A thoughtful and well-written explanation of how to communicate.
A guide focuses on managing productive conversations in challenging circumstances.
This self-help book encourages readers to approach potentially fraught conversations with a clear understanding of goals, emotions, and boundaries in order to set realistic expectations and achieve the best possible results. Wonson explains her trademarked “Navigating Challenging Dialogue” process, which, she asserts, allows her to be “a steward of healthy conflict.” After describing her background in communication, relating how she learned to combat unhelpful emotional responses, and incorporating a smidge of neurobiology, the author lays out a four-step process for readers. With numerous examples drawn from her consulting clients, Wonson explains how to avoid emotional triggers, adjust assumptions, listen to the other party's responses, and maintain an open curiosity in order to reach an acceptable resolution. The author reminds readers that conversations can succeed when they accept that they only have control over their own emotions and reactions, not those of anyone else in the exchange, and adjust their expectations accordingly. The book’s discussion of how to respond to tears is particularly intriguing, offering strategies for reacting appropriately to strong emotions without making assumptions about how the other party is feeling. For instance, Wonson suggests saying “I see tears. Can you tell me what they mean?” before drawing conclusions about why a conversation has led to crying. The manual also does a good job of providing scripts that readers can employ when they need to pause a conversation in order to regain control of their own emotions. The volume’s many anecdotes are well chosen and serve to illustrate the more abstract concepts in Wonson’s framework, making it easy for readers to adapt it to their own needs. While the fundamentals of the process will be familiar to those who have read other works on healthy communication, the author’s clear explanations of how she came to understand and apply the common concepts make for an effective introduction. She builds a solid case throughout the text for the value of following the steps she enumerates.
A thoughtful and well-written explanation of how to communicate.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73645-893-8
Page Count: 178
Publisher: NCD Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
