Make the Impossible Possible, Selected as one of the TOP Books Corporate is Reading
800-CEO-READ, a leading direct supplier of book-based resources, compiles a monthly list of best-selling business books based on purchases by its corporate customers nationwide. Here are the best sellers for January 2010 ...More
Make the Impossible Possible, January 12, 2010
By..Sacramento Book Review (SacramentoBookReview.com)
If you've read a good number of inspirational books, specially the ones written by world-famous bestselling authors, it's easy to spot the pattern that its writers have comfortably settled into when piecing together prose with the aim of enlightening you, motivating you, and encouraging you. Almost all of them follow a particular formula of presenting the lessons, usually in a numbered order and then buffeted with many stories to support such lessons. The structure to this approach is logical, but problem is that it wears off. When you go back to real life, the stories become meaningless, and the lessons turn hollow and useless.
This is not the case with Bill Strickland's //Make The Impossible Possible: One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Ordinary//, written with Vince Rause. What you'll get are not plucked stories of different people, but a life story of a single man who has to struggle to succeed. But beyond the autobiographic nature of the book, what you'll take away are the real-life lessons that can be learned, absorbed, and applied.
Unlike the formulaic presentation of most bestselling inspirational books, this one does it the other way around. All the inspirational bits are distilled from the life story of the author. He does not purport to show a formula and then fit his life stories into it. He tells you his life story and then carefully pares it so that its meaning and its lessons can be revealed. There are no 10-steps to follow. There is only real life and the stark reality of life. The success principles come to you in an organic form. There are no markers. You have to catch it.
Straddling between both autobiographical and inspirational genre, the most exquisite beauty of this book is in its straightforward and heartfelt approach. There are so many imminently quotable lines you can draw from cover to cover. This is the kind of book you'd want to read over and over again, with a marker in hand to annotate it as you read, or with a pen and paper on the side to take down notes. Or even both. For as you share in the struggles and successes of Bill Struckland, //Make The Impossible Possible// is an inexhaustible wellspring of real-life inspiration.
Reviewed by Dominique James
On January 19, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. on WGBH Boston (channel 2), watch María Hinojosa interview Bill Strickland!
María Hinojosa: One-on-One is a provocative in-depth talk show featuring in-depth conversations with America's foremost thinkers, artists, writers, and opinion leaders.
MacArthur “genius” award recipient Bill Strickland is President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corp, which combines an arts program for schoolchildren with a job-training center for adults in inner-city Pittsburgh. He explains how having high expectations for people helps them succeed.
Starting on January 20, the interview will be available in its entirety at www.wgbh.org/oneonone
"Man overcomes poverty, now helps teens"
WPTV.com-NBC 5, Palm Beach, California
November 6, 2009
WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- Bill Strickland's life changed when his teacher encouraged him in an arts program.
It made such an impact on his life, that he wanted to share the experience.
"So I ended up taking my arts and ceramics experience and applying it to my neighborhood in the 60s during the riots in Pittsburgh to try and create some type of alternative to that way of living for the kids in the neighborhood, he said. "Their parents said whatever you are doing with my kids they are starting to go to school more regularly and they started showing up more regularly, their grades started to improve."
Decades later, his after-school program is still thriving with more than 500 students.
Watch a news report featuring Bill Strickland...More
Strickland profiled on Global News National, in Halifax, Nova Scotia:
to watch his story click here>>
Strickland profiled on CNN.com
to watch his story click here>>
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL GOES ONE ON ONE WITH PITTSBURGH'S BILL STRICKLAND...CEO OF MANCHESTER CRAFTSMAN'S GUILD
Bill Strickland turned his love of ceramics into a creative outlet for disadvantaged city kids.
Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host- Bev Smith Interviews Bill Strickland,
Watch the interview click link below:
http://www.bevsmithtalks.com/interviews/billstrickland.html
Bill Strickland featured in the May 2009 issue of Black Enterprise Magazine, providing words to strive by:
"Don't waste precious time chasing someone else's definition of success, look for the things that inspire you, trouble you, make you feel most alive, and trust in those things to shape your future," Strickland says in the magazine.
Click here to read article: http://www.zinio.com/pages/BlackEnterprise/May-09/416078758/pg-84
"Unlocking Human Potential"
by Kathleen Martin...
Bill Strickland looks for future leaders in disadvantaged neighborhoods. His "big city" approach is worth replicating in smaller communities.
Bill Strickland is looking for coffee, but the metal grid around the café at Halifax's Pier 21 is shut. It's 9:30 a.m., and Strickland has already finished one meeting today. Dressed in a dark suit and butter-yellow tie, he takes one more resigned glance at the closed café before cheerfully waving me to the chair next to him. "Sit down! Sit down!"
How to save a city, one kid at a time
Meredith Macleod
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 1, 2009)
Bill Strickland has never left the inner-city Pittsburgh neighbourhood where he grew up.
But he has transformed it. Strickland, who has been called an entrepreneur of social change, was the keynote speaker last night at Hamilton Place -- where a rapt audience of more than 1,000 heard ideas that could inspire Hamilton...More
"Urban job centers and Black economic recovery"
By: Devona Walker at www.theloop21.com
We’ve watched the job numbers and welfare tolls rise, the home equity numbers plummet and the foreclosures and bankruptcies soar. But don’t think solutions for those most affected, black people, are on the way. We need to push that agenda ourselves.
And there’s a best practices model out there, on which we should be engaging. Bill Strickland, who heads the Bidwell Training Center, has the answer and wants to help other cities around the country replicate his success. He wants to teach nonprofit leaders how to think like entrepreneurs...More