In just under three weeks, the revised edition of my midlife leadership memoir Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship will be released. I am super excited about it.
My small team and I will be marking the occasion by having four webinars on the release date – May 18 – two timed mainly for Europe and Asia, and two for the Americas. Please consider signing up for one of them today.
What has changed from the first edition? Basically, three things.
First, I have written a new introduction that talks mainly about how the first edition was received and what I learned from the process of promoting it, given dozens of author talks, and receiving messages from readers.
Second, it includes a new epilogue focused on leadership lessons for managing a mission-driven organization during a society-wide crisis, such as a pandemic. (The first edition had a chapter titled “When Leadership Is a Struggle” but it dealt mainly with crises that were specific to an individual organization, such as losing a major funder.)
Third, I re-read the book in its entirety and tweaked the manuscript here and there to improve readability.
Based on a recently published review of this new edition in Booklife, it turned out well. The review concludes, “This updated edition closes with a new chapter, inspired by the era of the coronavirus, that centers on nonprofit leadership in a society-wide crisis. Crucially, Counts encourages his readers to take the long view, avoid overreacting, and demonstrate grace and understanding to stressed or even angry supporters…. His book offers hard-won insight and guidance to nonprofit workers and leaders committed to living lives of meaning–but not lives of needless stress.”
Please consider pre-ordering the book – either for yourself or some idealistic change-maker – and joining one of the webinars. We’ll make these virtual sessions participatory and fun. I am looking for volunteers to speak for 1-2 minutes about some technique they gleaned from the book that they applied with success. There will be giveaways. Expect as much laughter as earnest discussion about changing the world for the better.
If enough people pre-order the book and/or buy a copy on the publication date, it will shoot up Amazon’s best-seller list in its genre, which (if it happens) will have positive ripple effects for weeks.
I always love it when people write online reviews of the book or invite me to speak about it online or in an in-person event (which I will be resuming later this year). If you review the first edition now, it will transfer over to the new edition’s page on Amazon, so no need to wait.
The purpose of this project remains helping people who are trying to improve society while keeping their own lives in balance. I welcome your assistance, ideas, and encouragement as it heads into this exciting new phase.