No. 1206 -- WHY I WRITE BOOKS!

No. 1206

Jim Davidson...NEWSPAPER COLUMN

WHY I WRITE BOOKS!

Each morning for the past several months I have been blessed by a wonderful little program that comes in on my I-Phone called “Minute with Maxwell.” It features John Maxwell, a well-known author, speaker and trainer who is making a tremendous difference in the lives of people all across the world. He started out as a minister but soon left his calling to expand his career to the other areas previously mentioned.
However, he often talks about his faith in his expanded career. The author of more than 40 books, one morning recently he talked about why he writes them. The bottom line for John is that he writes them to expand his influence. It is just common sense to realize that while John can’t be everywhere, his books can be, and they are.
As the author of six books, 1,400 radio shows and 1,200 columns, naturally my ears perked up, and his comments later got me to thinking about why I also write books. While certainly not on the same stage with John Maxwell, I came to the conclusion that I write, in each area, as a way to help other people. For me it began back in 1976 when I wrote and published a little 24-page booklet titled “Life Plan.” While the quantity was fairly small, this booklet was reprinted four times and was used mostly in the six-hour seminars I was conducting in high schools across our state.
As a businessman motivational consultant working with our schools, soon after I began working with students I discovered that the vast majority of high school seniors had no idea of what they wanted to do with their lives after they graduated. Back 75 to 100 years ago there were a limited number of career possibilities, but even in 1976 with increased technology there were more than 50,000 career possibilities. You could see why with this scenario that a young person could be frustrated, confused and even bewildered. What I was able to do for these students in six hours was help walk them through the goal-setting, planning process by answering six very important and very personal questions.
These questions are: Who am I? Where am I? Is it possible for me? Where do I start? Now what? Is that all there is to it? We also talked about achieving success in these four major areas of life: Spiritual, family, work or school, and income. We ended with these areas that were also important if they were to achieve success: time management, the importance of habits, the importance of communication, and change and continuing education. I told them that school is just the beginning and not the end.
Well, so much for my first foray into writing. In the coming years I would also write six books that included two editions of “How to Plan Your Life,” a book of my radio shows titled “You Can Be the Best,” and still later two editions of “Learning, Earning & Giving Back” that contained selected newspaper columns. The second edition of this book was funded by 143 individuals and organizations who gave $100 each to have it published, and this book had the focus on our Conway Bookcase Project that I founded in 2005.
What was a true blessing for me is that over the years I received thousands of letters and phone calls from listeners and readers who stated how much they enjoyed my writing. And then comes my most important work of all: my latest book, “My Heartfelt Passion: Saving Our Nation One Child at a Time. This book was written from my heart as a way to help spread our bookcase literacy project all across the nation. Pre-school children reared in low-income families truly need our help.
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(Editor’s Note: JIM DAVIDSON is an author, public speaker, syndicated columnist and founder of the Bookcase for Every Child project. Since its inception in 1995, Jim’s column has been self-syndicated to over 375 newspapers in 35 states, making it one of the most successful in the history of American journalism.)