Customer Reviews

Free the Beagle: A Journey to Destinae

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You know it's buried somewhere in your brain - the creativity that you once had as a child, back before you obediently slipped your arms into the straitjacket of conformity that bound you tighter and tighter while the years sped by. If you could only find a way to liberate the creativity again!

Free the Beagle by Roy H. Williams points the way. It's an amazing allegory about you, your life, your responsibilities, and your relationships, and it has the power to teach you to see everything through new eyes. It's a can't-put-it-down book, a short novella that's both shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough for whale to swim in. It's about balancing your left brain (an order-seeking lawyer) and your right brain (a freedom-loving beagle) so that you can learn to access your creativity and be a more open, more productive and more positive human being. When you discover the principles in Free the Beagle, you've found the closest thing there is to operating instructions for your brain.

You'll read it quickly, and want to read it again. The style is spartan (though you might spot an extra adverb here and there), yet it is written in a way that the thinking reader will see layers of meaning begin to unfold. Few books with such an economy of words say so much.

Don't expect this to be another trite Who Moved My Cheese? But if you liked that book, you'll love Free the Beagle. If you hated Who Moved My Cheese? you'll especially love it. The time is right for Free the Beagle by Roy H. Williams, and the proof will be seen when it quickly becomes a best seller - one that people actually read! To top it off, an audio CD dramatization of the book is included in the miniscule price - so no one will have an excuse for not reading it.

Free the Beagle might be the best investment you'll make in a book this decade. Buy it now, and you'll be in-the-know when everyone is talking about it.

This is an amazingly insightful piece of work and a definite must read for today's (and tomorrow's) leaders. Every leader should study William's work as both a guideline to ethical behavior and a blueprint for success.

Williams has mastered the lost art of parable. Where most other author's merely take a simple idea and tell a story around it, Williams is incredibly good at creating a work that causes the reader to look at the worlds around and inside him or her self.

Every reader will take a different story away from Free the Beagle, but each reader will come away from the book with a new understanding of self and others.

I've never read a book before that made me interpret things in so many ways and at the end prove that I was right, along with about five other completely right interpretations, well, ok, I did read Alice in Wonderland and we have spent a couple of generations interpreting that.

The last chapter of the book alone, the roundtable discussion, will confirm your every fear . . . that you only had one or maybe two interpretations right.

Drop your leash and follow the Beagle and the Lawyer on their trip to Destinae and be amazed at where you end up, you may never be the same person who started the journey again!

P.S. I found a whole different dimension to this book when I read it out loud to someone, try it, you'll see what I mean. Try out pages 58, 59 and 107 just for fun!

Having just finished Free the Beagle, I am at a loss as to where to start this review. The funny thing about it is that I think Roy Williams would approve of such hesitancy. First of all, Free the Beagle tells a fantasy story of a lawyer and a beagle traveling together on the rough road to destiny. Is there an allegory buried within this simple adventure story? Most certainly, but the success of the book is that there is more than one interpretation to be had, perhaps one for every type of reader out there. As a business book, Free the Beagle will most certainly find itself in the company of Who Moved My Cheese, Peacock in the Land of Penguins, and Roy Williams' Wizard books. However, I recommend that you pick it up with no preconceptions. Knowing little to nothing about the book until I received my copy (meaning, I didn't read a bunch of hype about it first), I went into it with an open mind. What have I decided? That Roy Williams is a master. He understands his audience so clearly... How can I explain?

I read Free the Beagle expecting a simple business allegory. I was charmed by the little dog, amused by the rigidity of the logical lawyer, and the journey Roy Williams concocted for them. They traverse through such places as the Forest of Confusion and the Sea of False Hope, overcoming loss. The tale harkened back to The Little Prince or Flatland or even those new popular book/movies "Harry Potter" or "The Lord of the Rings." When I concluded the first section as the lawyer's journey concluded, I thought, "Huh. Nice story." Very applicable to any sort of interpretation depending on what the reader is needful of. Then I moved on to the startling second section. It surprised me that Williams included a transcript of a roundtable meeting held to discuss this book. In attendance are a number of educated, successful folks who have all read the story. The discussion is led by Ray Bard, the publisher. For 20 pages, the book is discussed by this diverse group of people and each person brings his or her own interpretation to the book--such interpretations that I never really even considered. Each interpretation (I won't list them here because, hey, why ruin it for you?) was so fully realized, it became clear that Roy intended each from the very beginning. Instead of allowing the reader to only see one reading, he included the roundtable discussion to open each reader up to the myriad of interpretations. It reminds me of the Agatha Christie's 10 Little Indians--a mysterious stranger gathers just the right group of folks to get just the right results. A book for everyone, Free the Beagle is a lot of fun to read and full of self-discoveries. I will be re-reading the story, maybe even a few times!

Jack Covert

Intuition is more than just the name of a beagle. Intuition walks alongside all of us. It cries out, it licks our face, it will lead us out of danger and guide us to glorious places. We just need to learn to listen to it, trust it, unleash it.

Take the time to really read this book. It may appear simple on the surface, but there are so many important messages and layers for those willing to pay a little extra attention. (just take a look at the discussion group at the end)

Want to learn about life? Want to learn about business? Want to learn about motivation? Want to learn about spirituality? It's all in Free The Beagle.

Some books are forgotten days after being read. This story will stay with you for years to come.

p.s. Listening to the CD is even more fun than reading the book.

This book belongs on the top shelf of leadership classics with works like Coelho`s The Alchemist, Godin`s Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Pink`s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Strauss and Howe's The Fourth Turning, Bolon's Ditching Debt, the Shell Global Scenarios to 2025, and Wilber`s A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality and Brady and Woodward's Launching a Leadership Revolution: Mastering the Five Levels of Influence.

It is a great book on leadership, the challenges and journeys of success, and what true leadership entails. It is full of practical advice and techniques throughout.

By way of warning, it is also unique and quirky. The quirkiness actually adds to the value of the book, because it makes it a lot of fun to read and ponder. Reading this new classic is also like reading two entirely different books, because the first and second halves of the book are so drastically different.

Together the two halves are brilliant at causing one to think about new things--as well as more deeply about old things. If you don't like the first half, I'm convinced that the second half will powerfully fix it for you, and vice versa.

One thing I thought was missing in Free the Beagle was someone with a Leadership Education (see: A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century) in the second half of the book. The characters included a well-read English professor, a successful entrepreneur, a world-class scientist, and others, but nobody had a superbly broad and deep classical Leadership Education. Maybe this was part of the author's point! By leaving such a person out, he clearly made us see the need for such education. See what you think about this as you read the book.

I have read Free the Beagle twice and listened to it 8 times (with my kids, coworkers, etc). I have bought eleven copies and only have one left. The book comes with a cd version of the 72 minute story that truly grips your attention and takes you on a journey. Not a word is wasted or misplaced. What seems like an absurd story at first, humbles you when you discover that you have been reading about yourself, your calling, your relationships, your career, your company (whatever you care to insert as a corresponding journey). This morning I caught myself looking in the classifieds for a beagle puppy. Find out why.

Important insights on many levels. As important to the CEO as to the CEO's children, and understood by both. Unique, offers a map to profound growth.

Free the beagle...its as simple as that!
An uplifting and ingenious insight into our world (personal and professional) provided, once again, by the wonderful Wizard of Ads!
You'll learn something new and be challenged through every sentence!

Once in a while I stumble onto a book I like so much that I buy a few extra copies to give to friends. At age 46, I was in one of those periods where I thought I probably had all the really good books and I would just ease into re-reading all my old favorites.

I already had Roy's earlier business books and I knew I'd enjoy this one too, but I was in for a surprise. Free The Beagle is more about living life than business. I ordered 3 additonal copies right away. They'll make nice gifts for my neice and nephew. Us old guys get to thinking all the really good songs have already been written, all the good books have already been wrote. It's nice when you find the well of creativity is still flowing.