A lively and very approachable call to readers to manage their own brands.
A manual offers advice on how to market your brand.
Prolific novelist Dhar here turns to the motivational section of nonfiction in order to advocate something he calls the ADDA method of creating and maintaining a personal brand. He knows perfectly well how off-putting even the concept of a personal brand can be, particularly for people who have no connection to the world of marketing. These individuals may see personal brand management as arrogant or artificial. In what the author calls “a hangover of our education system,” they may shy away from “selling themselves,” preferring instead to let results “do the talking.” Dhar addresses several of the most widespread myths about personal branding, including that it’s all about networking and selling or, more centrally, that it’s an attempt to be someone you’re not. He insists instead that personal branding is much closer to self-awareness than it is to conceitedness, and he elaborates on this through the four sections of ADDA: “Authentic and Purpose-Driven,” “Differentiated and Playing to Your Points of Difference,” “Delivering at Moments of Truth,” and “Adapting As You and the World Around You Changes.” He acknowledges that the sheer amount of highly structured introspection necessary to recognize, shape, and extend a personal brand requires a good deal of time, but he intriguingly reminds his readers of how many moments they currently waste on less valuable exercises for strangers and employers. In a very real sense he insinuates that the time and effort needed to shape a personal brand are the most important professional investments a person can make—particularly if that individual wants to start any kind of business. Dhar’s extensive experience in writing both fiction and nonfiction distinctly pays off here. No matter how audiences may feel about the whole idea of a personal brand (the author never quite manages to make it seem authentic rather than soulless), they will find these pages effortless, entertaining reading. And many of the sentiments are universally applicable.
A lively and very approachable call to readers to manage their own brands.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2021
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
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