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Book Review by David Hurley
Johnny Wimbrey's first book, "From The Hood To Doing Good " is a slim volume with well spaced lines and a nice comfortable typeface. In fact, it is so slim it won't stop a door from swinging shut (I just tried it), but it does swing a punch hard enough to knock you through your mental barriers to success! The subtitle, "From Adversity to Prosperity Through the Choices You Make" really says it all - in the best sense of that phrase.
The key message of the book is that YOU must take responsibility for the way you think and act, and think and act in ways that will bring about great positive change in your life.
Wimbrey gives you his tried and tested blueprint for achieving that change.
The book is liberally sprinkled with inspirational quotations, many from the Bible, testifying to Wimbrey's Christian faith, but other quotations draw on other traditions such as this one
from the Buddha, which returns to the theme of personal responsibility:
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."
It is therefore very important we change the way we think and speak, that we seek out the positive in negative situations, avoid negative influences, watch out that your friends are not really
the foes of your goals, watch out especially for your inner foe - the voice that tells you you can't; above all you must take control and move on:
"Every individual holds the key to the God-given ability to consciously decide whether to master a situation or be mastered by it."
The point of it all is that Johnny Wimbrey is his own best witness and testimony to the words he preaches. Johnny Wimbrey's beginnings remind me of that line from a song by The Who,
"I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth." Wimbrey describes how, according to usual social expectations, he was a very unlikely candidate for success:
"Society and statistics tell us that because I'm biracial, was born in the projects, lived on welfare, had an alcoholic for a father, and came from a single-parent home that I supposedly
will never have any control of what ultimately determine my future."
But, and this is one of Johnny Wimbrey's key teachings, you don't have to let another person's opinion of you become your reality. The source of this insight is acknowledged to be
Les Brown, one of Johnny Wimbrey's mentors and the writer of the Forward to this book.
The message will be familiar to anybody who has seen Johnny Wimbrey at Success University gatherings, watched him on t.v. or DVD, or listened to his CDs. But what singles Johnny
Wimbrey out is his style of delivery. From The Hood To Doing Good gives you some of the flavour, but you really need to see him in action to appreciate what he is about.
His real strength is rooted in his Biblical heritage - insights from the Bible flow into and invigorate an already lively delivery. For example, Johnny Wimbrey does not say that you should
have a vision and write it down, he draws on the Prophecy of Habakkuk and the Book of Proverbs when he declares:
"I believe it is paramount to write your vision and make it plain, because where there is no vision, people perish."
Those words are powerful not only because of their strong biblical overtones, but also because they were forged in the fiery furnace of experience, in an environment where guns were
plentiful and vision scarce.
While From The Hood To Doing Good will give you a flavour of the essential Johnny Wimbrey, he is at his best not on paper but on the podium where he can give full voice to the
passion and the testimony that drives the message behind the Johnny Wimbrey success story.
Johnny Wimbrey's message is that if he can succeed so can you. His mission is to inspire the masses to believe in themselves and to achieve greatness in their lives too.
Though the book be slim, the message is not lost.
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