Few dealers would take the time or have the desire to write and self-publish a 512-page memoir, particularly one that declares it's about “A Modern-Day Vision Quest." Then again, few dealers have gone on the kind of mid-life adventure Kevin Hancock did a few years ago when he lost his voice and, not long after, began visiting the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Tribe in South Dakota. Those visits led to Not For Sale: Finding Center in the Land of Crazy Horse. It’s no road map for how to follow Hancock Lumber as Dealer of the Year, but it does offer thought-provoking ideas for your company’s future—and your own.
“We all come from a tribe,” Kevin writes, “and while the pull of the past is strong, the soul is here to individuate.”
Books like this often start with how the author encountered a different, better culture and then embraced that new thinking in a way that implies the reader should do the same. Instead, Not For Sale avoids ecstatic encounters and preachy sermons. Rather, Kevin’s book is about Kevin’s journey, and how he found inspiration and frustration in both the Indian’s and the white man’s ways. If there’s any implied recommendation, it’s that you seek your own center and build your own foundation for a good life.
One running symbol in the book is the Lakota medicine wheel (shown at right). It represents how all things are connected and how there are both good and evil roads you can take in life.
The meeting place in the middle of the cross is called the Chokan. “The Chokan is you, standing in the middle of it all,” a Lakota friend told Kevin. “Wherever you are on your journey in life, you are always at the center.”
To learn more and to buy the book, go to https://kevindhancock.com.
