Winning Balance: What I've Learned So Far about Love, Faith, and Living Your Dreams
Written by Shawn Johnson
Narrated by Shawn Johnson
4/5
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About this audiobook
The inspiring story of a pint-size American gymnast with a big smile and an even bigger heart. You've seen her perform gravity-defying gymnastics moves. You've seen her win Olympic medals in Beijing and the coveted mirror ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars. You've also seen her land on her feet-with her trademark smile-even when things haven't gone her way. Despite achieving more success and celebrity in her first two decades than most people experience in a lifetime, things haven't been easy for Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson. Her first gymnastics coach told her family she lacked talent. Her modest upbringing in Iowa made elite competition unlikely. Although she won four medals at the Beijing Olympics, she was denied the big prize she'd dreamed of-the all-around gold medal. She had a terrifying experience with a stalker and would-be kidnapper. And after suffering a potentially career-ending injury, Shawn ultimately had to rethink what was truly important. What did she want most in life? What kind of success was worth pursuing? Would she ever find true faith, lasting hope, and real love? In Winning Balance, for the first time Shawn reveals her journey so far: her against-the-odds quest to become a gymnastics world champion, her flirtation with Hollywood glamour, her growing faith, and her struggle to find herself. It's the full, behind-the-scenes story of how a young woman who won Olympic gold on the balance beam learned new lessons about balance-as well as love, faith, and what winning really means.
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Reviews for Winning Balance
43 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inspiring book for adults and kids. She’s such a great role model with a heart of gold
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I received this book free. As an Auto-Biography it was okay although I stopped reading it for a while as another book looked more interesting. As a Christian Auto-Biography it fell short.
Shawn Johnson describes her early childhood and experiences leading up to her winning Gold and Silver medals at the Beijing Olympic Games. A lot of the book was about her training as a gymnast which I didn't relate to but I'm sure would be of interest to other gymnasts. I liked her honesty and descriptions of her personal struggles although I felt in places that she revealed too much detail (e.g a romantic relationship with a man that broke up with his girlfriend for her) that she will wish she had kept to herself later in life. I felt sorry for her as she describes her terror on learning that she had a stalker who had been on his way to abduct her during her training for a dance competition. Also as she describes her struggles with a serious knee injury later in the book.
There are many of these "Christian" Auto-Biographies that read more like "self help" manuals for how to navigate life with the most positive attitude you can muster. God seems to then be tagged onto the end as an afterthought. There are Bible verses and secular "self-help" quotations intermingled throughout the book. After winning her Gold medal and a dance competition Shawn realises that there is more to life than winning competitions, she feels an emptiness in her life and almost turns to God to fill it, almost but not quite....it was frustrating reading at this point as I was expecting her salvation testimony especially when the chapter was entitled "How God became more real to me," but she always seems to weather the storm and then continue as before...
At the end of every chapter the author details a "Lesson I've Learned" and one of the final lessons is this;
"Don't let anything hold you back from following your heart and taking a leap of faith. Even if you're the only one who believes in the direction you want to take, you have the power to make it happen."
Most of her "life lessons" are like this and sadly they are just not Biblical. The Bible teaches that we should not follow our hearts as they are deceitful, that we should instead follow the Bible. Also that we should follow God's direction rather than our own and that we have no power apart from in Him!
Shawn is clearly a sincere young woman seeking to live a moral life and believing that God is helping her. She mentions prayer at various points. It is my hope that she will come to a personal saving faith in Jesus. The book is clean and free of bad language, violence and sexual content. If you are interested in gymnastics/Shawn Johnson you may enjoy this but I don't think it will inspire Christian readers. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this book. Being from Iowa, I followed Shawn's path to the Olympics and watched her while she competed. You kind of have an idea of what goes into being a top athlete but you really don't know until you hear it from one of the athletes. Gymnastics is so hard on the body and then for them to work that hard at such a young age is horrible. Sounds like Shawn's Iowa upbringing has kept her balanced and she's on the right track to succeed outside of gymnastics.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"Wining Balance" by Shawn Johnson is an amazing autobiography to read. I've always admired Shawn and was interested about her journey to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When you read this book, you will learn so much about her and a lot of struggles in her life to get to where she is now. This is a great book for Shawn's fans.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truley a great veiw of a gymnast life on and off the beam. I just loved it to peices, it kept me up all night and helped me to realize how dreams can really come true. The e book version also has some great pictures :) GO SHAWN!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is not really an autobiography although Shawn does tell about some of the things that happened throughout her life. The main points of this book are her attitude when things happened to her and how she handled it. An encouraging, easy to read book.