What did you think of the author and his journey?

[Snowflake]

I did have some mixed feelings about the author as some of the commenters here have also had. He seemed a bit of an adrenaline junkie at times. I wonder if he missed the lesson about slowing down to the speed of life!?

[Joy2thenations]

I think the author is very interesting but at the same time i think his journey was super complicated 🧐

Do you think that any of the stories in the book have been embellished in some way? Or are they told exactly as they happened?

Good question N_R, I'm interested to hear thoughts on this.

[PriyaRD]

I have a mixed feeling as well.. I am impressed by the way how he learns his lesson from some things around him, yet couldn't agree with some of the stories. One of among those is what he learned from Margaret and then went to help his people in his Restaurant. When his previous stories show him as a respectable person and moreover a teacher, how would he miss to respect his employees in the first place and then learn it from Margaret. Looked it had few contradictions

[briellejee]

I never thought the author to be self absorbed while reading the book (he learnt a lesson at the airport cupcake scenario). His inclusion of his own examples of 'passing it on' are efforts in trying to influence the reader. I think our tendency to overtly reward or judge philanthropic people is the reason we need to 'hide' our charitable deeds from the left hand while doing it with the right.

Yes, I totally agree with this.

[briellejee]

I have a mixed feeling as well.. I am impressed by the way how he learns his lesson from some things around him, yet couldn't agree with some of the stories. One of among those is what he learned from Margaret and then went to help his people in his Restaurant. When his previous stories show him as a respectable person and moreover a teacher, how would he miss to respect his employees in the first place and then learn it from Margaret. Looked it had few contradictions

This is a good point. Maybe because towards his employees, he considers them as mere "servants". But yes I agree that it has few contradictions.

[aliceriddle]

Very inspiring, and I think I have gotten known to him already through his books. Books give us an insight to the author's soul, and that's simply beautiful and breathtaking.

[mandalee519]

The author's journey seems like it can be relatable only to those in similar situations. I didn't believe every story was authentic because I have read other stories like them. I could be wrong, but this was just the vibe I was getting.

I noticed that the author did focus on self a lot of the time, but it was understandable considering he is discussing his own journey. The "advice" he gave seemed more circumstantial, as opposed to advice that can be applied to every reader. I would have liked to see him give actual advice that is more universally applicable. It would make the book a lot more relatable and useful, in my opinion.

[SPasciuti]

I have a mixed feeling as well.. I am impressed by the way how he learns his lesson from some things around him, yet couldn't agree with some of the stories. One of among those is what he learned from Margaret and then went to help his people in his Restaurant. When his previous stories show him as a respectable person and moreover a teacher, how would he miss to respect his employees in the first place and then learn it from Margaret. Looked it had few contradictions

Yes, I completely agree with this. I feel like that's part of the reason Margaret's story just felt so disappointing. And there are so may other instances in our society where people point out that bosses don't pay attention to the things that their employees do and face 90% of the time, so his learning this lesson from a little girl really just didn't endear me to that particular lesson. Especially since she was quite focused on herself.

[Sincerely]

His journey was quite intresting and just like any of us had setbacks but as readers we get to learn how to handle situations if in the same situation as he was.

[GathuaM]

I never thought the author to be self absorbed while reading the book (he learnt a lesson at the airport cupcake scenario). His inclusion of his own examples of 'passing it on' are efforts in trying to influence the reader. I think our tendency to overtly reward or judge philanthropic people is the reason we need to 'hide' our charitable deeds from the left hand while doing it with the right.

I agree. In situations where not many people know our charitable deed it lessens chances to be judged. The author's ability to discuss his own weaknesses was a good sign to me. You are only able to grow if you understand your strengths and weaknesses fully.

[GathuaM]

I never thought the author to be self absorbed while reading the book (he learnt a lesson at the airport cupcake scenario). His inclusion of his own examples of 'passing it on' are efforts in trying to influence the reader. I think our tendency to overtly reward or judge philanthropic people is the reason we need to 'hide' our charitable deeds from the left hand while doing it with the right.

I agree. In situations where not many people know our charitable deed it lessens chances to be judged. The author's ability to discuss his own weaknesses was a good sign to me. You are only able to grow if you understand your strengths and weaknesses fully.

[uyky]

I thought he was arrogant, selfish hypocrite who thought the most important thing in life is how others see you. As a child it was not that obvious and it was a thing you could forgive. But he just got worse and worse.

[Mary Garrison]

The author had an amazing journey. I loved how every event he encountered shaped him as the man he became. He didn’t let any moment to learn a lesson pass him by, and he embraced all lesson. While some people found him arrogant, I found him somewhat humble. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t have let all these moments in his life change him, he would’ve just been content in the man he already was.

[DustinPBrown]

I thought about this a lot as I was reading and I have a feeling that it probably came up for a number of you as well, but what did you think of the author? He's a rather prominent feature of the book as he describes his encounters with each of these "gurus," ultimately moving on to give an account of how he himself turned around the lessons that he learned from the people in his life.

I found him to be a rather interesting person with a fair amount of character to him. I think there's definitely something respectable in the fact that he considered the people around him important teachers, almost implying that every person we meet has a lesson for us to teach us how to live our lives in a more meaningful and impactful way. And I appreciate his desire to learn from each of those people.

At times I found him a little self-absorbed, particularly when he would always have a very convient example for how he passed on these lessons that he learned. But I also appreciated that, oddly enough, if only because it's rather useless to say we learned a lesson from someone and not have an example of how we put that lesson into practice, wouldn't you say? If we didn't, I imagine that it would be arguable that we didn't actually learn the lesson at all. Rob White seems like a very thoughtful and interesting guy and I imagine he'd be rather fascinating to sit down and have a conversation with.

I actually agree with you that he became somewhat self-absorbed as the book went on. It is like he is some amazing person who manages to teach others lessons as well as learn from every little thing in his life. His wife hardly ever features...so what did he learn from his marriage and partnership? It seems to be a lot of business and finance as well as how to respond to people.

Yeah, there were definitely moments where he felt really proud of himself for "passing on" his lessons. The parts where he teaches his employees especially made me cringe. I just imagined one of my bosses "teaching" me something like that and my reaction. On the outside, I'd probably have a smile and be all, "Oh yeah, so true" but on the inside I'd be rolling my eyes as hard as I could, ha ha.

[DustinPBrown]

The author's journey seems like it can be relatable only to those in similar situations. I didn't believe every story was authentic because I have read other stories like them. I could be wrong, but this was just the vibe I was getting.

I noticed that the author did focus on self a lot of the time, but it was understandable considering he is discussing his own journey. The "advice" he gave seemed more circumstantial, as opposed to advice that can be applied to every reader. I would have liked to see him give actual advice that is more universally applicable. It would make the book a lot more relatable and useful, in my opinion.

I agree, I don't think he really appreciated how privileged he's been in his life, especially his childhood. When he got a job by just walking into the place and saying, "I'd like to be a landscaper" it felt completely unrelatable to what could happen now. Besides that, he lived in a time when working that job for just one summer paid his entire college tuition.

He worked hard, for sure, but he came off as pretty blind to how lucky he was in a lot of ways.