An often inspiring interactive guide to rewriting one’s life whose core message can seem too simplistic at times.
Business coach Zuber shows how to use reflection and writing to create one’s best life in this aspirational book.
The author opens with his own rock-bottom anecdote: He wrote a letter to a version of himself 10 years in the future. For him, that act helped restore his home, relationships, and career, and composing these letters eventually became a technique he used in coaching workshops. “Every life is authored twice. First in your imagination. Then, in your reality,” he asserts. The book contrasts traditional goal-setting (which measures what you do) versus the 10-year letter-writing technique (which focuses on who you are becoming). Because “ten years will pass no matter what you do,” the author insists on being focused and intentional. He warns about the “Default Self,” defined as “the ancient part of you wired for survival, not success” that clings to familiarity, certainty, belonging, and comfort. The author provides prompts to help identify strengths, illuminate values, and write a mission statement for life. Zuber encourages incorporating adventure into life, offering suggestions like traveling solo, learning new skills, or trying something outrageous. The book’s final section, which focuses on writing the letter, incorporates details on categories such as home, relationships, spirituality, well-being, and career. Zuber concludes with a reminder to “let your life become the letter.” This is one of many examples of Zuber’s easy-to-follow road map for the future. The book effectively imparts a sense of urgency in lines like “Each day that passes is one less chance to create the life you are worthy of living.” Neuroscience-based concepts like “The Renewal Cycle,” which describes the necessity of remembering, releasing, reconnecting, reclaiming, and rebuilding, demonstrate that lasting change requires repetition. Catchy mottos abound, including “It’s not about perfection. It’s about direction”; tools like “The Future Self Quiz” allow readers to assess where they are and measure progress over time. However, the book’s central premise is simple enough that it doesn’t quite necessitate a book-length discussion.
An often inspiring interactive guide to rewriting one’s life whose core message can seem too simplistic at times.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9798891389861
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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