Important or Influential- Which Will You Choose to Be?

When we talk about VIP, what do you think of?

You think status, money, CEO, loved by the community. You think mostly of what you want to become. What you wish for.

That is what drew me to this book. I was given this book and asked to review.

I love the look and feel of this book before opening it's pages. It is hardcover and small- so very portable! Pages are nice, thick, and a smooth-- if you cared about how the book felt LOL.

All royalites of the book are being donated to help missionaries and their families-- as someone who has family in Indonesia and in the mission field, I can really feel how this is going to benefit those around us. So thank you!



He goes on to talk about that we all have VIP syndrome and compares that Lucifer suffered the same thing before letting his pride get the best of him becoming what Christians refer to as Satan.

He says that the way a baby seeks approval from his first word or step is translated throughout our lives. We live on the need to be accepted and the need to be important. If we aren't, then what are we? We start self destructive tendencies.

#BeYourself = "Working to be important in the eyes of others is a self-absorbing and never-ending task." ~ @OSHawkins #VIPBook #inspiration

— Via Bella (@Via__Bella) March 5, 2016

VISION

How do you have vision? We can all lose control of any vision we may see or be apart of when there is no goal or vision to aspire to. Things can get in the way of being able to get there. This is a great reminder that where we are not is not where we could be.

For vision, he uses the pregnancy of his daughter and her birth to her marriage (and her starting her own cycle of having children) to show that things, visions, start as conception all the way to marriage. And don't worry, it is all done in good taste.

He also talks about Liberty University and it's conception. Where it started and where it is now. Started as a vision and now is one of the biggest universities.

"Those with vision are (wo)men who do not see situations and circumstances only as they are but as they could be" ~@OSHawkins #VIP #inspire

— Via Bella (@Via__Bella) March 5, 2016

INTEGRITY

The I in VIP can be thought of as important, intellect, or integrity. Which is one that you automatically think of when you think of VIP?

He goes on to talk about having integrity in all parts of our lives and where we place ours.

He says we live in four different lives so to speak. Our private life, our personal life, our professional life and our public life. He says very few live the same in all four. I can honestly say, I feel like I live the same way in each aspect of my 'lives' with very little moderation or fluctuation between the four. What about you?

He argues why he thinks we have only one life so to speak, the private one, where our integrity really is and that spans into the other three. Because he is a man of strong faith in Christainity, he argues that true full integrity comes from having it within God while we take our pilgiramge on this Earth. I have to agrue against that-- that one can have the upmost intergrity and be Buddhist or Atheist. But I do agree that it does start within first.

One thing I have a vast disagreement with him on is that on page 53 he says:

"...tolerance. The word once meant respecting other people's beliefs and truth claims without necessarily accepting them. Today tolerance has a new definition in culture. It now means that all truth claims are valid and should be accepted as such. If all truth claims are valid, we have no moral absolutes..."

I could not DISAGREE more with that statement. While I like that there has a been a tastefully done inclusion of the bible in his arguments up to this point, this one takes it too far. I feel that tolerance still means that we respect other's beliefs regardless if we believe it ourselves. I feel like arguing that now it means that everything is right is simply not the case. You look back in history and I bet the same could be said by those who wrote books when we talked about marriage and race. They probably feel the same why this guy does. It makes it very clear what he is referring to without even touching on the subject.

If this in his opinion, is how you become an influential person I quit. Like yesterday. Because I will never think I am better than someone else. That is how I read that statement. As long as you believe as he does, you have integrity, if not, you don't. That is bullshit.

Integrity, as he goes on to say, I TOTALLY AGREE with! This is from using the example that businesses have to worry about theft more from the inside then the outside. That when we work, we have to pretend as if it is our business and we are serving a higher purpose. How would we serve that or even selfishly, ourselves? I agree that you have to have complete integrity.

PURPOSE

This one is something we all have questions about. What is our purpose in life? You can be one that believes your purpose is soley in God alone-- but most of us believe it is more cosmic than that. Some believe there is no purpose than that of our own. This means, we are what we make ourselves.

I do like that he says that God does have meaning to each our own lives. There is is divinity and purpose and that I do believe wholeheartedly. We are all on this planet for a reason. He attributes our purpose to our finger prints and DNA. There is no one like you in the world-- there fore, there is no logical reason to believe otherwise-- you are here for purpose.

For this book, it starts out really good, even with the biblical references. It is done with taste. As it goes on, you start wondering what you are reading and what is helpful about the book. It is not a bad book but there is something missing from it to make it better.

There is no ways or steps to help  you get there and that alone asks me, what is the purpose of the book? However, it is well written and done.

2.5/5 stars for me mainly because of the religious aspect  and that it will be harder for younger generations or those Christians who aren't super conservative to relate. The ideas and some of the arguments and supporting details, both from history, the bible, and just common sense, work together great in most of the book. However, it starts to take more and more of the book over and the fact that there is seems to be a lack of direction to help get there. The arguments are good but advise for getting there and finding those answers this author is proposing we should find isn't there. At some point, some of the things said feels redundant.

* This book was received in asking for my honest opinion of the book *

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