A Personal Letter from the Skipper

Hey my on-line friends, it's the Skipper asking for your support and assistance. For those of you who don't know me, my first book: "The Art of Detachment: Breakthrough Principles to Transformational Leadership" is due out on 1 August 2007. After speaking with over 100 publishers (turned down) and 130 emailed publicists (no luck), the project was finally picked up by Kendall Hunt Publishers in Dubuque, Iowa. This project is my life's work, part motivation/part leadership-organizational behavior for individuals and organizations to move their personal and professional leadership abilities into greater levels of achievement.

At present, the leadership community is populated with icons such as Blanchard, Covey, Drucker, Maxwell and others. This list, however illustrious (I am a student of them all and a big fan), are reasons for successes at all levels of humanity and will continue to inspire greatness in people and organizations around the world. God knows, I am very grateful for each of them in my quest for knowledge, growth, and inspiration. I believe that there is a market for yet another published works to inspire greatness as well. That marketplace is within the African American community (including all others) by one of its own from the Philadelphia area. During one of my pitch meetings for the project, I was told that there's really no more room for a new author regurgitating the lessons from the outstanding authors named here (WRONG; they obviously did not read the manuscript!). They said that I was proposing a book that won't do well in the retail market because no one knows my name. And believe it or not, one of my colleagues from my own community told me that I should remove any reference of my ethnicity if I wanted the book to go main stream.

I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE TO HELP ME TO PROVE THEM WRONG.

The book culminates three years of grueling research on my behalf and has withstood a very tough defense from a board of collegiate professors to ensure the information can stand strong on its findings with its proposed readership base. The Art of Detachment introduces a new discipline of leadership, "Democratic Leadership," using math and science to support its development. Imagine taking the rigors of leadership and character training from the United States Marine Corps, the discipline of Organizational Behavior "OB," and the lessons of an entrepreneurial minority startup that failed more times than it would experience a successful benchmark. Now, place all of this into a blender, mix it up and pour it into a glass for drinking. Once the lessons are in your system, the outcome is a leader who is willing to go the distance for something he/she believes in without worrying about the words spoken in and around popular culture. In other words, you learn to find your voice while inspiring and encouraging others to find theirs!

For some of you, this book is the ingredient that you have been searching for. For others, it will be the tipping point to move you into greater levels of achievement in your personal and professional commitments. I hope that it will become a gift from some of you to another person who may be searching for their voice in life – much like a gift from a friend in 2005 to me that became the stimulus for this project. During my darkest moment, I was inspired to read the John C. Maxwell Leadership Bible, Psalms 91. I have yet to put the book down and it began a completely new chapter in my life that has become the second part of this project titled, "The Art of Detachment for the CHRISTIAN Leader." And by the way, I still read Psalms 91 today.

Our publisher will only get behind it if this book sells well. Please pre-buy multiple copies and gift them to anyone who is growing in their personal and professional life. The project is dynamic for "Executive educational" purposes within all realms of business and organizational leadership. The book is currently available through our publisher Kendall Hunt Publishers http://www.kendallhunt.com/) at a pre-sale price. Please pre-buy and FORWARD THIS E-MAIL to others and ask them to pass it along as well.

The Art of Detachment (ISBN: 978-0-7575-4360-9), I promise, will change the direction in your life and provides the needed tools to achieve your "Victory" from the "Defeats" in your life. It's not always about the dollars; most of the time, its only about achieving your dreams. When that happens, the rest will come anyway. Please continue to follow the Blog series. It gleans insight from the lessons outlined in the book. I hope that you enjoy the reading.

Thank you so much for all of your support,

Damian D. "Skipper" Pitts

Notice: If you don't have the John C. Maxwell Leadership Bible, I strongly encourage you to get it! It is fantastic, and I think that it will change the course of your life due to its firm understand of how we are built to live and lead others to do the same.

Coming to AMAZON.com and other online retailers in August 2007

E-mail me at: BookRequest@ArtofDetachment.com
Website: Http://www.ArtofDetachment.com
Training: (LeaderShaping) Training@ArtofDetachment.com
Assessments (Breakthrough TTI) BTTI@ArtofDetachment.com
Resources: Tools@ArtofDetachment.com