Need some inspiration?
Author’s note: After delving into the quagmire of politics in my last two columns, I wanted to take a hard right turn and catch my breath. On January 13 I had an in-depth and personal interview with Zoe Routh, called The Future of Leadership. Initially we talked about Good Samaritan Home and the 2,500 men and women we have helped restart their lives following prison. But we also talked quite a bit about the issues that led them to prison in the first place—like family dysfunction, abuse, addiction, and homelessness—issues that affect too many of us. My intent in writing RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN was to offer hope to all of us struggling for a second chance in life. This is her review of my book. After a steady diet of bad news coming out of Washington, Zoe Routh asked the question we’re all begging to hear right about now, “Need some inspiration?”
Zoe Routh: Leadership Futurist l Strategist l Multiple Award Winning Author l Podcaster. Showing leaders how to navigate the future.
Welcome back to Read to Lead. This is the first edition of 2025. I've been traveling and writing. And thinking. Lots of thinking. And reading.
Much of the thinking has been desultory. At times, despondent at the state of international politics and economic muddles.
And yet through it all, there are vestiges of hope. Blooms of beauty and joy.
Such is this book by John David Graham.
I interviewed John for the Future of Leadership podcast to hear his Good Samaritan story: establishing houses for felons to give them a second chance. This novel is an intense, personal way of exploring what it takes to find a second chance, to give second chances, and to battle systemic bias.
It both made me grieve and hope for humanity.
A young man is born to parents who do not have many strong life skills: Dad's an abusive alcoholic, Mum is submissive, trapped, and helpless. The young man escapes when his older brother is assaulted by his raging father.
So far, not so optimistic. But the story struggles on, finding joy in small moments, travesty and betrayal elsewhere.
The young man moves from place to place, at times the victim of other people's abuse, at times making his own hapless mistakes.
It's a poignant read as it shows how one unfortunate incident can snowball into desperation and homelessness, from which it is very difficult to escape.
Often, it is the small moments of kindness that save our hapless hero.
And therein is the flourish of a tiny tendril of hope: small acts of kindness, big steps of courage, can change the trajectory of a life.
There is much that needs changing in our society: protecting the weak and vulnerable, increasing love and acceptance for those deemed 'different' to the majority and the oppressive norm, reining in tyrants, stopping massacres of civilians...The list is long.
This story, plain and simple in its prose, honest in its rendering from true story, is ultimately uplifting. It asks us to be kinder to one another.
We may not be able to change the trajectory of world events, but we can be tender-hearted and loving to our fellow humans. Start there.
A worthy read.
***
To see the full podcast THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP with Zoe Routh, link here:
Also, RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN is currently free for Kindle Unlimited members.
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