How to Be (Un)Successful: An Unlikely Guide to Human Flourishing

Nowadays it seems like everyone wants to be successful, but how many of us actually feel it?

We may know that true success is found in following the one who made us. And yet, in our increasingly polarised and comparison-rife world, many of us find our hearts yearning for an ever-elusive ’success’: in money and power, in influence and accolades.

It is time for us to remember that success is attainable - not in what we have but how we live.

This book invites you to recognise the beauty and complexity of the world we live in and how we, individually and collectively, may have conformed our faith in Jesus to simple consumer culture and cultural preferences. It is an opportunity to redefine success, choosing love over efficiency, depth over volume and real friendship over cold transactions.

Jesus’ life and teaching are the perfect antidote for a world growing sick with the wrong sort of success. And, he invites us again to experience a success that truly satisfies our souls.

Pete Portal helps lead Tree of Life, a church in Manenberg running ministries among the vulnerable and marginalised, and dedicated to living out Jesus’ love as spiritual community. He is also on the board of 24-7 Prayer South Africa, and spends much of his time growing relationships and networks across racial and socio-economic divides.

Pete and his wife Sarah live with young men coming out of gangsterism and drug addiction and, along with a team of friends, disciple and re-parent these young men into faith, freedom and wholeness. He holds Masters degrees in Theology (Edinburgh) and Theology, Politics and Faith-based Organisations (Kings College London); he has written articles for The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Times, and appeared on ITV’s ’On Assignment’ and SABC’s ’Expresso’. In his spare time he enjoys carpentry and he plays football, with increasing slowness, for FC Manenberg.