, that sinfulness, that wicked nature, is something we carry with us wherever we go. We bring it into our homes. It influences how we raise our children. It sleeps with us next to our wife or husband."

"We cannot go to our politics to identify our enemy. For that, there are only two places we must go: the Bible, and the mirror."