Aspire! Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words

By Kevin Hall

Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton
On 7/18/2009

Book Wise Publishing, 2009 Hardcover:
243 pages
ISBN-10: 0-06196-454-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-06196-454-1 Price: $24.95

I must admit that I probably would not have heard of Kevin Hall or his book Aspire! if it weren’t for the fact that his sister-in-law works with me. I’m not usually one for “Self Help” books and talks. Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, The Power of You, Wake Up to a Happier You, and the related books and “Motivational seminars” just don’t do it for me. To me these books/seminars are usually condescending at best, and at their worst are a corrupt way for some author/speaker to get rich off of selling books and tickets to a bunch of poor, gullible, folks who think that their whole life will change by reading this one book or attending this one seminar. But an important friend asked me to read this book and give it a chance thinking that it might help in my life and profession (Job Coach) so I have.

If you are like me and had never heard of Kevin Hall before reading this review you are still probably familiar with one of his works, especially if you are from Utah. The slogan for the 2002 Winter Olympics, “Light the Fire Within,” was created by Kevin Hall. This Olympic slogan shows his same fascination for the potential power and effect that words can have on a person that is found in the book Aspire! According to the introduction to the book which was written by Stephen Covey:

"Aspire! Will help you understand that words contain an inherent power, a force capable of lighting one's paths and hoped-for horizons. Used correctly and positively, words are the first building blocks for success and inner peace; they provide the vision and focus that show the way to growth and contribution. Used incorrectly and negatively, they are capable of undermining even the best of intentions. This is true in business, in personal relationships, and every other walk of life…Words lead and words impede. Words heal and words kill. By truly understanding what words mean in their purest sense, we are able to unlock their importance and divine value and put ourselves in position to develop a new leadership vocabulary that looks up, not down, and inspires, motivates, uplifts, excites, and propels. When words are used properly, they sing out to the human heart."

That’s a lot to promise from one little book that is just under 250 pages long. Does Hall succeed? Will the reader of this book come away with new purpose and power? Reactions, of course, will vary, but I think that fans of “self help books,” of Stephen Covey, Franklin planners, “Motivational Speakers” and the like will really love this book. For me, I found much of it to be interesting and helpful, I even found some things in it that I have been able to use at work, but I also had issues with the book and feel that it has several flaws. I will go into this further in the review. First I want to give a brief description of the book's contents.

Aspire! is composed of eleven chapters with each chapter being based around a single word. Some of the words discussed include, “Pathfinder,” “Namaste”, "Passion,” “Sapere Verde,” “Coach,” and “Integrity.” The order of the chapters is designed to take you on “Kevin’s personal journey of discovery,” (viii). The layout of the chapters also has significance in that,“(t)he first five chapters deal with personal development... the middle chapter sits by itself... its theme is central to the whole book.... The last five chapters are about leading others.” (x)

The chapters generally start with a story, many of them Hall’s personal experiences, or the experiences of someone he has met, that introduces the “word” to be investigated. Then he offers his insights and quotes from and shares the stories of others with like views. Many of the chapters then have a section called “Afternoons with Arthur.” “Aspire! is dedicated to Professor Arthur Watkins, whom Hall calls “the undisputed Master of Words.” Near the beginning of the book Hall shares the story of how he met retired linguist and Professor Arthur Watkins through a mutual friend. After meeting, the two spent many afternoons together at Arthur’s rest home discussing their love for words and exploring their origin, meaning, and potential to affect the human soul. The “Afternoons with Arthur” sections recount some of their more memorable visits. Next comes a little more detail about the discussed word. All of the chapters then end with a “Journal” page that contains thoughts and questions that are meant to stimulate the recording of lessons that the reader has learned from the chapter in their journal. There is also a space for the reader to write the name of a person they know, a mentor, teacher or friend who exemplifies the word that was just studied. Hall wants no passive readers, he expects you to take an active part in what you are reading, he wants the book to become an experience.

I had two favorite chapters in Aspire! I really liked Chapter 3 which is about the word “Namaste,” which is a Sanskrit word that according to Hall means, “I Salute the God within you, I salute your God given gifts.” (p. 43) I enjoyed this chapter because of its emphasis on serving and recognizing the inherent worth in others. I also really liked Chapter 11 on “Integrity,” largely because in it Hall tells the story of his old Scout Master, a man named Ray Freeman. Hall shares the stories of many famous people that he has met and interacted with (something I will discuss further in this review), but Ray Freeman is one of the few “ordinary” people discussed in Aspire! His story is one of the real gems in this book. No one but his scouts and neighbors would have heard of Freeman without this book, and he was my favorite person in Aspire! to read about. He is the type of quiet “everyday” hero that has never sought the spotlight but for years had made the lives of all around him better. I learned the greatest lessons in Aspire! from reading about Freeman.

Now for my problems with Aspire! One thing that really annoyed me about this book was that Hall quoted a number of authors and famous persons to support his ideas and views but he provides no citations or bibliography. He quotes or shares the stories of a number of people, including William Wordsworth, Viktor Frankel, Dr. Gerald Bell, Albert Einstein, William Danforth, Og Mandino, and many others. He occasionally gives a book name in his text, for example, “Og Mandino in The Greatest Salesman in the World said…,” or “In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell writes…” but often he just throws out a name with a story or quote and leaves it at that. I realize that some may say that in a book of this type, footnotes, endnotes and citations would just bog it down and would not be appreciated by the target audience. I realize that many of the stories that he shares of people who are or were recently living are people who he has met, worked with, and in some cases is good friends with, and some may say that since he is often relating personal experience, this negates the need for quote and story citations. Be all this as it may, I like to be able to look things up, to be able to go back to the source and to find context when someone else’s opinions are used as evidence to support a point. I think that many would agree. Another related problem is that Aspire! has no index, so if you find a story or a quote that you like and want to remember it or share it with someone you’d better have a good memory or have a handy dandy note book nearby while you are reading.

The biggest problem for me however was the overall feel I got from the book. One of the words Hall discusses is “Sincere.” To me this was ironic because I felt a certain lack of sincerity in Aspire! I stress again, “Self Help” books are not my usual genre Those who enjoy such books will probably not react to it as I did. If you like The Seven Habits and other such books, I think that you will like this book, but for me it contained a “Better than thou” sort of attitude. I was really put off by what I felt was Hall’s constant name dropping. Many of the stories and experiences in the book seemed to start with, “Let me tell you about the time I met some famous star, speaker, or athlete, etc.” He also spent too much time for me going on about his fantastic life. It seemed like he was putting himself, his success, and his money on display, “The time I went on the Tour-de-France...,” “When I was in Vienna...," “My trip to Chicago to hang out with Gene Siskel...,” and other little constant references to his wealth, his home, etc. My feelings in this regard are perhaps best summed up by a quote from Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician, counselor, and author whose writings focus on serving and recognizing the strength in others. She said:

"Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength.... People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness.... Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken.... Fixing is a form of judgment. All judgment creates distance, a disconnection, an experience of difference. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresa's basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy." (from Noetic Sciences Review, Spring 1996, retrieved from www.rachelremen.com/service.html)

That describes the feeling that I often had as I was reading Aspire! I felt an “inequality” as I read the book. I felt like Hall thought that his readers were broken and that he was trying to “fix” me. The attitude that I sensed from Hall was that he is this rich, successful, knowledgeable person who is condescending to come down and impart of his wisdom upon the unwashed masses.

Again I stress that this was my reaction. I would encourage others to read it for themselves and see what they can learn from “Aspire! Read it and take advantage of Hall’s extensive research into the origin and power of words. I have my reservations with the book, but it did, in many ways, fulfill Covey’s introductory promise and demonstrate the “inherent power” of words.

As of the writing this review (July 2009) Aspire! is only available through Kevin Hall’s website powerofwords.net, where it is listed at $24.95. No ISBN is listed on the book or on the website. It is being published by Book Wise Publishing which was founded by Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box. Underneath the publishing information it states that this is a “Special Limited Edition Printing.” I googled the book’s title to see if there was an ISBN listed for it somewhere. I found a link to the Harper Collnis website. It looks like they will be publishing an edition of Aspire! in December of 2009 under their William Morrow imprint. The price is listed at $24.00, the ISBN’s that they give are ISBN: 9780061964541; ISBN10: 0061964549.


Copyright 2009