Leadership coach Ramon G. Corrales has developed a method to turn you into SALT – “Secret Agent of Love and Transformation” – making you a more effective, confident person.
This metaphor-laden manual revolves around the idea that “the responder is the cause of the response.” The events of one’s life are pebbles thrown into a pond, followed by ripples, posits Corrales. Once we understand that it’s not the pebble that creates the ripples, but we who respond according to our nature (the ripple), we can begin to master ourselves. Sometimes we turn pebbles into grenades, exploding with deep, personal pangs. But within the grenades are jewels, “inner qualities that make us tick.”
From these basic, graphic concepts, Corrales moves into higher realms of understanding. He uses a question-and-answer technique, posing italicized questions strategically placed in each lesson, as if coming from a student, then answering them as the teacher. The goal of Corrales’ method is “living on purpose.”
Using emotionally evocative terms (usually underlined) such as “lift” and “drag,” and intellectually alluring ones such as “habit of the rational mind,” this well-educated author obviously knows how to move an audience, expertly interweaving logic and passion. The expansion of his method chapter by chapter underscores the sense of incremental improvement. Asking the questions in italics gives his techniques an interactive feel, as if readers were at a live event.
The book’s weaknesses include: the occasional sense of text overload (one longs for a few well-placed illustrations); over-reliance on the “jewel,” “grenade,” etc. metaphors, which begin to feel repetitious; and the need for a copyeditor to catch an occasional technical error and tighten some overly wordy passages.
Despite such issues, Of Pebbles and Grenades offers a vibrant set of steps to a more insightful, meaningful life. Readers seeking change will find much of value here.
Also available as an ebook.
