Growing the Distance : Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success

At home or in the workplace, change is an inevitable fact of life. How we choose to respond to it - as leaders or as followers - determines our personal and professional growth. Growing the Distance is about developing the leader within all of us. This helps us to continue "growing at the speed of change." A central theme of the book is that leadership is action, not a position. We all need to be leaders regardless of our formal title or role. This starts with inner self leadership and moves outward to influence, guide, support, and lead others. Leadership ultimately shows itself in what we do "out there," but it starts "in here." This enchanting book entertains, inspires, and moves readers to action. Growing the Distance is a browser's delight. "I hope readers find this book as fun to read as it was to write," Jim says. In 192 pages, he weaves together many humorous quips, light-hearted stories, and charming tales with "growing points" intended to "drive you to thinking." This is done with both original and ageless fables, current situations, pithy quotations, whimsical illustrations, and personal examples. Growing the Distance is not a conventional book with large, dense blocks of text to plow through. Rather, it has a unique and distinctive, three-tiered structure and magazine-style. One level is made up of inspirational, humorous, or thought-provoking quotations. A second level consists of timeless fables, tales, and current stories. The third level is Jim's core text with his observations, personal examples, reflections, illustrations, application ideas, and key learning points. Each section is headed by a short "lead line," introductory sentence, and title or sub-title.

Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. In addition to his many radio and television interviews, Jim has written hundreds of magazine, journal, newsletter, and newspaper articles and columns on these topics. During the last 25 years he has delivered over two thousand customized keynote presentations, workshops, and retreats, as well as consulted to and coached executive teams in hundreds of major companies, the public sector, universities, family businesses, and healthcare organizations.

Jim has holds the prestigious Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation. This is the highest earned designation in Professional Speaking. Based on rigorous criteria and Client ratings, CSP is awarded by the International Federation for Professional Speakers to less than 3% of the estimated 15,000 speakers in the world. His is also a director on the national board of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers.

"The VIP Strategy: Leadership Skills for Exceptional Performance" was Jim's first book. It became a Canadian bestseller and was published in Europe and Japan. His second book, "Firing on All Cylinders: The Service/Quality System for High-Powered Performance," was both a Canadian and an American bestseller with over 100,000 copies sold. Jim's third book was "Pathways to Performance: A Guide to Transforming Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization." His next book – focused on personal growth/leadership – was "Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success." Based on the popularity of the approach and leadership framework in "Growing the Distance," Jim's most recent work is a companion book entitled, "The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization Success." Leadership guru, Warren Bennis, says "If you're looking for a book that illuminates the topic of leadership in a useful, readable and lively way, this is it."

Jim writes and speaks from plenty of "hands-on" experience. Applying the improvement and effectiveness principles he teaches, Jim co-founded and led The Achieve Group to become Canada's largest training and consulting company. Both were purchased by Times Mirror and merged with Zenger Miller, Learning International, and Kaset, to form AchieveGlobal. Prior to developing Achieve, Jim established a very successful performance record with an international water treatment company. Starting in sales, he quickly became sales manager, trainer, and the company's youngest general manager.

Jim lives in Kitchener, Ontario with his wife, Heather, and their three children, Christopher, Jennifer, Vanessa, and cute little Riley their cavalier spaniel. He and is listed in half a dozen Canadian, American, and international Who's Who directories.