50 Bethel College religion and philosophy professor, Terry Linhart recently published his eighth book, "The Self-Aware Leader." The book helps people coming out of graduation to become leaders in their community and work places. Linhart had a book signing at Bethel’s bookstore and was also interviewed by the Harvest Show. Linhart spoke on how writing has enhanced his teaching. “It forces you to dive deeper into content,” said Linhart. “It helps me slow down and think deeper. That is the therapeutic side for me. I could sit here and say I’m a terrible writer, or I could sit here and say I could be better... the more you do something the better off you are.” The Self-Aware Leader is a helpful guide for students who are about to graduate college as well. Linhart was inspired to write this book out of his experiences at Bethel College. “This book grew out of my burden being a professor here at Bethel College,” said Linhart. “Watching our graduates go out and within four or five years have great difficulty in ministry with personal issues and churches and ministries had no clue how to help them or were [not] helping them. So, I thought… let me write a book that’s going to help young graduates of Bethel College and others navigate that. It’s the story of our students leaving Bethel and struggling that probably made me say I want to write a book about it.” Linhart discussed where these problems originate. “When we leave college with a new degree, we’re really confident,” said Linhart. “We think we know a lot in our early twenties and were still growing and developing without ever really having to work… [When students have a job], they were responding poorly to being supervised and some graduates were having emotional outbursts.” After college, Linhart struggled with this conundrum and did not have a guide to help him go through the transition of being in college and going into ministry. “For me I was angrier than I knew,” said Linhart. “So I had this issue coming out of college… I’m known as a kind of laid back guy, but what I didn’t realize was that deep inside there was this anger boiling from who knows what… I didn’t know how I was coming across. I had no clue, and nobody told me.” Linhart focused on the small group aspect of his book, offering a community for people going through this problem. Linhart had advice for students combatting these hardships. “Find a good mentor who can help you with the blind spots,” said Linhart. “They have experience. At the end of your day, it’s not about your accomplishments but your relationships.”
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