A Victory March

By John Klein

"A Victory March" is not an autobiography like many others. It's a love story revealing the author's many life challenges, personally and professionally, from childhood to adult life and retirement. Described is an out of the ordinary life, which benefited from others who took time and made an effort to show grace in action.
The author's journey shares the survival of childhood cancer and weathering the storms of an unhappy foster home, punctuated by emotional abuse. A victory was realized because the author embraced the wisdom of good books and successful people. His story tells of which books influenced his life. Childhood heroes, those famous and others virtually unknown, are chronicled. Some are easily recognizable, while others were neighbors, teachers, and mentors in the workplace. John speaks with great affection for the "families of another name," how those families shaped his own confidence to become a father in his own right. It tells of the character qualities gained and the strengths needed for what would become a labor of love: being a caregiver to his own wife. The story is tough at times, yet – always – tenderness found its way along his pathway, one each of us sooner or later will experience one way or another.
As the story unfolds…as the victory march ensues, the reader is enriched and enlightened by stories told from the world of work, all which prepared Mr. Klein for his life's mission. He is fond of saying he is not a theologian or a therapist. For he is The Encourager! This book narrates the journey that made "encouragement" his heart's desire and mission of "helping others help themselves." Readers will learn of his many "lessons learned from the University of Life." In doing so, the author's "Top Ten Guiding Principles" are divulged.
Whatever the reader's station in life, "A Victory March" encourages people to live, learn and apply what they learned from their own life stories, to realize no one is a self-made person and that something good can come out of any bad situation or, difficult relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Klein
• Release date: Jan 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393557777

Book preview

PREFACE

Your Pathway invites practicality and simplicity.  Painstaking effort has been taken to broker reliable resources for this guide.  Application of theory and procedure is a daunting task.  A tug-of-war between what is rational and what is emotional is productive or destructive.  Most of us want balance in our lives at work and away from work.  These mutually exclusive goals require clear-thinking and trusting intuition.

I will leave it to those in the field of psychology to debate mental factors that influence our actions.  In recent years, much has been written about left brain vs. right brain (right brain being the hemisphere of human visualizing and imaging).  The author has had enough life experience to recognize paralysis by analysis...to beware of the metamorphosis of left brain...right brain...and no brain!  Years ago, noted psychologist Dr. James Dobson posed the question:  EMOTIONS:  Can You Trust Them?  That is a fair question for any kind of self-evaluation.  Therefore, careful attention is given to accentuate good judgment rather than unbridled emotion.

Are you tired of books with streams of quantitative analysis that reduce you to a human crossword puzzle?  Your Pathway believes excessive statistical analysis becomes meaningless without an element of enthusiasm.  Shouldn’t a resume be more than just getting a job?  Your Pathway coaches you through three freeform exercises and leads you through twenty-seven open-ended questions.  You will be encouraged to understand – not just process.  Visualizing and organizing information and experience – from the past and present – will foster optimism, rather than fatigue and false hope.

In the sporting world, coaches import and deploy statistics and analysis to learn what works and what does not.  This mental approach alone, however, doesn’t encourage athletes to become winners.  Knowledge without encouragement and inspiration is like both ends of a lifeline being tossed to a drowning victim.  Enlightenment and enrichment are strangers in the night without encouragement.  Therefore, predicting our possibilities in a timely and orderly way requires structure to best calibrate numbers – but not without encouragement! 

This handbook has the right measure of discipline, to fashion meaningful words and illustrations, which become Your Pathway to Personal Enrichment & Vocational Enlightenment.  Yours truly has a proven track record and knack for helping others help themselves.  He recognizes what stirs one to lack personal satisfaction and/or vocational fulfillment.  Not unlike the uneasy feeling of a lost child, the author invites you to a place of comfort where you are not alone...where uncertainty can be conquered. You are gently nudged to better understand your quest...to feel at home with your life and career (even experience a spiritual awakening).  Be empowered by timely suggestions, commentaries, quotations, and meditations. 

Enjoy the journey!

Your coach and encourager,

John J Klein

"In all your ways Acknowledge

Him, And He will direct your paths."

(Proverbs 3:5-6)

"John’s program gave me the chance to see the winner within

myself... [his] passion ‘to make a difference’ gave me the

inspiration to want to succeed."

-Mark Surber (Ohio)

Author’s  Note

Mark and many others have been kind.  Their private and public testimonies and sentiments touch me deeply.

They are winners.  Their success stems from their willingness to change...to grow...to make wise choices.  Their happiness exceeds any monetary compensation this book could possibly generate.

I am motivated by grace.  My mission has taught me that you cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening your own.  Like the old lamplighters of long ago, we all carry a torch that makes our nights a little brighter - wherever we choose to go.

DEDICATION

Throughout this guide there are two major themes:  forces effecting change and the need to satisfy personal enrichment with vocational enlightenment.  At the turn of the century, my government employer and I were worlds apart on matters of ethics.  Compromising fiscal integrity was not in my playbook.  Career-changing choices were inescapable.  It got ugly!  My job was eliminated - politics at its best and worse.  I felt like a winner in a world full of losers.  Litigating the mess was too costly.  I became an independent contractor, expediting freight across the United States and Canada. During this time on the road, I pursued a passion for intuitive