Sunday school mapped Parsons' path
May 02, 2007
TO a reader, especially of the motivational kind of literature, the name Rob Parsons will send signals. Parsons, who has authored such books as <i>The Money Secret</i> and <i>Loving Against the Odds</i>, is currently on a tour of Africa and is scheduled to attend a dinner organised by utl, at the S
By Nigel Nassar
TO a reader, especially of the motivational kind of literature, the name Rob Parsons will send signals. Parsons, who has authored such books as The Money Secret and Loving Against the Odds, is currently on a tour of Africa and is scheduled to attend a dinner organised by utl, at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, on May 3. All proceeds from the dinner shall go to charity.
The 59-year-old international motivational speaker and best-selling author, will offer a talk on The Heart of Success for Family and Business, as part of the Annual Leadership Series.
The series dwell on motivational speaking, an innovation started in 2004, under the initiative of utl and Uganda Society, an academic union with an acclaimed multidisciplinary tradition.
Parsons’ topic of discussion comes from his book The Heart of Success, which reached number one in the Book-track Business & Management List, and came second in The Sunday Times’ Business Books List.
For more insight into family matters, Parsons has authored other books like What Every Kid Wished Their Parents Knew and Vice Versa, The Sixty Minute Father, The Sixty Minute Mother and The Sixty Minute Marriage, a trilogy that put him on a pedestal. To date, more than half a million copies of his books have been sold worldwide in 12 different languages.
Such selective assortment of topics that Parsons writes about, always resonate with lots of people’s experiences, making him an author with an empathising heart for his readers since every reader identifies with at least one or more of his pieces.
An online periodical dedicated to Parsons, details a series of praises propped to his works, with reader after reader outdoing themselves to say something in his reverence.
Sir John Harvey-Jones said of The Sixty Minute Father: “It can help any executive get the balance right.â€
Tim Richardson, the development leader of Financial Services Division, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global said of Parson’s seminars: “We booked Rob to come and inspire, challenge and motivate our conference of 300 partners, directors and managers. He certainly did this and more, so much so that we have booked him again.â€
Some participants wished they had heard his speech 10 years ago, while others promised to put his tenets into practice.
A first rate speaker, Parsons delivers his point with a simplified yet provocative tone, blending it with humour, making his speeches entertaining.
He has spoken to over 350,000 people in seminars around the world, including representatives of many blue-chip companies.
Others have invited him to be their keynote speaker. For instance Alcatel, BBC, Birmingham Social Services, Chambers of Commerce, Ford, Heath Lambert, Honda UK and The National Assembly of Wales.
He will provoke his audience to ask themselves some hard real-life questions without having to spoon-feed them. Most people who have read his works will qualify Parsons as someone who will show you the light and make you make informed decisions.
Born in 1948, he was brought up in a poor home in Cardiff, UK, with no hot water or inside toilet. With his father a postman and mother an office cleaner, there was not much fortune to flaunt around and make him a spoilt child. Although his parents were not churchgoers, they sent him to Sunday school during his childhood days, a thing that cut out a clear track for him. It is at church that when he was 16, he met Dianne, the woman he is married to.
With his belief in God and focus to become an influential being, Parsons eventually qualified as a teacher. In an interview with findarticles.com, Parsons said he was going for his first job interview when someone said he would make a good lawyer.
Parsons served a year teaching and decided to try law, eventually qualifying as a solicitor in 1976. He co-founded Lawyers Planning Services, a consultancy to the legal profession on practice management in 1980. Together with Dianne, he had begun counselling work in the mid 1970s.
The Parsons were also part of a Christian leadership team on a housing estate of 20,000 people in Cardiff — activities that opened his eyes to the difficulties that many married couples were going through.
And although he still lectures regularly to lawyers and the business sector, Parsons left
Legal practice in 1988 to start Care for the Family, a department of Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE) Trust. The aim was to rescue Britain’s ailing family life since the country has the highest divorce rate in Europe.
Care for the Family, with about 90 staff plus volunteers, faces an enormous challenge in working to strengthen marriages and support families through seminars that have helped couples develop closeness in marriage and improve their communication skills. Its website www.careforthefamily.org.uk is entirely dedicated to strengthening families, dispensing ways on how to move on after divorce and get over family breakdown.
Parsons says he is not an entirely perfect man, just that he works hard to improve his weaknesses. He talks of a time when his wife Dianne was suffering from depression, partly due to his being too busy for her and his own two children, now adults.
This brought him closer to God and he reflected on his mistakes, culminating into the writing of one of his most successful books, The One Minute Father, whose simple message asks readers to be good fathers and make time for the family, lest they work forever.
TO a reader, especially of the motivational kind of literature, the name Rob Parsons will send signals. Parsons, who has authored such books as The Money Secret and Loving Against the Odds, is currently on a tour of Africa and is scheduled to attend a dinner organised by utl, at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, on May 3. All proceeds from the dinner shall go to charity.
The 59-year-old international motivational speaker and best-selling author, will offer a talk on The Heart of Success for Family and Business, as part of the Annual Leadership Series.
The series dwell on motivational speaking, an innovation started in 2004, under the initiative of utl and Uganda Society, an academic union with an acclaimed multidisciplinary tradition.
Parsons’ topic of discussion comes from his book The Heart of Success, which reached number one in the Book-track Business & Management List, and came second in The Sunday Times’ Business Books List.
For more insight into family matters, Parsons has authored other books like What Every Kid Wished Their Parents Knew and Vice Versa, The Sixty Minute Father, The Sixty Minute Mother and The Sixty Minute Marriage, a trilogy that put him on a pedestal. To date, more than half a million copies of his books have been sold worldwide in 12 different languages.
Such selective assortment of topics that Parsons writes about, always resonate with lots of people’s experiences, making him an author with an empathising heart for his readers since every reader identifies with at least one or more of his pieces.
An online periodical dedicated to Parsons, details a series of praises propped to his works, with reader after reader outdoing themselves to say something in his reverence.
Sir John Harvey-Jones said of The Sixty Minute Father: “It can help any executive get the balance right.â€
Tim Richardson, the development leader of Financial Services Division, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global said of Parson’s seminars: “We booked Rob to come and inspire, challenge and motivate our conference of 300 partners, directors and managers. He certainly did this and more, so much so that we have booked him again.â€
Some participants wished they had heard his speech 10 years ago, while others promised to put his tenets into practice.
A first rate speaker, Parsons delivers his point with a simplified yet provocative tone, blending it with humour, making his speeches entertaining.
He has spoken to over 350,000 people in seminars around the world, including representatives of many blue-chip companies.
Others have invited him to be their keynote speaker. For instance Alcatel, BBC, Birmingham Social Services, Chambers of Commerce, Ford, Heath Lambert, Honda UK and The National Assembly of Wales.
He will provoke his audience to ask themselves some hard real-life questions without having to spoon-feed them. Most people who have read his works will qualify Parsons as someone who will show you the light and make you make informed decisions.
Born in 1948, he was brought up in a poor home in Cardiff, UK, with no hot water or inside toilet. With his father a postman and mother an office cleaner, there was not much fortune to flaunt around and make him a spoilt child. Although his parents were not churchgoers, they sent him to Sunday school during his childhood days, a thing that cut out a clear track for him. It is at church that when he was 16, he met Dianne, the woman he is married to.
With his belief in God and focus to become an influential being, Parsons eventually qualified as a teacher. In an interview with findarticles.com, Parsons said he was going for his first job interview when someone said he would make a good lawyer.
Parsons served a year teaching and decided to try law, eventually qualifying as a solicitor in 1976. He co-founded Lawyers Planning Services, a consultancy to the legal profession on practice management in 1980. Together with Dianne, he had begun counselling work in the mid 1970s.
The Parsons were also part of a Christian leadership team on a housing estate of 20,000 people in Cardiff — activities that opened his eyes to the difficulties that many married couples were going through.
And although he still lectures regularly to lawyers and the business sector, Parsons left
Legal practice in 1988 to start Care for the Family, a department of Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE) Trust. The aim was to rescue Britain’s ailing family life since the country has the highest divorce rate in Europe.
Care for the Family, with about 90 staff plus volunteers, faces an enormous challenge in working to strengthen marriages and support families through seminars that have helped couples develop closeness in marriage and improve their communication skills. Its website www.careforthefamily.org.uk is entirely dedicated to strengthening families, dispensing ways on how to move on after divorce and get over family breakdown.
Parsons says he is not an entirely perfect man, just that he works hard to improve his weaknesses. He talks of a time when his wife Dianne was suffering from depression, partly due to his being too busy for her and his own two children, now adults.
This brought him closer to God and he reflected on his mistakes, culminating into the writing of one of his most successful books, The One Minute Father, whose simple message asks readers to be good fathers and make time for the family, lest they work forever.