Finishing Well ... What People Who Really Live Do Differently

Finishing Well ... What People Who Really Live Differently! by Bob Buford. 2004. Nashville, TN: Integrity Publishers. 296 pages, Hard Back, $21.99 Intended Audience: A, C, E, F, I Major Headings from Table of Contents: Is There Something More? Building Life II; Making It Happen. How is the book most useful for its intended audience? Mr. Buford provides significant anecdotal evidence from more than 50 well-known people (including subject-matter experts, celebrities, CEOs, and sports legends) about how they have enacted key strategies in reshaping the second halves of their lives. This serves not only as inspiration, but as roadmap to others seeking to actuate plan that leads to lifelong satisfaction and gratification on higher spiritual plane. The top five things you learned from reading this book: 1. We control our own destinies. 2. We have the power to shape not only our futures, but our todays by the priorities we establish and the actions we take. 3. Retirement can be viewed whole new way as creative retirement.... the key precept being that you can retire from everything you dislike doing and focus your attention totally on what you love doing. 4. Optimism (and viewing the glass as half-full) is an extremely useful and empowering concept to embrace. Mr. Buford frames the question: Do you see your best years ahead of you or behind you? 5. Life really is the ultimate balancing act. How you choose to strike the balance is entirely up to you. It's not a given. have the ability to totally reshape your destiny - and this, in turn, gives you the power to help others achieve their goals. Bob Buford has assembled the collective wisdom of an impressive group of individuals and humanitarians in Finishing Well. The cover line: Based on Inspiring Interviews with 60 Remarkable People, is not an exaggeration. Even the cover art (very compelling - and not just because I have son who is competitive distance runner) immediately draws you in to see exactly what this finish line of life is and how you can better prepare to reach the next stage of your life purposefully. I found myself most captivated by the stories told by such key business luminaries as Ken Blanchard, Peter Drucker, and George Gallup. In crisp dialogue, Mr. Buford shares often intimate stories of struggle in achieving balance, the faltering steps on the way to success, the regrets and the joys, and always the honesty surrounding the adventure. Readers will be able to draw from these stories and analogies the tools and inspiration for creating their own blueprints. One of the best lines Mr. Buford writes in this book is, You are the protagonist of your own life. How often do we give up the keys to our lives to others (or to other pursuits such as affluence, status, applause, and few other lures Mr. Buford mentions)? For many careers practitioners and clients alike, we find ourselves in our 40s and 50s contemplating the next chapter of our lives. …