Book Review - Conquering Adversity by Christopher Novak
Category Book Review Christopher Novak Conquering Adversity
This book came as an unexpected addition to my request for Lead Like A Pirate (also by Christopher Novak)... Conquering Adversity. Although the title would indicate that it's more geared towards overcoming adversity in the workplace, I found it much more suited to overcoming adversity in your personal life. As such, I think the book is much more valuable than one might imagine on first glance...
Contents:
Forward; August 10th; Strategy #1 - Affirmation; Strategy #2 - Expectation; Strategy #3 - Communication; Strategy #4 - Locomotion; Strategy #5 - Collaboration; Strategy #6 - Celebration; Today; Nuggets of Wisdom; About the Author
The book starts out by relating a moment in time that completely altered Novak's life... the day his wife and unborn child were killed in a car accident by a drug-impaired driver (who walked away from the crash). He went from a happily married man with a nine year-old son and a second child on the way to a single parent who had to bear a burden that's a worst case scenario in so many ways. I don't think there's any question that Novak has seen and experienced more than his share of adversity.
Through that incident, he explains six strategies that can help you to get your feet back on solid ground and make it through the dark times. By using those strategies, you won't take away the pain and suffering, but you won't be paralyzed by the loss, unable to pick up the pieces and move on. Each strategy has three steps that help you to apply it to your situation. For instance, Affirmation has the three steps of identifying your bedrock values, acknowledging what is and isn't lost, and accepting a healthy "selfishness". Each chapter also has a number of exercises at the end that you should work through to solidify the strategy in your life. Those exercises are ones that you can (and should) do now while you (hopefully) are not in the midst of despair. If you can establish these habits and mindsets during the "normal" times, then it'll be much easier to keep a certain level of mental clarity during the bad times.
I mentioned that it seems to be targeted at the workplace, and that's true. There's an application portion in each chapter that relates the strategies to how they would work with your team. That makes sense, as Novak teaches this in corporate settings. But the story and the pain is so personal, that I was getting the most value when he was talking about how YOU need to do something to get through YOUR crisis. Others might see it exactly the opposite, and that's good. It's rare that an author can write something that speaks to two often separate parts of a person's life, and effectively delivers a message to both.
Again... it's a small volume (93 pages) that returns far more value than the time and dollars spent reading it. This is a book that instead of loaning to a friend, I'd just buy them their own copy. Otherwise, you may never see it again.
This book came as an unexpected addition to my request for Lead Like A Pirate (also by Christopher Novak)... Conquering Adversity. Although the title would indicate that it's more geared towards overcoming adversity in the workplace, I found it much more suited to overcoming adversity in your personal life. As such, I think the book is much more valuable than one might imagine on first glance...
Contents:
Forward; August 10th; Strategy #1 - Affirmation; Strategy #2 - Expectation; Strategy #3 - Communication; Strategy #4 - Locomotion; Strategy #5 - Collaboration; Strategy #6 - Celebration; Today; Nuggets of Wisdom; About the Author
The book starts out by relating a moment in time that completely altered Novak's life... the day his wife and unborn child were killed in a car accident by a drug-impaired driver (who walked away from the crash). He went from a happily married man with a nine year-old son and a second child on the way to a single parent who had to bear a burden that's a worst case scenario in so many ways. I don't think there's any question that Novak has seen and experienced more than his share of adversity.
Through that incident, he explains six strategies that can help you to get your feet back on solid ground and make it through the dark times. By using those strategies, you won't take away the pain and suffering, but you won't be paralyzed by the loss, unable to pick up the pieces and move on. Each strategy has three steps that help you to apply it to your situation. For instance, Affirmation has the three steps of identifying your bedrock values, acknowledging what is and isn't lost, and accepting a healthy "selfishness". Each chapter also has a number of exercises at the end that you should work through to solidify the strategy in your life. Those exercises are ones that you can (and should) do now while you (hopefully) are not in the midst of despair. If you can establish these habits and mindsets during the "normal" times, then it'll be much easier to keep a certain level of mental clarity during the bad times.
I mentioned that it seems to be targeted at the workplace, and that's true. There's an application portion in each chapter that relates the strategies to how they would work with your team. That makes sense, as Novak teaches this in corporate settings. But the story and the pain is so personal, that I was getting the most value when he was talking about how YOU need to do something to get through YOUR crisis. Others might see it exactly the opposite, and that's good. It's rare that an author can write something that speaks to two often separate parts of a person's life, and effectively delivers a message to both.
Again... it's a small volume (93 pages) that returns far more value than the time and dollars spent reading it. This is a book that instead of loaning to a friend, I'd just buy them their own copy. Otherwise, you may never see it again.
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