Driving Lessons For Life 2: On the Road Again to Better Living, Loving, and Leading

By Jim R. Jacobs and Teri Karjala

Author and driver Jim R Jacobs got us out on the road with Driving Lessons for Life: Thoughts on Navigating Your Road to Personal Growth. We learned to head out with greater intention, conviction, and a determination to become better. We learned how to improve ourselves and our relationships. It was a fun and refreshing ride to better living! The common experiences of car drivers became a touchpoint for not only learning, but remembering powerful growth lessons. We had fun changing lanes, we dodged some potholes, and we had powerful new insights.

Filled with even more great car and driving metaphors, stories and driving experiences, this second installment of Driving Lessons for Life will set your personal GPS to better ways to love, live, and lead. Jim expands our understanding of living with greater intention. You will learn more about living with authenticity and courage. You will acquire even more tools for achieving brave personal growth, strengthening your best relationships, and living with more love. Best of all, you will feel like you are taking a joy ride when driving experiences remind you of what you learned here.

Again, Jim masterfully weaves a powerful life lesson into each driving lesson. Every page, transforms these everyday and relatable experiences on the roads of life into powerful reminders of the gems in this book. While you may learn something about driving, you will definitely learn poignant and powerful lessons about better living, loving, and leading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667806792

Book preview

Foreword

It feels like forever ago when our paths crossed. Jim was a fellow counselor I had the honor of meeting through a mutual acquaintance. Over the years, I have watched Jim transform people’s lives by the work he has dedicated himself to. His passion to help others is undeniable as he continues to stretch himself to find new ways to be a contributor to his family, his church, his clients, and his community through his incredible gifts as an author, counselor, and speaker.

Jim’s first book, Driving Lessons for Life, was an absolutely brilliant concept filled with stories and lessons on how to get the most out of life. It set us on the road to better living! And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Jim surprises us with Driving Lessons for Life 2, and needless to say, I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s time to get back on the road again with Jim as our driving instructor for better living, loving, and leading.

Life is a journey, and that journey is different for everyone. It is often filled with incredible hopes, dreams turned into reality, finding faith over fear, tenacity to overcome diversity, a little bit of grit, and a whole lot of memories to be passed down for decades to come. Life is the journey we make of it. We head down the roads of life we choose.

Yet, there comes a time when we can no longer take a backseat but are called to step fully into our purpose, passion, and power to become the driver of our own reality. Jim skillfully teaches us how to get in the driver’s seat and make movement happen. His artful lessons inspire us to step on the gas and head down the roads of life with greater direction. You will find in this book enough gold nuggets to leave you feeling you have driven right to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Quite frankly, maybe you have!

Throughout these chapters, Jim provides insightful and powerful stories that provoke you to think, reflect, and maybe even laugh out loud as you see yourself in similar situations. Jim does an extraordinary job of capturing the essence of the driving experience, and he provides you with the insights to navigate beyond, around, and through all the bumps, detours, and unexpected curves that life takes you on. In short, as he promised, the driving lesson becomes a life lesson.

Life is to be reveled in. Jim captures the essence of life’s lessons in this powerful book. Each chapter takes you on a journey of self-discovery in a fun, innovative way. You will never look at driving the same. You will never look at living the same. Jim provides a powerful anchor, grounding us in life’s lessons and the responsibility, freedom, and excitement of getting back on the road again.

Caution: Personal growth lies ahead.

Teri

Teri Karjala is a Transformational Life Strategist, the founder of Creative Counseling Center, and creator of her top 100 Podcast, Talking with Teri. She is the best-selling author of Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life, foreword by Jack Canfield. She is also a Premier Success Coach with eWomen Network and Forbes. She has been a featured guest on many television, podcast, and radio shows, including Hay House. As a thought leader in female empowerment and entrepreneurship, Teri has been hired by professionals and entrepreneurs to ignite the magic within. She has more than twenty years of counseling experience helping people overcome unconscious blocks and transform their lives.

For more information, visit: www.TalkingWithTeri.com.

"We will never end distracted driving

until we end distracted living."

Introduction

Getting Back on the Road Again

The average person spends almost twenty-five hours a week behind the wheel of a car. For most individuals and families, having a car is essential. More and more families have cars—and more than one! It is so common today for young people to find a way to get a car sooner and sooner. We have places to go, roads to traverse, and destinations to discover. We have available to us more things to do than any generation before, and we need our cars to get there. It is not uncommon for families to be planning with the question: When do we need to leave again?

We have moved past the days of the GPS on the dashboard to Google Maps and Waze to help us decide where to go and when to leave. We can Yelp a destination, click on a link, and get turn-by-turn directions to just about anywhere we want to go. With the right tap, we can be told when to leave and have an alarm remind us. We can find just about anything and figure out how to get there with little or no brain-power. The smartphone has made us even more eager to get out on the road to get to some place. We just click and trust that not only will our phone get us there, but it will select the fastest route, skip tolls (if we want it to), and give us a surprisingly accurate ETA. With new and incredible technology, our phones and cars become one, and we can travel with less and less of just us and more and more of whatever our heart desires. Spotify and iTunes are now on the dashboard with all the latest playlists. We can get the latest and greatest podcasts, listen to news programs, and have hands-free conversations with friends. For less than ten dollars a month, our Sirius XM can connect us to hundreds of channels of any type of listening our ears may crave. It is all quite amazing!

This is an incredible time to be alive and to be in a car! However, I know there can be a downside to all of this great technology and car time. With so much offered by smart cars and smartphones, we are changing, but not always in good ways. Road rage is still a major, if not increasing issue. Distracted driving is more prevalent than ever. We cannot be sure when we hear ads for so-called driver-less cars if we are talking about a Tesla or the person who just swerved into our lane because they were staring at their phone instead of the road. People are not paying attention and are more reckless than ever. We are using our blinkers less and less and putting the pedal to the metal in dangerous ways. Being on the road is often frightening these days—even for a careful driver.

Interestingly, so much of life and living today parallels what is happening in our cars and on the road. We are more thoughtless about what we are doing, speeding through workdays, family time, and more. We are less considerate of others and we see evidence of rage, blame, and anger increasing almost everywhere we go. We are so surrounded by distractions (many of them wonderful) that we have little time to ponder, reflect, converse, and recharge. We are living distracted lives. Everywhere we go, we see people staring at their phones instead of into the eyes of their loved ones. Digital interactions have replaced personal interactions, and that reality is not without consequence. We are losing the personal touch, personal conversations, personal connection, and the personal fulfillment that comes from really living our lives. In many ways, we are more connected and less connected at the same time.

Across the world, anxiety and depression rates are skyrocketing. We read about another tragic shooting or suicide almost every day, and angry expressions and profanity lace our common daily interactions. We are the loneliest, most addicted, most depressed, and most blaming generation of people that has ever lived. We lament high crime rates, crooked politicians, and fractured family relationships. We are increasingly distrustful of government, churches, and each other. We are bombarded by negativity at just about every turn. And it is taking a toll on us all! A very heavy toll.

My first book, Driving Lessons for Life: Thoughts on Navigating Your Road to Personal Growth, started the conversation on using our drive time to improve our lives and relationships and really develop our potential. An experience on the road became a driving lesson for life. Readers told me they thought of the book’s life lessons every time they encountered the on-the-road experience. They slowed down, let people in, and grew to be better individuals, spouses, family members, and leaders. They really found themselves traveling toward greater happiness and peace. They not only sought to end distracted driving, but they took a pledge to end distracted living. They reached new destinations of happier living and loving. It was a fun and refreshing ride.

Well, the conversation needs to continue! We need to get back on the road and head to newer and better places. I know you need this! We need more help to hit the brakes and really look at what we are doing and where we are headed in life. We need to make sure our personal GPS is set on an accurate destination—one we really want to get to—and chart our course. We need more help to jump off the expensive tollways of anger, rage, blame, distraction, addiction, and more. We need to get back on the freeways of life, full of joy, connection, closeness, communication, and genuine happiness. We need to replace more stressed-out, rush-hour commutes in our lives with more peaceful joyrides. We have some work to do, but we can get there together!

Since Driving Lessons for Life hit the road, I have seen even more how much we need to take action, switch lanes, and even change direction! With more than two decades of experience helping others to remove roadblocks, get over personal speedbumps, and traverse around destructive potholes, I have some idea of what is needed to help us all get back on the road to better living, loving, and leading. That is what Driving Lessons for Life 2 is all about! We need to get on the road again and make sure it is the best road.

Driving Lessons for Life 2 will contain even more great lessons learned on the road of life. You will find similar and memorable content about really choosing to navigate your own direction and your own destiny. As you may recall from the first book, the on-the-road lesson will be connected to a real-life and real-time lesson. The lesson will lock into your mind and your heart so you will recall it each time you drive the drive! Reading this book will hopefully be a fun and refreshing way to better drive your own life and future!

Driving Lessons for Life 2 also introduces Car Conversations. I have so many memories of essential conversations about life, love, living, and leading happening in the car. Hopefully, you have some of your own memories of chatting on a road trip, sharing a problem late at night in a parking lot with a friend, or having other essential conversations on the road of life. We need more of this! We need to turn down the Blaupunkt and really talk to each other. These chapters explore powerful topics that come up while on the road and inspire us to really connect. Hopefully, they will inspire you to turn down the noise and turn up the heart-to-hearts when you head out on the road. Car Conversations can be transformational when we make the time and space for them to happen. Let’s get talking and listening more! Let’s really tune in and connect!

Once again, turn on that personal GPS. Set your course for greater connection, closeness, and clarity. Turn on the ignition of optimism, release the brakes of self-doubt, and step on the gas pedal of hope. Let’s get on the road again to better loving, living, and leading!

"Keep going. Step on the gas. Take

the challenge head-on with all of

your strength and energy."

Chapter 1

Just Keep Driving

When I was sixteen years old and driving my very first car, I had a terrifying experience with a giant puddle of water—or rather, I thought it was a puddle. I was heading to an appointment and had missed my turn. I quickly turned into a large parking lot to turn around and get back on track. It had been raining, so it was not odd to me to see the empty parking lot covered with what looked like a thin layer of water. Imagine my horror when I quickly discovered it was not just a little bit of water on a flat parking lot.

It is almost impossible in some circumstances to judge the depth of water, but I could tell by the sudden descent of my car’s front end that I had just driven into a very large hole. I thought I might discover the truth behind the old movie Journey to the Center of the Earth because it felt like I was heading there. I was terrified!

Because I was a new, inexperienced driver with no idea how to handle a situation like this, I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I slammed the accelerator down. A giant wave of water washed over the car, but the car lurched forward, upward, and right out of the puddle.

If you showed me an instant replay, I would not have been surprised to see a large hand lifting me out of the puddle. It felt almost magical and miraculous how quickly I lifted out of the hole. On the other side, I felt my heart racing with the adrenaline rush. Yet I appeared to be completely unharmed, and my car was fine after its sudden baptism by immersion. I did what any sixteen-year-old would do—I drove on.

Life is often like this. We cannot possibly know everything about the journey in front of us. We will face obstacles we could not possibly imagine and for which we could not possibly prepare. We will likely encounter unseen pits masked by cool, calm waters we could find ourselves falling into as we travel on. However, we may take courage in my response. Keep going. Step on the gas. Take the challenge head-on with all of your strength and energy. Sometimes you just need to plow forward with all your might to make it through. Sometimes we have to stop and strengthen ourselves before moving on, but many problems are best handled by pushing on and through to the other side. When life hands you such an unexpected challenge, push on through it!

"Please install a service required light

on your personal dashboard."

Chapter 2

Service Required

I cannot speak for everyone, but I am not particularly pleased when one of those indicator lights starts to light up my car dashboard. Normally, these lights communicate something is wrong with the vehicle, which means I will be reaching into my wallet soon. I don’t find that the lights have ever brought me a feeling of satisfaction, peace, or harmony. Usually, they stress me out. Then, I wonder whether the light is a mistake, some error in the onboard computer. I ignore it for some time, hoping it will just go off. When it occasionally does, I somehow feel satisfaction in not having to do anything. More often, it continues to flash at me, creating in me waves of anxiety about what might be wrong with my car. While the lights are helpful for maintaining my car and keeping me moving, I do not like the feeling I get when they start to blink. However, one light on the dashboard sends a very helpful life message: Service Required.

If I could install an indicator light on the dashboard of my life, I would choose the Service Required light. This message is powerful and key to living the most productive and happy life. Service is truly essential. When we reach out in loving kindness to others, not only does the world become better, but we grow too. Service adds substance to each of our daily interactions. Hearts are lifted, souls are strengthened, and hope is instilled. When we, in generous service, reach out to someone, we feel a sense of confidence, assurance, and connection. Nothing is more powerful than charitable service to another in need.

Some of my greatest

Reviews for Driving Lessons For Life 2

[Purity Bowen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is packed full of entertaining, insightful, thought-provoking, and potentially life changing stories. Each chapter is short, which I really appreciate as a working mom of three small children! I can read a chapter in just a few minutes between other activities. Every time I read it, it helps me to feel like I can be a better person, while bringing a smile to my face. Great book, I highly recommend it!

[Tyler Tichelaar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jim Jacobs’ Driving Lessons for Life 2 is a follow-up to his first book that used driving lessons as metaphors for ways to improve our lives. The ride continues in this sequel, which contains fifty short essays on how we can all improve our lives by applying the lessons we learn on the road to our daily situations.

Jim notes that the average person spends nearly twenty-five hours per week in the car. Rather than have this be dead or mindless time, Jim advocates “using our drive time to improve our lives and relationships and really develop our potential.” For him, an experience on the road can become a “driving lesson for life.”

The book is chockful of advice to get us all to think about the various aspects of our lives. I believe it will be enjoyed by everyone from beginning to seasoned drivers, and Jim addresses drivers of every caliber. For example, to the new drivers, Jim offers, “please don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Be afraid of never getting to the places you want to go. Everyone makes mistakes. It is what you do with them that counts.”

The essays are full of fun and practical advice mixed with some thoughtful opinions. A few of the titles include: “A Car in the Summer Is Hot; People Are Not,” where Jim addresses the problems with how we objectify people; “Watching Out for Blind Spots,” which asks us to address blind spots in our own lives; and “What Roads Are You Heading Down?” to address various life choices we might make.

The car metaphors are profuse throughout, but each one works, often in a surprising, yet thoughtful way. Everything driving-related makes an appearance here from merging—worthy of a four-part series of essays—to roundabouts, blinkers, speeding, license plates, getting lost, and cruise control. One of my favorite focuses is on “Car Conversations.” Jim notes that we often can have incredible and meaningful conversations in the car. He strongly advocates that we use our time in the car with loved ones to enhance our relationships by simply talking to each other and seeing time in the car as an opportunity to teach our children.

One of my favorite pieces of advice in this book was related to when Jim talks about bumper stickers that ask, “How am I driving?” He uses this commonly seen feature to discuss how we all need to learn to be open to feedback. He ends by suggesting, “Let’s all get some bumper stickers for our lives that say, ‘How am I driving?’ and paste them on our backs. Then, with a grateful attitude, let’s invite people to give us feedback on our performance. When we apply the thoughts that fit, we will get ourselves farther down the road of life. We will navigate more clearly.”

Another great story includes advice from Jim’s stepdad, who helped teach him to drive. His stepdad warned Jim when approaching a traffic light, ““If it is green now, it may be red by the time you get there.” This advice taught Jim that he needs to plan ahead in life by looking down the road and preparing for what he might find there.

I also loved the metaphor on alignment. Jim states, “Most difficulties for individuals come when behavior and belief are not in alignment. In short, when you believe one way but act another, you are out of alignment. And being out of alignment can be a major cause of depression, anger, anxiety, and a host of other emotional and relationship problems. Alignment between belief and behavior is very important.” After exploring ways we fall out of alignment in our lives, Jim offers us three simple steps to get realigned.

Nor does Jim shy away from difficult topics. He opposes modern advice that often says to eliminate the toxic or negative people from your life. He asks us instead to look at such people with compassion, stating, “it is possible that your life is filled with people who are just trying their best and need to be loved. I am convinced that this world needs more people who can take what is negative and turn it around into something positive. At least that is my goal.” As he says in a later essay on merging, “Life is so much better for all of us when we let people in.”

Jim also discusses a license plate he saw that asks, “Izzitme?” After sharing the license plate owner’s reasons for the plate, Jim discusses how we can use this question to ask ourselves “Is it me?” and assume that if there is a problem, we are at least partly responsible, and taking responsibility can lead to healing.

Jim knows that our real life road trip never truly ends. We have to strive continually to follow the rules of the road and monitor our driving. Driving Lessons for Life 2 is a helpful and fun reminder of many aspects of living and driving that we can all benefit from. As Jim states in the book’s conclusion, “You have to persist in the direction you want to go and never let the goal out of sight. There are no rest stops on the road to a better and more fulfilling life. Plus, the road will always be under construction. There are more hills to climb, potholes to dodge, and things to experience. In so many ways, it is exciting that this particular journey never ends.”

If you want to make your journey a little smoother, I suggest you test-drive this book.