The Camino Way

Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain

By: Victor Prince

Narrated by: Rudy Sanda

Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Stretching across 500 miles of northern Spain, the Camino de Santiago has been a pilgrimage route for centuries. Setting off as a competitive, shrewd negotiator with little patience for small talk, Victor Prince emerged as a very different person - more balanced, more caring, more present in the moment, but looking to the future. Prince translates this growth experience into seven leadership skills, each linked to values that have guided Camino travelers for centuries. With reflections from the road and for the workplace back home, he recounts how he learned to:

• Live in the moment
• Welcome each day, its pleasures and its challenges
• Make others feel welcome
• Share
• Feel the spirit of those who have come before you
• Appreciate those who walk with you today
• Imagine those who will follow you

By aligning the path to leadership with a literal journey, The Camino Way offers fresh perspectives on bringing people together and achieving goals - with a pilgrim's heart, a way-farer's grit, and a leader's vision.

©2017 Victor Prince (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Honest, inspiring and exciting!

The stories and lessons Victor Prince describes in his book are purely inspirational. This was the first book I have ever had the privilege to read (listen to) about the Camino, and I believe because of this reflection will not be the last. The narrator did an awesome job of capturing the author’s honesty and passion.

Another Camino Story

I liked Victor's Camino experience and insights. Also, the narration was well done, by Rudy Sanda. Listening to another Pilgrim talk about the history, and culture of Spain, the spiritual and limits of our bodies. I definitely enjoyed his reflections and thoughts on his Camino.

This is NOT a book about The Camino.

This is not a book about someone walking the Camino and documenting the towns and people he met along the way like most books i have read about the Camino. This is 100% a book for business people. He only talks about the Camino and metions it briefly so that he can quickly tie it to how he used a lesson in his business when he got back. He tells us how to better our business by doing X, Y and Z. He seemed to always be talking about his business or what you should do to better your career. It seemed like a long story to talk about his resume. It was not for me at all. I was looking for a book about his experience on the Camino. I was expecting a book like The Camino by Shirley MacLaine or Walking with Sam by Andrew McCarthy. There are many books out there that give you an idea of what it is like to make this walk. This book is not one of them.

Leadership on the Camino de Santiago

As a hiker who wants to walk the Camino, and a leadership scholar by profession, I was really looking forward to this book. I had hopes it would be deeply reflective, with insightful explorations and conclusions inspired by the Camino. While that is, in fact, what the author attempted to do, it didn't hit the mark for me. Any such effort must necessarily begin with data - descriptive references to the experience and references to what we know about leadership. Unfortunately, the book fell short on both dimensions. The few descriptions of life on the Camino left me wanting more (much more), and the conclusions about leadership were often trite, sometimes contradictory, and generally unoriginal. I feel bad writing this, as I know how the courage it takes to put your thoughts into a book that anyone can read, but I also feel compelled to be honest for those who may read it after me.

In addition to what I wrote above, the author wants to portray himself as one who was changed by the Camino experience, but that didn't come across for me. In fact, there were enough hints, contradictions, and observations that led to just the opposite conclusion - that he didn't change much from the experience - that I wonder how introspective he actually was, how much self-insight he really gained. He still seems to be a person driven to achieve the outward manifestations of success (title, position, money, etc.), and using others to obtain those rewards. To a far less degree he seems to have become aware of a deeper purpose, or to have become a more self-reflective, innately caring person. It is entirely possible that those things in fact happened, but it doesn't seem apparent to me from what he wrote in his book.

Lastly, I can't say I really enjoyed the narrator. I don't know what Prince's voice is like, but for a personal narrative like this, I think I might have preferred it to have been author-narrated. I have never listed to a book simply because I like the narrator, but it does make a difference to me. I will be wary of this one in future.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Thinking I was going g to listen to a narrative about The Camino, instead I found a sermon on how to be a CEO from the perspective of what the author learned on his Camino. Preachy, it assumes nobody has had the realizations he at last found on his walk or that others might have different things to learn that are suited to their needs rather than his. Had the author related the experiences that led to his realizations and his experience of new perspectives, it could have allowed the reader to use his experiences to inspire and inform their own unique need to be open to new thoughts and ways. Rather the author maintains his CEO mode in being certain what he now knows is what we all need to hear in exactly his own perspective and in exactly his own opinion of how that knowledge should be used. Tge idea that each pilgrim brings his own unique needs and experience to their Way is not a part of this book and an opportunity for the author to share his newly acquired life perspective that could allow others to bring to his experiences their own, personal insight is lost in his preaching sessions o each of the new ideas he gained. I couldn't listen past chapter 8. Blah, blah, blah. blah, blah...

worthwhile

it was a worthwhile and
thoughtful work. I feel enhanced from the lessons and also closer to the spirit of the Camino.

Expected more Camino and less life lessons

Probably my own fault for not fully investigating what the book was actually about. I was expecting more stories about being on the Camino but received lots of life’s lessons.