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.
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.
According to Ed Rowell, failure is often nothing more than a few simple errors in judgment, repeated consistently over time. But real success is the implementation of simple disciplines into our routines and practicing them consistently over time. However, these disciplines lead to the authentic success we all seek only when they are focused on our God-given purpose. Our errors steer us away from that purpose. The net effect of our disciplines and our judgments will lead us either to achievement or failure.