“The Complete 101 Collection” by John C. Maxwell
John C. Maxwell is an evangelical pastor turned speaker on leadership. He is named as the no. 1 leader in business by the American Management Association, a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, and named as an influential leadership expert by Business Insider and Inc. magazine, among other credentials. He has written a whopping 132 non-fiction books, sold over 20 million copies, with some translated into 50 languages and others hitting the New York Times Best Seller list; making him a so-called global leadership guru.
But you don’t have to read all 132 books to get into his insights, you just need to read this one. This particular book is the merging of 6 volumes of his 101 series that are crammed into 1 complete collection. It covers attitude, self-improvement, leadership, relationship, success, teamwork, equipping, and mentoring. “Each 101 book is an introduction to a subject, not the “advanced course””, Maxwell remarks, and so you would think that this ultimate introductory book will instead be a concise but highly informative one. But no.
Despite being an introduction book, it is still a 616 pages book. Confused? Indeed, the book is filled with plenty of repetitive writing over the 6 volumes, with the same favourite anecdotes, many cliche jargons and pep talks, where at times can contradict some of his points against each other, while the rest of the stories are so basic and bland that they make me wonder whether they are real or just fabricated to make a point (except, of course, his personal stories or the stories from the Bible that he suddenly can tell in details).
But nevertheless, if you can filter out a lot of these unnecessary extra stuffs, the basic content of the book is still pretty insightful. That is, if only you can hold your cringe at times. Because think about all the most cliche business buzzwords – such as “success is a journey”, “if we don’t change we don’t grow”, “accomplish more than expected”, or “inspire others” – and you’ll most likely find it here in abundance.
To be fair, this is after all a book published in 2010 by a person who were born in 1947. The old school style of writing and way of thinking are very much apparent in this book, for better or for worse, where Maxwell believes in good old American values and the American dream where if you work hard you can make it rich, but being oblivious over the harsh truth of success in the predatory capitalism environment: to be really rich, you either need to exploit people or exploit the planet; or the corruption, the nepotism, the criminal ties, the insider trading, the dodgy dealings, the race privilege, the government subsidy, etc, that are more scrutinized these days but often edited out in business biographies.
But this is ultimately what this book is about, an unapologetic set of cliche old-school knowledge. One that is important enough to re-read as a refresher and perhaps become an anchor for your general principles in life. If this is your first ever self-help/business book, it is a pretty good place to start.
THE CHAOS THEORY 