Great leaders make the difference between mediocrity and excellence. For decades, MDA Leadership Consulting has worked with thousands of leaders around the globe in an effort to help organizations build a competitive advantage through superior leadership. Today more than ever, the leadership landscape is changing at an alarming rate. Organizations need leaders who can adapt to ever-changing business challenges. To be an effective leader, you must adapt to these new challenges by developing new talents and capabilities.

Awaken, Align, Accelerate: A Guide to Great Leadership provides a simple yet powerful framework that invites leaders to embrace the challenge of developing in today’s world. Filled with over 1,500 development suggestions and coaching tips, self-assessments, real-world case studies, and sample developments plans—this unique guide is a valuable development asset for any leader.

Because of my expertise and experience with editing leadership books, I was hired to proofread this book. As this book was written as a hands-on instructional manual immediately applicable in today’s world, I was also challenged with looking for the innovative design gaps.

When SSG John Kriesel lost his legs and two buddies in a roadside bomb explosion, no one expected him to survive. He died three times on the operating table. Miracles, a lot of miracles, starting with a few grunts who refused to let him die in Iraq, ripped the young warrior from the grip of death and sent him on to four hospitals, thirty-five surgeries, and months of recovery and rehabilitation. Medical miracles put his body back together, but it was an incredible confluence of angels at every step along the way that breathed life into his shattered body.

Still Standing: The Story of SSG John Kriesel is not just another war story. This is the story of an ordinary young man who overcame extraordinary challenges with a lot of help from others, including many strangers, and he emerged stronger and more in love with his country, his wife, his children, and, ultimately, his own life.

April Michelle Davis of Editorial Inspirations was hired to proofread this book, and it was a pleasure. The stories within this book were gripping and highly emotional. Even though I was analyzing the text and layout, I could feel the powerful message coming from the author’s voice.

 

The very qualities that defined Burt Nordstrand as an addict also made him an entrepreneur extraordinaire. He hit bottom when, for all appearances, he was fit and happy. No longer willing to live a double life of outward success and inward devastation caused by multiple addictions: compulsive overeating, diet pills, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, irresponsible sex, gambling, over-exercising, etc., Nordstrand pursued recovery at age forty and his personal life began to turn around. At age seventy, he reflects back on the distance he traveled in pursuit of serenity and peace of mind. Most addictions can be addressed with abstinence; however, that is not possible with food addiction. Burt Nordstrand must continue Living with the Enemy.

I, April Michelle Davis of Editorial Inspirations, was hired by the publisher to proofread this memoir. While I did not have direct contact with the author, I still had to make sure my comments and edits were especially sensitive because the material is so close to the author.

Abel Emerging, is a passionate, even lyrical, invitation for thoughtful people to reframe the dominant narrative of the Christian story as a resource for engaging an increasingly challenging future. Sober in its analysis, modest in its hopefulness, but bold in its vision, the book is a provocative, yet realistic, call to new thought and new action on behalf of a beleaguered creation.

In the proofreading of this book, I was exposed to the author’s proposition of an evolving Tree of Life. The author also talks about the outlook of life, hope, and the Christian message. As when working on religious books, this was an interesting book to work on. It is always interesting to see the author’s viewpoint and proof for that view.

Journeywell: A Guide to Quality Aging will help you in that process. You are on a journey from the moment you are born. You move through life in cycles of beginnings and endings, experiencing and changing as you go. This is not a how-to-do-aging book. There is no “right way” to grow old. There is no lock-step path. It is about possibilities and making good choices. Journeywell helps you reflect on how to be the person you want to be. It asks you to give some thought to how you can make your last years, whether two, ten, twenty, or thirty, as good as they can be. It asks questions for you to ponder. It provides information and suggestions that have worked well for others and asks you to figure out what might work best for you. Better and worse choices could greatly enhance or complicate your later years. Journeywell’s goal is to make your own journey easier and more satisfying.

The proofreading of this manuscript was done completely on hard copy. The designer sent me a hard copy of the page proofs, and I marked them up and sent them to the author for review before those changes were then sent to the designer for inputting. With technology being such a huge part of life today, this is not the way most projects come across my desk. However, it is the way projects used to always be completed. Today, most of my proofreading projects are emailed to me as PDFs. From there, the client specifies whether I should print out the project and mark up the hard copy or whether I should mark up the PDFs and email them back.