Driving Lessons for Life: Thoughts on Navigating Your Road to Personal Growth - Hardcover

Jim R. Jacobs is an author, professional speaker, counselor, life coach, and entrepreneur. As a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), he enjoys the opportunity to assist individuals, couples, families, and regional ecclesiastical leaders with social and emotional challenges. Jim specializes in treating those with depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, sexual addictions, and marital and family issues. He has always loved the opportunity to provide counseling and feels he has found his dream job. Jim loves his family more than anything and treasures the experience of being a father. He is also active in the local community, including recently playing his alto saxophone in a local community band. Additionally, he is the treasurer for the city cultural council, seeking to bring the arts more fully into his neighborhood and community. He is devout and active in his local church and regularly volunteers his time as a leader, teacher, and more. Jim graduated with a Bachelor s degree in Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado. After his graduation, he was immediately hired to coordinate programs for the disabled and traumatically brain injured in the Denver Metro Area. He also had opportunities to direct social service pro- grams for poor and needy children, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations. In relentless pursuit of his dream to help others, he set aside a great career to pursue graduate studies at Brigham Young University. Jim graduated with a Master s degree in Social Work (MSW) and was recruited by LDS Family Services where he has worked for the past fifteen years. His work has taken him across parts of the nation, working in Utah, Nevada, Florida, and Colorado. Most recently, he has had the pleasure of overseeing the work of all agency operations in the largest area of the central United States. This has given him the opportunity to work and train others in many locations, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Helena, St. Louis, and Omaha. He loves his work and the people he works with. He considers his associates to be his greatest friends and supporters. Jim is an avid reader who has loved self-improvement books since an unknown benefactor saw something in a fifteen- year-old server at the local pancake house and gave him a couple of large boxes of books. He is forever grateful she ex- pressed belief in this unknown kid and inspired him with great works on self-improvement, management, leadership, and personal growth. Jim also enjoys reading inspirational books, fiction, and just about anything. Jim loves genealogy research, playing his alto saxophone, refinishing old furniture, and the sport of fencing. He has dreamed about writing this book and the one to follow for a long time!

Driving Lessons for Life is not a driver s ed manual, although maybe it should be. It s actually a thoughtful and inspirational look at life lessons, using driving and car metaphors to illustrate its message. Jim R. Jacobs handles his subject with surprising deftness, taking a situation we might experience on the road and teaching us how that experience can benefit us in other areas of our lives. The reason why this book is miles ahead of most other self-help books is because the lessons stay with us rather than being easily forgotten. Jim achieves that because as he points out, most of us drive every day, so whenever we get behind the wheel, the lessons we learn in these pages will be reinforced by the act of driving. Every chapter of Driving Lessons for Life is filled with common sense. Because the stories illustrate insightful and helpful driving instructions, such as how to pick the right lane to be in, why not to give others the finger, and why you should remember that a car is just a car, this book would be a perfect gift to give any teenage driver when he or she receives a driver s license or permit. Trust me, it s lessons are far more memorable and just as important as any your teenager will learn in driver s ed class. But this book also teaches lessons that seasoned drivers will appreciate. As we read, we will find ourselves laughing with Jim and at ourselves. After all, we have all been lost in traffic, been frustrated when we are running late and a slow driver gets in our way, and been annoyed by a backseat driver. But we ll also appreciate how Jim turns around many of these situations to teach us life lessons yes, even when he gives us advice on why we should appreciate those backseat drivers. While some of these stories are very poignant, especially a couple that concern car accidents, they are also packed with humor. My favorite chapter had to be Learning to Laugh Through Life, in which Jim tells two hilarious stories about his great-aunt Frannie s carwash mishap and his grandmother s purchase of a special rearview mirror. Trust me, the laughs you ll get from these two stories alone are worth the price of this book. Sometimes while reading, you ll also pause to think about things you may have ceased wondering about or scarcely noticed have changed. For example, Jim ponders why we rarely see kids with lemonade stands anymore. Since reading this book, I have followed his good advice and bought lemonade twice when I have seen such stands, taking to heart his point that: the real joy comes when we encourage the person who is selling the lemonade. When we stop what we are doing and really get connected with people, we really start to experience something joyful. We feel connected, we feel moved, and we feel changed. When we really see the people behind the lemonade stands, and we reach out and encourage them, life takes on new pleasures and meaning. It is the people we need to see. We don t stop at lemonade stands because we need lemonade. We stop because we need each other. In the end, Driving Lessons for Life not only teaches the rules of the road, but the rules we need to live by. Most of us know these rules, but just as we can get lazy about using our blinker or checking our oil, so we can get lazy about living our life so it benefits others, and even forgetting to get the most mileage we can out of our own lives so we have the best joyride possible. Jim gives us unforgettable reminders we badly need. I encourage everyone to read Driving Lessons for Life. Trust me, not only will this book make you a safer and more knowledgeable driver, but you ll find a lot more joy in life s journey. Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and award-winning author of Arthur s Legacy --Tyler Tichelaar

Driving Lessons teaches you what you need to know to navigate all the roads of life. It is a perfect gift for the coffee table, the t --Susan Friedmann, author Riches in Niches

Driving Lessons teaches you what you need to know to navigate all the roads of life. It is a perfect gift for the coffee table, the toilet, listening to on your commute or bus ride, or giving as gifts to others. Get ready for an exciting drive. --Patrick Snow, author Creating Your Own Destiny

Driving Lessons For Life dispenses concrete, practical advice on how to make the most of your life in a fun and refreshing way. As an added bonus to revisiting familiar concepts, you may well improve your driving skills. --Susan Friedmann, author Riches in Niches