An often thoughtful and straightforward conception of the costs and benefits of change.
Klijn presents a model for determining and achieving one’s true career aspirations in this self-help book.
The author—a professional speaker and coach, and a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam—aims her book at the many people in the workforce who feel dissatisfied with their current job, either because they feel like they aren’t realizing their full potential or simply due to curiosity about other possible paths. “Considering that work constitutes a substantial part of our lives,” Klijn writes, “it’s wise to assess the type of work that resonates most with your desires.” In these pages, translated from the Dutch by the author and Molegraaf, Klijn drew on her own 17 years of experience in sales, marketing, and human resources,plus her establishment of a management training company, Klijn Creative Teaching,to create the Personal Energy at Work (or “PE@W”) model. The model encompasses physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements, and she examines the interplay of each using charts, graphs, and insets that relate relevant stories from her and others’ employment lives. Through the lens of PE@W, Klijn effectively examines a variety of personal factors that can generate conflict in the workplace. For instance, if someone values a sense of harmony in their life, they may seek to avoid confrontations at work; however, the author points out, it isn’t always beneficial to one’s career to avoid uncomfortable situations. While Klijn’s prose can be awkward at times (“In times of uncertainty, our decisions often gravitate towards the fear of negative outcomes”), the bulk of her thoughts on the working world are clear and thought provoking, particularly in her emphasis on the physical element of work. For instance, she points out that making decisions to ignore bodily cues, such as fatigue or stress, can have serious, wide-ranging effects. Workers contemplating something new may find much of value in these pages.
An often thoughtful and straightforward conception of the costs and benefits of change.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9789083368320
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Santasado
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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