You are on fire. The protected life you have been living until now is up in flames. Surviving nearly hundred percent, third degree burns is almost impossible. Oh, Yes. You are just nine years old. What do you want your mother to say to you? That it was not your fault?
That is not what John O’Leary’s mother said to him, when he was looking at life that he had never dreamed or thought of. She asked him to fight. Fight with everything he had, if he wanted to live. Feeling entitled to a good life and all the good things in life is the single most behavioral aspect that can bring you down. If you think you are entitled to life without problems and don’t get them, you feel cheated. You feel you don’t deserve what is happening to you. This loss of control and feeling cheated can take you on a path where fighting is futile.
John O’Leary shares his expertise on overcoming adversity and how to live inspired with more than 50,000 people at more than 120 live events each year around the world. In 2006, he was inducted into the Energizer “Keep Going” Hall of Fame. He was selected as Saint Louis University young alumni of the year in 2008, was voted “Speaker of the Year” for Vistage International, and was recently chosen as one of the Top Ten “Most Interesting People” in Saint Louis, Missouri.
On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life
Author: John O’Leary
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: North Star Way (March 15, 2016)
ISBN: 1501117726, 978-1501117725
Most people face one or more life-changing events in their life. O’Leary calls them inflection points. Events that can make or break you. Based on what you chose, you can lead a life of passion or a life of desolation. No matter what reasons that lead to the inflection point are, you have a choice. A choice to be an active participant in your destiny or be the passive recipient of accepting what is offered to you. Whatever you choose, you don’t get to blame others for your life. John O’Leary chose to live and to fight.
Most of us when asked if we would like to go back and change that all important trigger that made circumstances difficult and changed our life, we would readily accept that opportunity. But not John. Ask John and he will tell you that although the event made his life difficult, it made him what he is today and that he would not have it any other way. That is, as he says, living a radically inspired life.
But On Fire is not just about how the author came out of these challenging circumstances and how he handled things. It is also about how he could not have achieved what he did without the people who supported him and prodded him on. From Jack Buck who visited him almost daily for five months in his hospital to the janitor who helped him take his first steps and taught him to walk again, O’Leary thanks everyone who made him what he is today and the life he is living.
O’Leary’s conversational style of writing will make you laugh with him as he shares his childhood memories before the accident and he will make you cry with his struggles and lifelong connections he made on his road to recovery. Every now and then comes a real-life story that has the potential to inspire. Potential to give life-lessons that are not churned out by a Guru. On Fire is one such book that promises to entertain as well as inspire its readers.