Life Beyond Reason is about what happens to us when we decide to create the lives we want in the
face of every reason why we can’t. It’s about pursuing our dreams and passions
and big ideas, and remaking ourselves and our lives from the inside out. It’s
about making dreams come true, living with passion, and bringing our big ideas
to fruition. It’s a Hero’s Journey, a midlife reinvention, and personal
awakening. Mostly, it’s a helpful, often funny, sometimes poignant, and always inspiring
invitation to take your own transformative journey.
The book centers around the author’s misadventures after suddenly
leaving a successful law career to take on the job of producing a “big, bold
world-embracing show with a life-changing message.” Doing that required leaving
the safe confines of reasonableness and prudence for a deep dive into the
dangerous currents of a condition “people who study the human brain call
mania.” Doing so was exhilarating, but risky. As Kevin writes:
“Mania
is plutonium for the for human soul:
powerful almost beyond measure, equally suited to creation or
destruction, and tricky to control once we let it loose. But dark side or not,
mania is why we dream big dreams, and the bigger they are, the more mania we
need. If we want to make our dreams come true, we risk mania’s dark side.”
Kevin writes with honesty and self-deprecating humor about
what happened next, with sympathy and compassion for anyone with the courage to
answer the call to big change and personal transformation. There’s plenty of
insight and thoughtful advice here, but no quick fixes or easy steps to
success. Kevin wants his readers to succeed and persevere, but also gives them
an unflinching look at what it’s going to cost them to actually see their big
changes through to completion.
Drawing from broad perspectives ranging from neuroscience
and psychology to law and entrepreneurship, and laced with anecdotes about
theater and showbiz, the book examines creativity, innovation, change, and
personal transformation in
practical, non-theoretical terms. It provides useful insights and
suggestions for dealing with the real
source of our resistance to change: the blockages
that lie within ourselves, and the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that
derive from them. It also helps us deal with the tricky issue of how pursuing
our dreams affects our key relationships.
The book makes the case for why self-awareness and personal
transformation are “not just for the enlightened, consciousness-raising few,”
but “essential to every person’s pursuit of their Big Idea.” Change is hard any
time, but lasting change requires nothing short of personal transformation.
By turns inspiring and motivational, reflective and
disclosing, challenging and no-nonsense, the book is written in a crisp style
that makes it a compelling read in one sitting or easy to get in and out of if
you prefer to take it slow and ponder.
Kevin Rhodes left a successful law practice to start a creative venture, and got way more than he bargained for: it became a powerful (and often traumatic) time of personal transformation. Now, when he’s not working out, he writes, blogs, and conducts interactive workshops on the topic of personal growth and transformation. He lives in Denver.