Extremely relatable, sound advice for high achievers.
A business book offers advice on what comes next for already successful entrepreneurs.
The founder and president of a wealth advisory firm and author of Stress-Free Money (2020), Willardson sees a need for looking beyond one’s established fortune. Rather than provide the counsel typically associated with financial advisers, he focuses on what might be thought of as life planning. Eight tightly written, engaging chapters address compelling issues that face the highly accomplished individual. The book appropriately begins by acknowledging a big challenge for entrepreneurs: “feeling like they have no one they can openly talk to.” The solution—joining a kind of support group for like-minded people—may seem obvious, but Willardson wraps the suggestion around his own experience and those of others who have followed that path, validating the idea. The author’s encouragement to celebrate success is also a simple yet essential idea. Here, Willardson embraces the perhaps counterintuitive concept of “measuring your progress backward” so “you can see the gains and feel happiness.” Other aspects of life get similar treatment, whether it is protecting personal relationships, investing in health, or practicing delegation. Likely to especially resonate with business owners is the notion of control: “It’s important to be willing to let go and not get attached to the methods or the process.” Easier said than done, of course—so again, the author cites pertinent examples from his business and valuable insights from other company owners. The closing two chapters are, in a way, a clarion call for entrepreneurs to reach beyond their initial business victories. Willardson believes it is important to never be completely satisfied because “all progress takes place outside of your comfort zone.” As expected, his view of retirement is nontraditional: “Once you’ve reached a high level of financial freedom and independence, you don’t need to think about money anymore. It’s time to use your vision for a higher purpose.” The author writes in plain language and with clarity, judiciously drawing on other sources to support his argument. He demonstrates a keen understanding of the entrepreneurial psyche and stays true to the book’s concept of exploring key lifestyle issues.
Extremely relatable, sound advice for high achievers.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 9781544536729
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
© 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.
