Odditude: Finding the Passion for Who You are and What You Do

In a world of evens, you have to be ODD. Imagine a world in which you live your way and embrace the wondrous peculiarities of your personality, talents, desires, whims, habits, and ideals. This is the wonderful world of ODD. John Powers, Ph.D., a successful playwright and motivational expert who pursued his own dream--to help others achieve their success--has succeeded thousands of times over through his seminars, speaking events, and motivational books. Now, this master storyteller invites you to open this book of Odditude and relearn and reignite the way you were meant to live--the act of being your original self--no excuses, no apologies, no fears. Seriously! To John, Odditude is more than a fun, clever word he made up. It is the attitude he adopted later in his life that literally saved him from the ultimate letdown of mediocrity. John explains that we are all born with Odditude, the X-factor that separates us from one another and prevents us from being one big population of homogenous drones. But somewhere along the way toward adulthood, when we start caring about what people think, we check our Odditude at the door and become bogged down by pointless boundaries and distracted by social impacts and untruths. Knowing that it's the state of being Odd that allows us to be truly happy and achieve success, John set out to reestablish his Odditude by paying attention to the Odds around him--quirky family members, outcast classmates, and quizzical strangers. In this book, John shares in enthusiastic, idiosyncratic, and just plain funny prose the odd lessons he learned and how you, too, can reconnect with who you really are and what you were meant to do. These stories are so refreshing that after you're done laughing out loud, you will breathe a giant sigh of relief--the relief that only comes from true self-acceptance and appreciation for your talents and unique gifts of Odditude.

John R. Powers, Ph.D., is a tireless promoter, speaker, author and playwright. He is the founder of Powers of Motivation Institute and the author of four novels and several plays and has written numerous short stories and articles for Chicago magazine, Scouting magazine, Chicago Tribune magazine and Travel and Leisure. He was a contributing editor and wrote his own column for Chicago magazine.