Clearing the Clutter

One Big Thing by Phil Cooke

Millions of people spend their lives in the pursuit of nothing, but you have chosen the great adventure.

Will that be true of you? Will you come to your final breath confident that you lived in full, that you discovered, nurtured and unleashed on the world the benefits of the one big thing that you were uniquely created to do or be? If history be our guide then the vast majority of humanity will answer no. We will endure lives, as Thoreau wrote, of quiet desperation. Our lives in this world will pass leaving little wake to even remind others that we were here.

That is not who you and I were created to be says author, filmmaker and media guru Phil Cooke. In his latest book, Cooke cheerleads, guides and pokes the reader in the side at every opportunity to get off the couch, put down the cookies and find out the one great thing that the Creator has endowed Brand You to be or do. The OBT is within us, peaking out every so often but generally muted or crushed by the day-to-day process of making our way through life.

It doesn’t need to be this way and Cooke dismisses every excuse that tends to arise during a discussion of this sort. The book has example after example of others who faced down the twin dragons of justification and remorse and put aside the excuses of age, opportunity, finances and on and on to put in the hard of work of bringing that OBT to life. You cannot close the book and not be motivated –even in the smallest way- to make passion a reality.

Cooke outlines a process by which you can discover what your OBT might be but the book is not a how-to guide. It is a volume that you will return to, thumbing through the pages and snatching one of the pull quotes for encouragement or trying to find your doppelganger in the dozens of lives that he highlights proving that it can be done. This is a book you will keep close at hand.