Customer Reviews

Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success

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The first thing that strikes you about "Growing the Distance" is its unique format and layout. Unlike many books written strictly for business, this publication is alive with style, relevant quotations, humorous quips and interesting fonts. Whereas beauty is only skin deep, this book has helpful and attractive information from cover to cover. Author Jim Clemmer is the founder and president of The CLEMMER Group, a strategic consulting firm. Jim is a best selling author, workshop/retreat leader, and keynote speaker on organization improvement, leadership development, and personal effectiveness. Clemmer presents the values and philosophy he models to others in this fine book.

One of the main messages that clearly jumps out at the reader is this powerful theme...leadership and change is a living philosophy that must permeate every aspect of life including family, career, personal responsibility and self-fulfillment. Many business books on leadership put the various life roles of a leader in separate boxes. Business is one box, family life is another box, personal goals and self-actualization in yet another box. It is often assumed that these various roles have little to do with each other and for this reason family life and spirituality are typically ignored. "Growing the Distance" is not afraid to challenge this misconception by boldly discussing a leader's various interconnected roles!

"Growing the Distance" is a book about creating positive change within yourself rather than being the victim of change. Its powerful premise is that we can begin from where we are today, and choose where we want to be tomorrow. By making these choices we can grow the distance. Clemmer believes that each of us can develop the qualities of leadership that reside inside us no matter what our position in life. This publication discusses what leadership is, why change is essential, and the importance of vision, values and purpose. Clemmer encourages personal accountability for our choices and writes how we can learn and grow from disappointments. He encourages us to find commitment and passion in our workplace, as well as in spirit, and meaning within our lives. He proceeds to discuss growth and personal development while reminding us that great leaders are able to energize others to motivate themselves.

If you want to read a book and be enthusiastic about your leadership potential, "Growing the Distance" is a must. It will inspire you and help to mesh together the various roles and activities of your life. This book is truly different and will find a happy home on your bookshelf!

If this were a novel, reviewers would be saying things like "fast-paced," "exciting," and "inspirational."

This book connects leadership, personal growth and success in life in a format designed for easy reading and high impact. Although I actually read the books I'm asked to review, not just scan for content, I've found some books can't be read straight through because they aren't designed for it. "Growing The Distance" is one of those. It is in digest format, a collection of short, short articles that follow a common theme, each building on the prior articles to form a coherent book. Each article also is able to stand alone without reference to the others. Thus, you can explore the ideas in the book at random, sampling here and there according to your attraction to a title.

And, it is preferable to read this book by scanning and sampling. Each "article" has so much condensed meaning that you need to stop and think about the ideas, anecdotes and quotations within. Like eating peanuts, you keep going back and nibbling some more.

I've grown tired of business books that have good lessons but don't inspire me.

Jim's book IS NOT one of those.
It is fresh and inspiring. I really like the writing style.

I can truely say this is my favourite book!I have read it at least 3 times already and I'll probably read again and again!

Jim starts the book with the point that too many development books are "like a pair of steer horns--a point here and a point there, with a whole lot of bull in between." When you are finished with this book, you won't be asking "Where's the beef?" I liked his philosophy of using quotes throughout the text, "If I couldn't have said it better myself, I won't make you wade through pages of text to prove it." And he didn't!

I picked up this book as I was thinking of my professional growth, but found the principles even more applicable at home in my role as father. I learned along side my children how to keep our rate of internal growth faster than external change so we won't be victims. Now my kids use Jim's comments of not getting "The Victimitis Virus" and staying out of "Pity City".

I tend to lean towards non-fiction books with some serious meat (crammed with facts, figures, and about as exciting to read as the index of an engineering text) to them, but at the recommendation of a friend, I purchased Jim Clemmer's Growing the Distance. I was very pleasantly surprised. It is a very easy and enjoyable read, yet is full of great advice about being a better employee/employer/leader and all-around person. If you tend to get stuck in pessimistic ruts, this is a great book to keep around for an encouraging chapter read as needed.