by Josh Painter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 29, 2022
An accessible, heartfelt, albeit not exactly groundbreaking, blueprint for meeting one’s own life goals.
A down-to-earth guide to self-empowerment.
Painter opens his book with an affecting portrait of his own past. Instead of crafting the standard motivational backstory of someone destined from the cradle for glory, he describes a life of bottoming out and engaging in the kinds of personal and professional compromises that many of his readers will immediately recognize: “I rented apartments, bought a house, took on debt, and got credit cards because I thought that was what you were supposed to do,” he writes. “I was a young guy trying to support a family without a thought about doing something I’d really love.” In 2008, his house was foreclosed, he filed for bankruptcy, he got a divorce, and he was living in a two-bedroom apartment and sleeping on the couch so his two children could have bedrooms of their own. At 26, he realized he was not remotely where he wanted to be. He left his job as a corrections officer and went into mortgage loans, and in time, with a lot of hard work, he started becoming what he hopes his readers will also become: the “Best Version Ever” of themselves. He lays out five key features of that path: Mindset (“how to shift your thinking from negative to positive so you will be open to new possibilities”), Aim (identifying specific goals), Gameplan (“how to create a schedule that allows you to gain momentum toward short- and long-term goals”), Immersion (commitment and “continual learning”), and Consistency (“how to develop lifelong habits that will make your changes sustainable”). While elaborating on these key concepts, each of his chapters contains some “Take Action” suggestions for real-world implementation of those concepts and also “Affirmations” to carry them to the next concept.
Painter’s tactic of laying bare his own vulnerability is a wise one. It grounds the more theoretical bulk of his book within human realities and frailties. This is all the more important because of the immediately recognizable, which is to say clichéd, drift of many of his points and urgings. “Hope is not a strategy,” he writes in one of many such passages. “If you want to become your Best Version Ever, you have to make the time to brainstorm and narrow down your goals.” To put it mildly, readers of self-help or motivational literature will have encountered such content before, so it’s fortunate that Painter adds so many personal notes of authenticity to make these tips feel more genuine. He also very effectively and frequently reminds readers that to achieve clarity, one must maintain a sense of perspective. He recommends that people imagine themselves five years in the future (and by extension, remember where they were five years ago)—a familiar exercise in motivational circles. Another common motivational concept is his suggested use of an imagery of a video game controller or movie director: “Imagine your future unfolding before you, like watching an actor on a movie screen,” he writes. “Imagine you have a remote control in your hand to fast forward, rewind, or pause if you like.” He counteracts the pat nature of much of his advice by consistently coming across as somebody who’s lived his way to such insights.
An accessible, heartfelt, albeit not exactly groundbreaking, blueprint for meeting one’s own life goals.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 167
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Anne Heche ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 2023
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
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by Jonah Berger ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 7, 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
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