I Shall Raise Thee Up and my case study of Michael Holmes

Michael's new book

Michael Holmes offered to send me a free copy of his book I Shall Raise Thee Up toward the end of 2009. I had been impressed with his blog, so I jumped at the offer.

Since then, he and I have chatted briefly through Twitter and blog comments (he’s often over here too), and I’ve enjoyed getting to know him more.

Michael is Christian speaker, writer, and now author focused on leadership, business, and marketing. Whew – his book is about personal success from a Christian perspective.

I’d like to use this post to share my thoughts and notes on the book. In some areas, Michael did a fantastic job. In others, not so fantastic. I think you and I can apply some lessons from this to help serve others, even if we’re not writing or promoting a book.

I liked that Michael gave me a free copy

Michael’s blog attracted me in the first place because it offered practical, biblical tactics for marketing. That’s refreshing. Michael feels like he’s going for a “Seth Godin for Christians” strategy. I’m a Seth fan and a Christian, so naturally that jived.

The general idea here is to create amazing products and let their amazingness market themselves. Once everyone’s talking, the conversion takes care of itself, whether in pesos or lost souls.

I appreciated Michael’s take on this. And when he offered free review copies of his book, I wanted to support his effort since he seemed to actually be doing what he was teaching.

Lesson: Create an amazing offer, an offer others will love supporting. What do others love supporting about you?

I didn’t like the titles

To get a feel for it, here are the chapter titles:

  • Greatness
  • Isolation
  • Desire
  • Character
  • The Law of Vision
  • The Law of the Extra Mile
  • The Law of Persistence
  • The Law of Stewardship
  • The Law of Service
  • Greatness Revisited

Note to authors who want me to love their books: titles matter to me like crazy. I do judge a book (and a chapter and a section) by its cover.

The subtitle, Ancient Principles for Lasting Success, sounded like a better (though still not great) title.

I don’t always follow my own advice, and that’s a shame. But if you want to grab me, you need captivating titles (and headings) that both describe the content and make me a compelling promise. I’m picky like that – but more importantly, I think others are too, even if they don’t notice it.

Lesson: First impressions matter. Help others by describing benefits.

I liked the practical application

I loved it actually.

Toward the beginning, Michael talks about how to get the most out of his book. He says to apply the lessons and teach them to others. Apply and teach – that could have  been me thinking those exact thoughts. He had me at that point – I wanted to know more.

Also, at the end of each section, he includes group discussion questions. I wish everyone did this. Even including them at the back of the book would be cool.

I don’t read non-fiction straight through. I jump around, re-reading various sections. I read the discussion questions for each chapter first, wrote them down, and covered the chapter with the questions in mind. This seemed to help me keep the chapter in perspective.

Michael did a good job creating that framework with his questions.

Lesson: Get your followers to actually do something – anything. They’ll remember better.

I didn’t like that I couldn’t find the hook

The book was an awkward read for me actually. At times, the repetitiveness bored me. Let’s get on with it, I thought. The book wasn’t repeating itself – it was repeating other success books.

Also, while the book certainly covered a number of crucial areas for success, I struggled to find a unique, central theme. If someone asked me why they should read this book instead of another book on the same topic, I’m not sure I could give a succinct response.

I think part of this was a result of trying to cover too much in one book. It’s only about 130 pages of reading. Tackling a topic like personal success in that space might have been too ambitious.

This also might be a personal preference. I tend to thrive on tactics, and it’s almost impossible to cover that much landscape adequately and stay practical at the same time. As a result, the book felt choppy.

Without a unique, driving theme, I felt lost at times. I Shall Raise Thee Up needed more consistency to hold it all together.

Lesson: There’s nothing new under the sun. Reminding is what it’s all about. But reminders have to be consistent.

I liked the sound bites

For me, the book was more about hidden gems. It was more about finding bits and pieces that grabbed me. I found many sections that resonated – I kept thinking, “Yeah, that’s a great point.” And I wrote them down.

These stand alone sections were fantastic because I was able to spring off them into my own thoughts.

Can you answer some of your toughest questions (or at least your most frequently asked questions) in a sentence or two and in a way that is memorable? That’s what these sound bites did. They might have been disjointed (see above), but they did provoke my thoughts.

Lesson: Be concise. And have concise answers ready.

And my biggest criticism of all..

I Shall Raise Thee Up is self-oriented.

Of course, that was the purpose of the book – personal success. It didn’t pretend to teach how to create success in others. Still, I wonder because for me, personal success is directly tied to creating success in others.

To be fair, I appreciated the group discussion questions at the end of each chapter as I said. They did promote some level of group interaction. And self-orientedness is my criticism of almost all writing (including this post) – I can’t blame Michael too much here.

From a learning perspective, the reading process taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t for writers. I think it’s beneficial to study both the success and shortcomings of others to build a well-rounded understanding of anything.

Overall, I Shall Raise Thee Up was a good book, but I’m not sure it stands out from the many other Christian, success books on the shelves. As Seth Godin likes to say, “Good is the opposite of remarkable.” That’s why remarkableness is so elusive.

Serving Suggestions:

(1) I’d check out Michael’s blog first. If you enjoy what you read there, you might considering checking out the book as well. I should say, though, the book is focused more on personal success than on marketing and business as the blog is.

(2) Michael’s a great guy – I’d definitely encourage you to hit him up on twitter or shoot him an email to say hey.

(3) Finally, how do you learn from others? Do you just copy success? Why not also look at how you could improve on what others do? If you have lessons you’ve learned this way, feel free to share them in the comments.