Oh Sh*t, this book is okay!

TITLE: The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership
AUTHOR: Steve Farber
181 pages $25.95 CDN

BIG IDEA: The author, Steve Farber, meets Edg (pronounced "edge"), who shows him how Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof are the tickets to extreme leadership. Farber then applies this formula to help a friend of his resolve problems at her job.

WHAT YOU CAN USE NOW: Always seek Oh Shit! Moments (OS!M's), where you try something out of your comfort zone. This may include public speaking, accepting a few more assignments at work than you're used to, or even trying a new sport for the first time. By continually exposing yourself to these situations, you will become more satisfied with yourself on a daily basis, and mark yourself as a leader.

WHAT WE THINK:

The Radical Leap begins with Steve being asked by a university student to define leadership. Since he does this for a living, he feels pretty confident in his ability to answer the question, but gives the surveyor a pretty stock answer. The guy sitting next to him (a middle-aged surfer named Edg) interrupts, and explains that Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof are the keys not just to leadership, but to extreme leadership. Fascinated, Farber agrees to meet with Edg every day for the next four days to discuss leadership ideas. Meanwhile, Steve has agreed to help his friend Janice solve some of her workplace problems, which involve a new manager who is not exactly popular with the staff. Throughout the storylines, Steve learns how cultivating Love, generating Energy, inspiring Audacity, and providing Proof will make you a better leader. Farber also describes the Oh Shit! Moment (OS!M), an action that scares and challenges you, and argues that seeking these moments will help you grow. Ultimately, Steve uses his new knowledge to help Janice, and expand his own ideas about leadership.

This is the second time that I've reviewed this book. The first review, which was written about two weeks ago, and was not very flattering. "Good, semi-useful system, but pretty cheesy" was the jist of my review. After my write-up had sat on the back burner for a couple of weeks though, my opinion of the book started to change. Why? Well, I found myself applying the L.E.A.P. formula to my own situations, and I have to admit that things turned out pretty well. Even though the things I was trying were not daring, humbling, nor even personally embarrassing (by my own standards), my performance in each situation truly surprised me. Personally, I never knew that I was capable of so much, and can directly thank this book for inspiring me. If you feel at all that your professional or personal life is at a bit of a standstill, reading The Radical Leap will definitely give you an inspirational boost that can resonate in every section of your life.

That being said though, some of the complaints I had are still applicable. Though some readers may like the book's story, I found it to be largely unnecessary. Which would be fine if the story was really engaging and insightful, but instead it's a bunch of beach bums chatting about leadership skills in really cheesy ways. For example, one character, meant to enlighten (I believe) points to a road sign that says: "Unattended vehicles will be towed at the owner's expense". The character then uses this as a metaphor to explain how some people need to be more involved with their lives (Farber explains that interpreting random signs is actually what the character does for a living). It makes sense, but it, like other moments in the book, literally made me groan. To be frank, if The Radical Leap was heavily edited and turned into a 10 page magazine article, it would retain all of its good points, and be cheese free.

Overall though, this book is worth the read for the sole purpose that it will inspire your own OS!M's, give you new ways to enjoy whatever job you have, and seek challenges in every aspect of your life. Though the story is lame, the book will only take you a couple of hours to read, so even if you're like me and don't care for the story, you won't exactly be wasting a large amount of time on it.

The B Cubed Crew