A sweeping, insightful set of life lessons drawn from vast experience.
Life’s struggles require hard work to overcome but also furnish opportunities for growth, according to this self-helper.
Cedolini, an educational psychologist, family therapist, and author of Occupational Stress and Job Burnout (1982), recollects events from his life and uses them as a peg for essays on psychological and moral issues. Thus, a boyhood incident, in which he locked his little brother, Billy, in a trunk and was in turn briefly locked in the chest by his father as punishment, prompts a commentary on the golden rule and the complexities of developing a moral compass. The author’s long efforts to overcome his mechanical ineptitude and learn how to rebuild cars under his uncle’s tutelage demonstrate the importance of perseverance and family support; Billy’s tragic death in a car crash at the age of 26 and Cedolini’s ensuing three-year depression afford lessons in overcoming grief by reconnecting to life. The author visits many topics on mental and behavioral health, including chapters on surviving major depression (antidepressants are often effective, he notes) and an incisive section on addictions, from opioids to sex and smartphones. (He calls them “an escape from dealing with reality and social discomfort” as well as a means of “avoiding the misery of thinking.”) He also has less-clinical chapters on living a successful life, with advice on everything from parenting—the Cedolini family rules included “If you open it, close it” and “If you turn it on, turn it off”—to maintaining a positive self-image and coping with difficult people at work. (Among the last is “the Sherman tank,” who employs bluster and bullying to advance an agenda and has to be resisted with calm firmness.)
Framing the book as a letter to his grandkids, the author writes in a voice that’s frank but reassuring, as if gramps were your ideal therapist. Much of the text consists of Cedolini’s shrewd dissections of the practicalities of how to get along with people—and especially how to not get along with them. (Among his catalog of things that erode friendships are “major disagreements, especially political or religious, hitting below the belt with hurtful comments, insinuations, or accusations…neglect, unkind and mindless mistakes, lopsided jabs at known vulnerabilities, and insatiable demands…overuse of another’s time or resources, fair-weather friending, rigid rules or narrow-mindedness, the need always to be right, or maintaining a game of one-upmanship…repetitive suggestions on how you should change your behavior, unending reminders, traditional backseat driving, and bullying.”) The author’s advice often comes in aphoristic prose that can be blunt (“Take responsibility for your actions and move on—work on improving yourself”), folksy (“If you don’t embrace the present with both arms, it will be as elusive as a pig slathered with fat”), elegant (“Reality teaches the wise to seek progress rather than perfection”), or lyrical (“Anonymously perform random acts of kindness; they will add to others’ sunshine and nourish your soul as well”). Throughout, Cedolini advances a positive, energizing message: Treat yourself and other people well, be realistic but not despairing about your problems, and don’t be afraid to take risks to overcome them. The sprawling book is a bit of a ramble, but readers will find much engaging food for thoughtful browsing here.
A sweeping, insightful set of life lessons drawn from vast experience.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1641846479
Page Count: 614
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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
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