If your job defines your identity and worth, this author might be able to help you

FAITH NEWS SERVICE – You are so much more to you than what you do!

In a world that values hard work, ambition and success, it is easy to find our identity in what we do, rather than who we are. In his debut book, Killing the CEO-Losing Self, Finding God Finding Life, Darren Copland takes his readers on an authentic journey through the pitfalls of living out of a false identity and the damage that follows when we become attached to our societal roles.

Killing the CEO is Darren’s journey from competence to burnout and back again. It’s a story of transformation that traverses the challenging landscape of leadership growth, success, stress, depression and anxiety. It’s a story of a brutal reality check, where he had to confront the foundation of his core beliefs, values and faith to discover his true identity.

For Darren, his role of being the CEO became so fused with his identity that he had almost ceased to exist. Through this painful journey of self-discovery, Darren reveals the path to life is to follow Jesus’ example through complete surrender to God.

After two and a half years of intense mental turmoil, extreme physical fatigue, radically diminished social capacity and total spiritual dryness, he found himself at rock bottom. There at the bottom, not only did he find himself; he found God…again.

Living the scriptures openly, Darren tells his amazing story and invites his readers to personally connect with the humanity of his struggle by sharing his own journal entries. It is with authentic transparency that Darren leads his readers to understand the truth of Matthew 16: 25 – 26; “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”

But Darren does not stop there. His story reflects the life-changing transformation that occurs when we follow the advice of Paul in Ephesians 4:22 – 24: to “put off the old self, which is being corrupted by its evil desires, to be made new in the attitudes of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Although few find themselves in the role of CEO, Darren clearly identifies that we all have the tendency to live as the CEO of our own lives and in doing so, connect our value, worth and identity to our skills and roles. The outcome is often catastrophic.

With a heart to help people successfully navigate their own journeys and avoid some of the pitfalls and pain that he has endured, Darren uses his extensive experience and facilitation skills at the end of each chapter to distill some of the key lessons and guides the reader’s reflection on their own journey.

If you are driven to succeed and live your life for a purpose…
If you are striving to achieve, to please and to be productive…
If you find yourself constantly on high alert but struggling with clarity and decision making…
If you have ever felt like a fraud, an imposter or a failure…
If your list of shoulds is overwhelming…
If you are fatigued, but struggle to rest…

Then you need to read this book. Killing the CEO will make you laugh, cry, grimace and perhaps wonder…could this be me?

Killing the CEO, published by Ark House, is now available globally.