Make The Impossible Possible
March 13th, 2008
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Through a competition on Pick The Brain, I won a free copy of Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland.
Bill Strickland is the CEO of Manchester Bidwell, an organization he founded that teaches kids ceramics, photography, and painting, and provides adults with professional training in fields such as the culinary arts, pharmacology, and horticulture. Despite growing up in a rough ghetto in Pittsburgh, he went on to win a genius grant from The MacArthur Foundation for his work in turning around the lives of many people that society had given up on.
Bill has an amazing story, but the book doesn’t do it justice. I almost gave up after four chapters of monolithic paragraphs overstuffed with adjectives, telling a story that just wasn’t coming out as well as it should have. But then I came to some great nuggets in the middle of the book, in the chapters “The Secret to Success,” “Impossibility Thinking,” and “The Power of Passion.” I wish he had based the entire book on the ideas in just those chapters.
The Pick The Brain post on Bill Strickland has a 35-minute video where Bill tells his story much better than in the book. Unfortunately, his soft-spoken voice is sometimes overpowered by “subtle accompaniment” that’s not so subtle. (What were they thinking?) And there are five 2-3 minute videos on Bill Strickland’s website that are very good.
Although I didn’t like most of the book, Bill Strickland is a great man on a great mission. And he has some advice for those who would like to do great things:
“I’m often approached by idealistic young people on fire to do good for others, all hungry to save the world. I tell them the first step is save yourself. Make sure your own life is lined up right, that you know what’s important to you and why it matters, before you set out to make your mark on the world. Do that, I assure them, and everything else will take care of itself. And I am convinced that is true. I never saw a meaningful life that wasn’t based on passion. And I never saw a life full of passion that wasn’t, in some important way, extraordinary.”
March 13th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Hi Hunter,
Congratulations on winning the competition.
That last paragraph is a powerful statement, isn’t it? I’ve read many times that when our life is aligned with our passion, everything falls in place. This confirms it again.
I’m off to check out some of the short videos. Thanks for another great resource.
Barbara’s last blog post..How Links Increase Visits And Earnings
March 13th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Barbara, I was actually one of 15 winners…they had 15 copies of the book so they picked their 15 favorite comments to determine the winners.
The last of the short videos is the best, although they’re kind of in order. If you don’t watch all of them, be sure to watch the last one.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:26 am
I particularly like the quote.
I think there’s a few keys:
- if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others
- if you take care of your basics (food, shelter, …etc), you move up the stack (Maslow). According to Robbins, Covey, Wooden — that’s where you naturally move to service toward others.
- knowing your compelling why and following your passion keeps you going
As simple as it sounds to follow your passion, I see a lot of people that follow their strengths over their passions. I think the real key is to continuously turn your passions into strengths.
J.D.’s last blog post..Designing Organizational Architecture
March 18th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
That’s a good point, J.D. You can turn your passions into strengths because you get good at what you practice. It’s much harder to turn strengths into passions.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:59 am
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August 13th, 2008 at 12:03 am
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