Book Review: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

My contention is that anyone, including followers of Christ, would receive some benefit from reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. It is a delightful book about overcoming our shame - the doubt we have about our ability to be loved - and accepting ourselves as imperfect.

I'm not sure of Dr. Brown's spiritual beliefs, and that was a strength from me as I read this book through the lens of a follower of Christ. Her book aligns with the need for the gospel story quite well. She begins with a discussion of shame. What I learned about my own shame response made this alone worth the price of the book. Our attempt is to cover up our shame in order to make ourselves more acceptable and, ultimately, lovable. Awareness is the key.

From there, Dr. Brown takes the reader through ten Guidepost chapters in order to help us understand our own shame response and facilitate the acceptance of our imperfection. This is not a step-by-step "how to" manual (my favorite line of the book is the conference organizer that chided Dr. Brown with the words "people want how-to") and makes no claim to be. Rather, it is an exercise in understanding a significant part of our false self.

She calls this process of understanding our imperfections and not rejecting our worth wholehearted living. It is similar to The Lie. In the coming weeks, I look very forward to blogging about this material through the lens of Christ.

This book provides a great, well communicated explanation of our need for freedom from our shame. Additionally, it provides motivation for not appealing to other's shame in our relationships. Throughout the book Dr. Brown makes use of stories and anecdotes to make points. As you read, it is almost as if you are building a relationship with the author. To me, the best book is the one that makes you want to read it again hoping to see things you missed on the first read. This is one of those books. Five stars. Get a copy.

The Lie

We are told by Christ that we are to deny ourselves. But what does that mean? Is it just an exercise in changing our behavior, like picking the bad fruit off our tree in order to deny its existence? What of the teaching that bad fruit indicates a bad tree?

Shedding the light of Christ on our lives is more than just an exercise in getting my behaviors to match his. As if He is the jello mold that I must stuff the ugly mess of my life into. That belittles Christ, creating an example to be followed - the proverbial good teacher that we are more comfortable dealing with.

Christ is Savior. He is Redeemer. He is into restoration.

What creates bad fruit is a bad tree. That is the miracle of Christ - He changes trees. If we let him, submit ourselves and open ourselves to Him. Examining our hearts, taking a journey inward, is not about narcissism, but about understanding, denial and the light of the King.

Maggie Scarf has an amazing book on family systems that is related to this discussion. In Intimate Worlds she examines the Beavers System Model, which is an assessment of family functioning. The Beavers System measures behavior on a scale of 1 (being optimal) to 5 (being the family dictated by their pain).

What is so interested about the discussion of family systems is that Scarf makes clear that each system is created by adults that come into the system with, and also creates in its offspring, rules which they live by. A life 'truth' if you will.

Whether the members of the system are aware of the rules at a conscious level or not, they are propagated throughout the system. For most of us, this becomes the feeding ground of the false self. It is the lie that we believe; the very lie that helps to produce the bad fruit we are spending so much effort trying to control.

We are born into a broken world. They system that we are in continues to break us. Instead of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, he is stepped on a further cracked. Mind you, in our families, this is usually not intentional. Most parents do not try to hurt their kids, they were raised in a system too. This is not a blame game, it is an awareness issue.

I'll use myself as a case in point. My lie was "I have to earn my needs being met, but ultimately someone else will deserve it more." So, I was a people pleaser. Earning my affirmation. I did the 'right' things and looked the 'right' way so that I could earn God's favor (and hence, I guess, my salvation). In my marriage, since someone else always deserves it more, I became passive. This lie that I was not aware of and had not formulated was holding me captive. Combating the fruit was futile, I had to address the tree.

Once you know the lie, you can substitute the truth. Moreover, you can experience the freedom of the truth because you know what to deny. You know how the enemy will attack. Struggles will remain as the two natures or our new self and false self battle, but we will improve at fighting the battle.

Then, in our followship, we can move beyond infantile obedience of doing something because we are supposed (where we all start), and proceed into the freedom to obey because we have exchanged the lie for the truth of God in Christ.

The Names I Call Myself

I enjoy the scene in the movie Cars in which Lightening McQueen is practicing his pre-race self talk.

Speed. I am speed. One winner, 42 losers. I eat losers for breakfast. Faster than fast. Quicker than quick. I am lightening.

His self talk is based on something outside of himself. Performance. Excellence on the race track. It builds him up, and will be effective as long as he can back it up. When he loses his step (or spin, since he is after all a car), then the life crisis will start.

The object lesson Lightening provides is that we do need to be validated by something outside of ourselves. Our sense of self is reflected to us. Yet to seek that in performance is very unstable ground. Performance is a moving target, always changing and hard to keep up. At some point you'll find out that someone else is better than you. That's life.

Case in point is my golf game. I don't get to go often, yet still find myself ridiculously competitive when I do get to go. A few weeks ago I went for the first time in months, with someone with whom I had not golfed before and very quickly my self talk went something like this: "you suck, you are such an idiot, only someone dumb would make that mistake" and I could embarrassingly go on and on.

During my diatribe, somewhere between holes 2 and 3, it struck me that I was making value statements. I wasn't just saying my game stunk. I was declaring that I stunk. All because of my performance (or lack thereof). So quickly I had fallen into the lie that my worth and my performance were directly proportional.

Jesus says that the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart. While I would never dream of declaring to another person that because of their golf performance they were an idiot or sucked or were worthless, that is exactly what I was doing to myself. Yet hardly do we seem to want to apply Jesus teaching on our words to ourselves. Maybe in our effort to not consider ourselves more highly than we ought, we just don't consider ourselves at all.

Regardless, performance is a poor foundation to base an identity on. When we perform well, we'll puff ourselves up, live pridefully, and view everyone else as beneath us - a la Lightening McQueen. Poor performance appeals to our shame response, causing us to question our worth and ability to be loved.

Our sense of self, or identity, is reflected to us. But we need something unchanging and consistent. Something solid. That is exactly what Jesus offers. Part of the journey is identifying and discarding the lies that we believe, and substituting them with the truth. The truth that God entered our story through Jesus. That through nothing but His love for us, we have been invited through Jesus back into God's story.

He wants us; He chose us; He loves us; He will not leave nor forsake us. That is the self talk we should be practicing.

Book Review: I Am Second by Doug Bender & Dave Sterrett

The book I Am Second by Bender and Sterrett is a series of brief testimonies by people, many famous and some not, highlighting how they reached the point of realizing they wanted their lives to be second to Christ. In your area, you may have seen the billboards with a picture and the words "I am second" intimated as a quote by the person pictured. This book is a product of the ministry of the same name, started by Norm Miller as a way to show people the reality of God's love.

There is a lot to commend about this book. My favorite thing about the text is the interaction with technology; the add-ons that are available by using a QR code reader on a smart phone. With as many stories that are told in the book, the number multiplies by at least three if you add the stories available online. Each story has an accompanying video that can be accessed the same way.

Also, the backgrounds and circumstances of the individuals highlighted in the stories are diverse. So, whoever is reading this book will likely find some story that resonates with their own. Each of the testimonies highlights the negative circumstances and decisions that God used to compel them into the arms of Christ. Very heartening to hear, repeatedly, how God has made good our of the bad we bring to him. A win for the book.

Yet, the number of stories is a double edged sword. In their brevity they retain a shallowness. Either intentionally or because of the short length, the stories focus on the conversion moment. While this moment is hugely important, the way the stories are told the moment is out of context of the larger story. Many stories gloss over struggles that may arise after conversion, often citing that the desire to do X no longer exists. It is true that for some God miraculously takes things away, more often than not in my experience the life in Christ is a battle with the old self. It would have been nice to get more pictures with a fuller view.

Overall, this book was a solid read. I'll lend it to a lost friend who is experiencing a dark night so that they may find encouragement in that their circumstances may represent God knocking on their door.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

One of the books that I have particularly enjoyed has been The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero. In the opening pages, Scazzero shares the story of his broken life, ministry, and marriage. It immediately resonated with many facets of my own story of self-effort and making Jesus an accessory to my story rather than fully accepting the invitation to become part of His story.

The premise of this book is that emotional health and spiritual health are intertwined, which is something that modern western discipleship has failed to take into account. For that reason, it is rare for a follower of Christ to shine light on what is happening emotionally. Leading to followers who are hiding themselves from God, going through the motions of what they 'should' do and how a follower 'should' look, and eventually burning out or missing the point entirely.

As Scazzero points out, discipleship is not a one time event, but a process; one that involves transformation of the inner self in order to change the outward. Reading this book validated one of the tenants I have developed within Choosing to Trust - how can we properly deny ourselves if we do not know what it is we are denying?

Scazzero's writing style is clean and easy to understand. This book is a perfect intro read for those who desire a different perspective from the consumer and results driven Christianity that we find ourselves immersed in. If you want a rating, this book is one of my Top Shelf books, which would equate to 5 out of 5 stars.

On a related note, coming in May, Peter Scazzero and his wife will be leading a conference for church leaders on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. If you have the means and are looking for something that would definitely add value to your church or community, this would be an excellent option. Follow the link for more details.

The Man(boy) Response

All around us, we can observe a herd of man(boy)s. Full grown men, who externally appear to be adult males, whose only desire is to sit at home and play video games and shirk the responsibilities that come with adulthood. You will usually find these man(boy)s living in the basement of their parent's home eating peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches that their moms have trimmed the crust off of.

Not too long ago, I worked with a woman whose husband had two video game systems, had set up a separate game room, and had walled himself off - despite her pleas to be with him and her desire to know this man(boy). One of the frustrating experiences she had with him was on a couples camping trip when he brought the game system to play with his friends while the women made their own wilderness fun. Happened to be their last camping trip.

So, it is with that exposition that I understand why it is in the church we have laid down the gauntlet for men to be men. Men to be responsible for their families. Men to step up in church. Men to stop manipulating and using women.

There are a lot of man(boy)s out there.

But, I think there is danger in attempting to balance the scales by weighting our message too far in the other direction. Creating false blanket statements about manhood in an attempt to smoke out the man(boy)s.

The message evolves into - if you are a man experiencing problems in the home, then the problem is your leadership. There must be something wrong with the way you are following Christ. Men's shoulders become heavy with the burdens that we heap upon them.

Yes, of course, we should teach about biblical manhood and what role and responsibility have been given to men by God. But we cannot lump all problems on the shoulders of men.

Following Christ is not a formula. Putting in X will always give you Y.

That is the gospel of performance. It is a lie, leads to shame and slavery. And offers nothing to guys like the one in my office last week who is trying to do everything right. Leading his family by godly principles. Offering more of himself to his family. Stepping up in church. Yet, he continues to experience the pain of a woman who refuses to follow him.

A guy who is so frustrated by the message that there are untold numbers of women in the church that are looking for a godly man to commit to. He's completely frustrated in his relationship to a woman who has made a decision to wall herself off emotionally, to not allow herself to be known by him, to not respect his decisions, and to basically combat the decisions and actions he's made as he tries to lead his family in godliness.

He's not perfect, but he is shamed by pastoral tweets that say "a good wife is forged not found". Implying that it is the man's responsibility to create a godly wife. That's performance gospel.

He's dejected by the statement that "the greatest display of grace that God can have in your life is a godly wife". That the gospel of circumstance. What is the conclusion for the man who does not have a godly wife? Is God's grace unavailable? Only available to a lesser degree? Is God's grace circumstantial?

This is so opposite the message we give to wives of unbelieving husbands, who get our sympathy, yet husbands with difficult or unbelieving wives are made to believe they are doing something wrong. Some of what passes for good marriages in the church are simply men who have wives who have committed to making it all about the man's needs and desires. That is not every man's reality.

Our message may need adjustment. God's desire is for us to experience the reality of his Son. Grace comes to us through Jesus; God entering our world and our story. He grieves for the man with a difficult marriage just as he celebrates for the man who experiences intimacy. Teach about men's roles; teach about their responsibilities; teach about biblical manhood. But don't tie it to some expectation of performance or results. That is not the light yoke promised by the One who saved us.

Source of Confidence

Being the father of a soon to be 11 year old girl has markedly raised my awareness of way we are constantly bombarded by images of the supposed ideals of feminine beauty. It is given that context that my heart sank the other night, when in the car on the way home, my daughter asked me if I thought she was fat.

I was thinking about my response to her this morning as I was listening to a public service announcement on the local sports talk station on AM radio. The name of the organization that had procured the spot escapes me, but the message was about women's self image and the last line has haunted me.

Help the next generation of young women see their beauty as a source of confidence.

All I've been able to ask myself ever since hear the ad is "Really? Isn't that the problem rather than the solution?"

I happened upon an interview with Demi Moore in People magazine recently in which she was asked about her fears. Her reply is telling. "What scares me is that I'm going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I'm not really lovable, that I'm not worthy of being loved."

Here is a woman that lives in the Hollywood culture of beauty. She's been lauded for her beauty and is exactly what our culture would hold up as the standard of what a woman should look like. If anyone should be able to derive a sense of confidence from her beauty, it is Demi Moore.

But she DOESN'T have confidence. In fact, peeling back the layers reveals a deep insecurity in her value and her ability to be loved. Confidence in her beauty, developing her look, and maintaining her image have done nothing to give her a secure identity.

Physical beauty, whatever we define it to be, is fleeting. Maybe in her soul, Demi realizes this. Some day she is going to be wrinkled, sagging, and gray. Time will catch up with her like it does everyone else. Then what is there for her, or anyone else focused on the mirror for significance, to take confidence in?

Our view of ourselves is developed externally. We need an outside standard. So, it is important that we pick the right one to go back to; a cornerstone that is stable and unchanging. Physical beauty is not that standard for women or men; it is captive to whims, comparison, trends, and age. It will be facade that will exhaust the pursuer and leave them unsatisfied. Like Demi Moore.

That is why, when my daughter asked if she was fat, I first told her no. Her weight is normal for her age. We talked about how she eats lots of fruit and veggies, she exercises and is active, and that her body is changing. But, I also took the time to go further. The women she sees on TV, even the supposed plain and normal ones, are not real. It is a false standard. My daughter's body will be shaped differently, and that is OK because God is the one who made it.

Which goes to my ultimate answer to her. Beauty is not a source of confidence. Neither is anything else that requires a value comparison or a leader board, for that will ultimately lead to being unsettled and never sure if she is good enough.

My daughter's source of confidence should come from the fact that through Jesus, God has entered her story and invited her to be part of his. She is chosen and loved. Not because of what she's done, but because that is what He made her for. She bears the image of the Creator and is part of Christ's body.

Those things never change. Which makes them a true source of confidence.

Free To Be Me

I have a friend who was telling me about a conversation he had with his life coach and the excitement that he felt when told that he could be "free to be me". This was good advice for my friend, who is very much bound and gagged by many layers of protective behaviors.

So, for him the advice to be "free to be me" was allowing space to be imperfect. Creating safety to take of the mask and reveal the broken, yearning person underneath. Giving permission to like the things he does, regardless of whether those things fit in with what he is supposed to like. His life coach was speaking of healthy relational differentiation and developing the ability to love himself.

While the jury is still out on what my friend will do with this advice, being "free to be me" presents and interesting fork in the road. One path of the fork has the appearance of freedom, but it's an impostor. Too often I've seen people take the "free to be me" message to mean that it is OK to live in their brokenness and adopt that as their identity. So "free to be me" looks like free to lash out in anger, free to lust, free to gossip, or free to [insert sin here]. Freedom becomes a bulldozer. The need to live in this 'freedom' becomes a relational tyrant.

Remember the old Julia Roberts movie Sleeping with the Enemy? For those of you not in your early 40's, it is about a woman who lives with an extremely obsessive compulsive spouse. He wants the labels on cans facing the same way, the towels have to be perfectly even, she must look perfect and act happy. The consequence for failure or imperfection was physical violence - the lesson needs to be learned so it won't happen again. While the husband was just living "free to be me", he was a slave to his compulsive desire for perfection. So was his wife. She was devastated and her soul damaged by his freedom.

'Freedom', taken this way, holds both myself and those around me in bondage. That is the danger zone. True freedom should not infringe on the freedom of others. In fact, our freedom should allow others to flourish, blossom, and grow in their own. That is the other path on the fork.

This other path is the freedom to present our brokenness to the Father and allow Christ to be strong through us. Free to be dependent. Free to be weak. Free to allow Christ to bear our burdens for us. Freedom to not cover our shame with self effort, idols, and other's approval, but allow it to be covered in Christ. That is freedom that is life giving and gives us the freedom to love others. That is the freedom for which Christ set us free.

Category 5

We Central Floridians are funny about our weather. I think it all started in 2004, when we had three major hurricanes (is there a minor one?) cut a path right through our territory. It was a TV weather person's dream. Nothing but talking of high winds and rain for a couple months straight - with pictures at 11!

With that memory in every one's psyche, it has been easy to drum up weather anxiety. The problem has been a lack of major weather events in our area. Because of this lack of material, the weather people took to the airwaves during every thunderstorm to tell us it was raining hard. Flash flooding was possible.

Then, it wasn't raining enough and all the lakes were going to dry up.

To keep things fresh, now whenever there is even a solid cloud cover we are inundated with warnings about heavy rain and potential wins. They are having to dig deeper and deeper into the dry well to create an anxious response.

All this occurred to me the other night as I was watching TV with my wife on one of the local channels and in the lower right hand corner was the temperature - 54˚. You see, a cold front (thanks Canada!) was coming to town, so to keep us on edge, we had the current temperature on the screen like a New Year's Eve countdown. When we came back from commercial is was 52˚.

Mind you, I've seen people from Canada and Minnesota swim in resort pools at that temperature, and 54˚ might just be the summertime high in most of Maine. Apparently, we Central Floridians needed something else to worry about. Like Kim Jong Il's death already wasn't keeping me up at night.

What struck me, and I'm sure this is not a new realization for anyone who happens to have made it this far, is that the world drives all of us toward anxiety. Flipping over the Fox New just to check this out and one of the headlines is "Defcon 3" regarding our response to Iran. More anxiety.

It is just that way with the false self. If you have something, or want something, it is never going to be enough.

So, if you want security, then you have to worry about the Iranians, someone setting fires in cars, or if the plastic surgery you want is being performed by someone with a license.

If you want money, there will always be another deal.

If you want to be beautiful, there will always be someone younger.

You get the picture. Pick something outside of Christ that you want to give preeminent value, and it will never be enough. It's idolatry, and it will never satisfy or give you rest. You'll aways be making penance and never obtain forgiveness for lacking.

The beautiful picture though, is that Christ wants to drive us to peace. Not a peace that comes from having our circumstances changed - a plethora of money in the bank, friendship with Iran or perfect weather. That would be validating the false self. Allowing us to settle for idols

Christ drives us to peace by shedding light on why those things are so appealing to us, stripping them away so that we can enjoy his rest. This doesn't involve Christ changing our circumstances, but allowing Him to change us.

Not being anxious about anything, as Paul teaches, is not about stuffing anxiety down, wearing a fake smile, and telling people everything is fine. Rather, it is the intentional process of confronting anxiety's source, substituting truth (denying self), bearing that weakness (taking up our cross), and putting one foot in front of the other (following Him).

Sometimes the steps are slow. Laborious. Painful. Methodical. Maddening. Feeling unnatural. But that is narrow path of trust.

Of The People

Today is the day that the 2012 election season kicks into high gear with the Iowa Caucus. It brought to mind a conversation I had with a frustrated friend not too long ago who boldly declared "government is the problem, I wish it'd stay out of the way."

At the time, I was intrigued by the comment, because a couple weeks before at a men's group for which I provide coaching, someone ended a conversation with me by saying "corporations are ruining this country."

When complaining about these things, everyone seems to pick a different poison. Government, corporations, or...

"It's the banks that have created this mess."

"The media is out to get us, they are slanted too far (choose one: left/right)."

"The church has become too institutional and doesn't really help anyone."

Yet, each of these things, without one common denominator, has absolutely no power in an of themselves. They are inanimate systems. Nothing more.

What they have in common is people. Broken, identity affirming people. In every one.

All a bank does is take people's deposits (promising interest), and lend that money to other people (charging interest). I realize this is a touch oversimplified, but the point is that it's all people. At every step: depositing, processing, lending, and borrowing. Now, because of their brokenness, these people suffer from greed, deceit, and entitlement. That is the source of the problem.

Are corporations the problem? Corporations make things and provide services that we want. Again, at every step, it's people. People create, market, produce, and purchase the good or service. Broken people trying to create their own significance. So purchase things turns into consumerism. Greed treats people as a labor resource to use up so products can be made for cheap. Entitlement wants the products cheap. People who create the marketing convince us of our lack to we'll want what they are selling.

It's all people. Displaying their brokenness. And their need for wholeness, which they are trying to create.

So, back to my friend's declaration "government is the problem, I wish it'd get out of the way." He forgets, God institutes governments. They work for Him. It is something good He has given us to give us order and protection. But just like the other examples, government is people. People seeking affirmation of their values. (In our system) People voting to get what they want. People feeling entitled to security. People hoarding power in order to feel important.

While I love and feel blessed by our system of government, my belief is that if people lived the way God designed us to, if this world were not broken, any system would work as well as another (that is a catch-22, if this world was not broken, we would be content with God as king and would have no need for government, but you catch my drift, right?).

So as this contentious election season unfolds, let us in Christ try this on for size: don'tvillainize (that so rhymes!). Liberal government or conservative government, our priority is to follow Christ. That never changes.

Government is not our hope. Jesus returning to rescue us is our hope.

Government changing culture to suit us is not our message. Jesus' love and sacrifice is our message.

The Church acting in love. Our identity secure in Christ. Each of us breaking free of the idols of greed, consumerism, pride, et. al. THEN there would be fewer problems.

Book Review: I Am A Follower by Leonard Sweet

Just finished my first read of a Leonard Sweet book, which is a pretty impressive thing for me since his bio says that he has written close to fifty. What I lacked in raw numbers, I seemed to make up for in quality, for I Am A Follower is a good read that challenges many of our church culture presuppositions. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, I would recommend picking this book up in order to examine your presuppositions.

The book is divided into four sections. In the first Sweet tears down the leadership culture that has been established in the western church. Instead, the idea of the 'first follower' is presented. It is not about abolishing leadership, but rather changing its form. This first follower idea is illustrated with a YouTube video of a Sasquatch Festival dancer. (One problem, the link listed did not work no matter how many substitutions of '1', 'l', '0', or 'O' I made.) Once the dancer had his 'first follower' it became easier for others to join in the dance and there was soon a mob dancing where a short while before there had been one awkward, lonely dancer.

After elaborating on 'first followers', Sweet then spends the rest of the book talking about The Way of the first follower, The Truth of the first follower, and The Life of the first follower. Of course, we recognize the way, truth, and life as words Jesus used to identify himself, and that is the point of the structure, that the first follower is first and foremost a follower of Jesus, following the dance of the Savior with the result being others around us following our lead and joining in the dance.

For Leonard Sweet, friction arises as those who lead in the church, rather than being buried in Christ and following His dance are instead following the lead of corporate America and using leadership principles and structures as a system of attraction for those outside the church. Thus, rather than modeling people to be disciples first, the western church is training its members to be leaders first, giving them skills that could be displaying in any arena, with any beliefs.

One push back I would have if I were dialoging with Mr. Sweet would be over his premise that leadership is not espoused or mentioned in the New Testament writings. While we might not find the word 'leadership', Paul did have some things to say on structure and Jesus displayed great leadership without describing what He was doing, as was His style. Yet, I understand and respect the need to swing the pendulum of church culture in the direction Sweet does.

What Sweet has written is really a book on identity. That is why this book is important. Those who lead in the church find it so easy to turn their role into their identity. So rather identifying as a follower of Christ, the primary identification becomes church leader. So, as an identity, things are done to bolster that way of defining self. If I am a leader first, then it matter how many followers I have. It matters how big my space is, how many leadership books I've read so that I can speak the language of leadership.

Within a leadership culture, those who are following sit and wait. They wait for the leaders lens to interpret things in their lives and they wait for the OK from the person up front. But even worse, if leadership is the goal, then it becomes a way of comparison. Those who don't 'lead' in the corporate way are lacking. Within the church, there become a dichotomy between leader and follower.

Leonard Sweet reminds us that we are all followers. Followers first. The follower is to identify with the way, truth, and life of Christ. And it is his contention that leading is best done by walking alongside other followers.

If you are looking for some sort of rating system, I'd give this book 4 out of 5 stars. There were a lot of distracting quotes thrown in middle of pages that I did not like the format of. In my own personal system, this would be a second shelf book (one below the top so it's a good thing), one I underlined a lot, learned from and was challenged by and will definitely recommend.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.