I just finished reading C.C. Chapman’s latest book, Amazing Things Will Happen, and I feel as if the book was not only meant for someone like me, but it seemingly chronicled a lot of what I went through to get to where I am today.
Sure, my life story doesn’t read exactly the same as C.C.’s does (it’d be very creepy if it did), but things like working for college radio and being the guy who was able to congregate with a variety of “cliques” in high school resonated with me very deeply. Even my love for the stage mirrors C.C.’s.
Amazing Things Will Happen doesn’t read like a traditional how-to book, because it isn’t a traditional how-to book. C.C. makes no bones about it: amazing things don’t just happen, but they will happen if you work hard and be good to others. Those two ingredients are key – and in the book I felt as if C.C. and I were just sitting around having a beer as he walked me through his path to self-improvement.
After C.C. chronicled the early part of his life in the book – laden with lessons throughout – he dives deeper into the subject matter, discussing things like how to be what he calls a “passion hit”, the importance of writing things down (an idea that is not lost on me at all), how to simplify, focus, and attack, along with other pearls of wisdom throughout the book. Amazing Things Will Happen offered me some new things to try and reinforced that I am doing many of the right things already.
Again, this book not only can act as a solid reinforcement, but it is put together in such a way that it doesn’t feel clinical or pieced together. C.C. is telling a story – both the one he has lived and the one he wants for hte reader – and it comes across extremely well. I didn’t feel preached to at all; I felt a sense of encouragement instead. Even as Amazing Things Will Happen (the book) wraps up, C.C. sets the reader up with enough motivation to start the next phase of their lives so that that amazing things will happen (the experience) going forward.
C.C. Chapman has written both a journal and a guide, and he’s danced that line in deft fashion. Amazing Things Will Happen may not seem to be a book that can change your life, but if you give it a chance it most certainly will.
