Go the Distance: 21 Habits & Attitudes for Winning at Life

Rating:
Summary: Racing
Review: "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us," Hebrews 12:1. For years this race has teased me. My feet have pounded the road with this cheering challenge dancing around in my head. The problem is that this challenge was almost crowded out by all the theories floating around with it. No matter how badly I wanted to win I couldn't ever seem to come up with a clear plan, just a resolve to try harder, run faster, be better. But none of these were means to the end I was seeking. They were only goals themselves.

Then I found the book Go the Distance. Though I was immediately drawn to the theme, I felt skeptical that a book could redirect my path when few others had. I was wrong.

As I sampled the first pages of the book, I was practicing my usual disciplined, "give it a chance mode." I expected to have to dig into the plot of this new book a bit before I gained the desire to finish it. I was so surprised to feel my pulse quicken and my eyes mist over when I was only finishing the dedication. Rowell proved two important points to me while his page numbers were still Roman. He had something to say to one of those deep fears and mysteries in my heart: "How can I be really successful?" Not, "How can I be more productive, efficient, wealthy, intelligent, muscular?" (I've already read all those.) How can I find the purpose for which I was created and live in it? More importantly, Rowell's style proved that he knew how to tell me.

Rowell chose to dedicate a book about success to two of his former teachers. "I would tell Mom over the phone," he writes, "Be sure and tell Mr. Trotter about me." How many times have I wanted the real winners in my life to be proud of me? And I as I go further down the road, how I long to know that I will be the kind of cheerleaders that these men were! Because Rowell could show how these two men made him believe that he had worth, I knew that he was speaking to the kind of success I sought. And, I was hungry for more.

After hooking me, Go the Distance changed my own race strategy dramatically. It offered the experience of many who have run much further than I've gone. This author spares me a published personal agenda. He offers instead a compilation of many interviews with winners and what they can share about their own successes. Having already practiced many of their strategies along the way, Rowell is able to weave these together with his own insights into a game plan that reads like a great story.

Perhaps the most powerful personal application I found in Go the Distance was in the time management arena. When I read about Ken Hatch in chapter one, I winced painfully and felt the need to look over my shoulder to see if someone was watching. For years I've resolved again and again to simplify and not live in such a hurried frenzy. Reading Go the Distance provoked me to stop asking, "How can I fit more in?" "What would make me more productive?" and to ask instead, "Why do I feel such a need to produce?" "How can I stay focused on my purpose?"

Making these kinds of changes in the questions I ask myself has been the catalyst to finally getting me on the right path towards finding my own purpose. I am so hopeful after reading Go the Distance that I will finish well. Finally in all the books I've read, I have one that has helped me focus on the finish line rather than chase my own tail.

Rating:
Summary: "Go the Distance" is a winner!!
Review: Ed has a very down-home, yet practical style of writing. You feel like you are in the room with the author and hanging on every word. In Go the Distance, he offers great advice for looking at life from a different perspective. By changing our paradigm and the way we approach life can make all the difference. The way this book is written, you can really get into it or if you're like me, I'll read a couple of chapters and then set a book down and come back to it later. With Go the Distance, I found my self not wanting to put the book down. I can't wait for Ed's next book!!

Rating:
Summary: Banishing Boredom
Review: Ed Rowell's writing style is lucid and lifting. He encourages you with wisdom, wit and personal witness. He doesn't come at the reader from a "high horse" position, but as a fellow struggler wanting to succeed at life. He makes me, as a fellow baby-boomer, want to think long and hard about how I will finish the race of life. He's motivated me to look deeper into my personal habits and question how they are helping me fight the good fight to the end. I will refer to this book often. I will buy this book for my staff. I will recommend this book to anyone, young or old, who wants to win at living well! I am eagerly anticipating his next book.

Rating:
Summary: Real Advise for Real People
Review: So often in the world of self-help this and self-help that, major points get lost in the writer going on and on about how HE or SHE overcame negative circumstances and eventually found happiness, rather than on practical steps that can be implemented in the life of the reader. While Ed Rowell does draw upon his own life and the lives of his family and friends to make his points, he does so only to illustrate how YOU can benefit from the very practical, very thoughtful principles contained within the pages of Go The Distance. For me, I realized that life is more about my relationship with God than it is my relationship to failure and adversity. Ed Rowell points out that our response to life is more important than what life throws at us - which sometimes can be a substantial mess of stuff.

In the end, it's not about where you start, it's where you finish. Sound advise from a sound writer who has a lot to say. Listening will help you win the race and enjoy the journey.

Rating:
Summary: Racing
Review: There are two ways to evaluate success, one focuses on the end results (scored 36 points had 12 rebounds) the other focuses on the means (played my best, worked hard, was in my "zone"). In Go the Distance, Ed Rowell coaches his readers to be a success in life and focuses more on the means than the end results. He writes, "Real success is the result of implementing simple disciplines and practicing them consistently over time."
The book explains 21 habits and attitudes a person needs to win at life. Certainly, the book reflects significant research into current literature and the opinions of others that Rowell gleaned from interviews with people he admires. And those insights are helpful, but the strength of the book is when Rowell looks inward and examines his own personal demons.
When you buy the book, read chapter 11 first. It is powerful. In it, Rowell talks about his own struggle with anger and the things he is doing to get the best of it before it brings out the worst in him. He shows how he turned to others for help in managing the fire that raged in his soul and how he is finding victory. Maybe this chapter spoke to me so much because of Rowell's brutal honesty, or maybe it is because I too struggle with anger. Either way, it was worth the price of the book.
I'm glad I bought this book, after I post this review, I'm going to buy another copy to give to my son as a High School graduation present. I know that before I'm done shopping for this special occasion, I will give him other gifts that will be more expensive, but I can imagine how I could give him one that will be more important.