Book Review – Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret by Larry Osborne

Innovation's Dirty Little SecretInnovation. It’s what creates repeatedly successful leaders. You know the one’s I’m talking about. The leader who has success again and again and again.

What is it that sets that kind of leader apart from the ones who have one good idea, or maybe two?

Innovation.

And when you understand it, you have the potential to become a serial innovator. But gaining an understanding isn’t as common as you’d think.

Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret is Larry Osborne’s newest book, digging deep into the intricacies of innovation, helping us understand it better. From the v

Wait. What?ery beginning, Osborne sets up up to gain insights into the concept of innovation that most leaders never grasp. To start off, the first four chapters deal with creating an exit strategy.

An exit strategy may be the most important part of understanding how serial innovators succeed continually. Knowing when something isn’t working, and having the ability and the courage to abandon it when it isn’t working is a key element to creating repeat successes. Once you have an exit strategy in place, you are free to lead without fear, knowing that if something doesn’t work, you can redirect your focus easily.

With that in place, igniting innovation, and creating an atmosphere where it accelerates is relatively easy. It still requires effort and work to keep things flowing, but it’s much easier to come up with great ideas when you accept that many of the ideas you have aren’t the great ones. You can be more relaxed, knowing that you can let go of mediocrity and focus on greatness.

Osborne directs his attention next to some of the things that sabotage innovation, and how to regain momentum when you stumble. And finally, to wrap things up, he spends a couple of chapters discussing the idea of vision, and how it relates to mission and innovation. These are perhaps the most important chapters in the book, and are regrettably short.

Although the idea of innovation is not a concrete concept, and is instead more abstract in nature, Larry Osborne has helped his readers to understand the idea more fully. Easy to read and full of excellent insights, Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret is a book that will seriously help you reach the next level in successful leadership.

Would you describe yourself as innovative? Why or why not? Would you describe yourself as a serial innovator? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

I strongly recommend that you read Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret, by Larry Osborne. You can purchase it at Amazon.com in print or for Kindle.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Cross Focused Media as part of their Cross Focused Reviews blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Book Review – Don’t Miss The Boat by Paul Taylor

Don't Miss The Boat by Paul TaylorPerhaps the most fiercely contested event from early Genesis is Noah’s Flood. Even more than the creation account, the Flood described in Genesis 6-9 has been rejected by mainstream thought. But understanding Noah’s Flood is critical to understanding the world we live in today.

The biggest problem lies in the fact that there is very little material that available that helps people to understand what happened during and because of Noah’s Flood.

Until now.

Paul Taylor has written a very helpful book, called Don’t Miss The Boat, that describes in a very easy to understand fashion the events surrounding and the effects caused by a global flood.

Without getting into too many technical details, Taylor examines such topics as how the flood started, what happened during the flood, where the waters came from, the design of the ark, the following ice age, and much more. One of the most interesting chapters dealt with his estimation of why people stopped believing in the flood.

At times, Don’t Miss The Boat seems overly simplistic, especially if one is well read on the subject already. However, if the topic is a new one, the material is presented in a way that is simple for anyone to grasp and see the significance of Noah’s Flood.

This is a great volume to recommend to someone who doesn’t know much about the Flood or early Genesis history.

I enjoyed reading Don’t Miss The Boat, and spent only a short amount of time in reading and digesting the information presented. If you are interested in finding out more about this portion of the earth’s history, I recommend that you pick up a copy and read it. I think you’ll find it very fascinating.

What are your biggest questions surrounding the story of Noah’s Flood? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

I highly recommend that you read Don’t Miss The Boat, by Paul Taylor. You can purchase it at Amazon.com in print or for Kindle, or directly from Master Books.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from New Leaf Press/Master Books as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Book Review & Giveaway! – Torn Blood by David J. Bain

Affiliate Link:  Torn Blood by David J. BainMost of the time, I’m a hit or miss fan of fiction that is controversial or apocalyptic in nature. But Torn Blood was a book I simply could not put down.

The plot is a labyrinth of mystery, and details unfold in their own time, and aren’t easily predictable.

Only days before reporting for duty at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Addison Deverell arrives in Israel on a mission: to identify the source of the conflict between Arabs and Jews. Going into Palestinian territory for answers he can’t find in Israel, Addison struggles to uncover the truth. And he faces danger from those he seeks to understand and finds himself a pawn in a plot to eradicate the Jews from the earth. In the midst of all of this, Addison, along with his mother, discover a hidden identity, and their true destiny.

For the most part, the story was gripping and held my attention completely. However, toward the end of the novel, Bain seems to get in a hurry, and wraps up a lot of loose threads too quickly. Other than that, I found the book to be highly interesting and well worth my time to read it.

Book Review – Apostate by Kevin Swanson

Affiliate Link:  Apostate by Kevin SwansonWestern civilization as we know it is on the decline. Immorality and decadence are rampant. God has been evicted. And we are dying.

How did it start? Where did it start?

And, more importantly, what can we do about it?

Kevin Swanson has written what may by the most troubling, and yet the most important, book of our time.

Our society, in fact, all of western civilization is crumbling around us. And still we blindly plod onward, as if nothing at all were the matter.

But it is. And in Apostate, Swanson identifies the basis of our failing worldview, and the men who created and defined it for us.

Swanson’s timing could not have been more providential. With a Christian worldview fading into nothingness, and the need for a strong biblical stance stronger than ever before, Apostate identifies the perpetrators and the proponents of the godless mentality that pervades our society. It’s so prevalent, it seems as if we no longer even have the capacity to think completely biblically. We’ve been indoctrinated in the severest way, and we glorify the men who led us astray.

From prominent philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and ideologists, like Marx, Nietzsche, and Darwin, Swanson takes us on a harrowing parade through history, exposing the atheistic and rebellious thoughts, ideas, and practices that have led to our current cultural demise.

From there, he takes exposes others who are just as culpable, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Twain (Yes, Mark Twain!), Hemingway, and Steinbeck.

Many of these names echoed through the halls of schools and colleges around the world. I can recall hearing these names listed as the greatest minds of literature, philosophy, and education, and touted as the greatest leaders of our times.

But their ideas and practices have led us to where we are. They led. But we followed. And now we have our work cut out for us. We need to recall our biblical roots, recreate a biblical worldview, and restore our culture to a biblical mindset.

Or else, we are doomed.

If you are concerned at all about the direction our culture is going, and why it is headed that way, you need to read Apostate. You’ll be shocked. You’ll be appalled. You be horrified.

But you’ll be informed. And once informed, you’ll be aware.

Find this book. It might just be the most important book of our time.

What most troubles you about where our society is headed? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

I strongly recommend that you read Apostate, by Kevin Swanson. You can purchase it at Amazon.com in print or for Kindle. Also, you can listen to two different interviews with the author about the book and our troubling time. Find them here and here.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Cross Focused Media as part of their Cross Focused Reviews blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Book Review – Red Like Blood by Joe Coffey and Bob Bevington

Red Like BloodWhen I saw the subtitle to Red Like Blood, by Joe Coffey and Bob Bevington, I really wanted to read the book. Confrontations With Grace… Intriguing. It captured my attention.

Unfortunately, it’s the only thing about the book that help my attention.

I found the book to be unengaging and uninspiring. In fact, it was crass, even to the point of offensive a few times. I wasn’t impressed.

I’m not knocking their story. Bob’s story is centered around a failed marriage, largely his own fault, an affair, and a new marriage. And how God worked in his life to restore him to grace, and to rebuild relationships with his first wife and kids is nothing short of amazing. Joe’s willingness to work with him to explore the depth of God’s grace is incredible.

It’s a great story. But the book isn’t written in a way that captures the reader and draws him into the story.

In my opinion, these authors tried too hard to make the book sound like something by Donald Miller. I enjoy a lot of Miller’s stuff, but Red Like Blood felt like a copy of that style. And a few choices of wording and language were inappropriate. I understand that this is a book on grace. But the apostle Paul made it clear that grace isn’t to be taken advantage of.

All in all, stories of grace are encouraging to read. But I didn’t find this one to be encouraging at all. If you have the opportunity to read it, you may gain something from it. But I wouldn’t recommend that you spend the money to purchase a copy. Look for something better. You’ll be glad you did.

How has God expressed his grace visibly in your life? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Cross Focused Media as part of their Cross Focused Reviews blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Book Review – Chronicles Of Dinosauria by Dave Woetzel

Chronicles of DinosauriaOne of the most often claimed statements heard from the evolutionist worldview is that man and dinosaurs did not co-exist.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

And Dave Woetzel has done an incredible job of presenting the evidence that this is the case. Simply put, land dinosaurs were created on day six of the creation week, along with every other land animal… and man. Aquatic dinosaurs would have been created the day before with the rest of the sea creatures.

In Chronicles Of Dinosauria, Woetzel gives breathtaking details of the history, the mythology and more of dinosaurs throughout the centuries since God created the earth and everything on it.

Here is the video trailer for the book.

Woetzel starts off by establishing the facts of the existence of dinosaurs, presented in the creation story and how they would have fit into the flood event of early Genesis. From there, he examines the fossil evidence of dinosaurs and how that fits into the story of humanity. Following that, he presents several chapters examining the historical, the artistic and the cryptozoological evidence, finally concluding with the biblical evidence.

There are several amazing elements to the Chronicles Of Dinosauria. There are several human artifacts found in the lower fossil record, such as the bell found in a lump of “300 million year old” coal, bearing similarities to both Babylonian and Hindu religious characters. How did it become encased in that coal? The obvious answer is that the coal isn’t as old as it is assumed to be in an evolutionary worldview. It must be much younger.

Book Review – God In My Everything by Ken Shigematsu

God In My EverythingSometimes, the best way to grow in your spiritual disciplines is to take an idea or two from those who have gone before. The early Church Fathers, the aesthetics, and others had a solid grasp on the spiritual disciplines that we seem to have lost in the struggle to survive our modern, busy, chaotic, day to day existence.

Fortunately, much of what our spiritual ancestors have written still survives. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of time (or won’t take it) to wade through all of this material to glean some nuggets of value out of it all to help our daily lives.

But Ken Shigematsu did.

After a trip to Ireland, where he toured some ancient monasteries, he began to study the life and writings of St. Benedict, and the Benedictine order that he started, and has found practical application for those ancient practices in our hectic, twenty-first century lives.

Here is the video trailer that describes the concept of God In My Everything.

In God In My Everything, Shigematsu has built a spiritual trellis, just like the ones that flowers grow on in our yards, and uses it as an illustration of how it allows certain spiritual disciplines to grow in our lives.