A creative “job description” that explores personal ideals that may lead to interpersonal success in life.
In this debut book, Burnett, an experienced educator and devout Christian, creates and expounds upon a new job title: the CXO, or chief experience officer, who “delivers exemplary, life-changing experiences to family, friends, co-workers, and any other person he or she interacts with on a day-to-day basis.” Before delving into the details of what being a CXO entails, the author tells of ordinary people who had an extraordinary impact on him because of their simple yet meaningful actions, including his parents, grandparents, and former boss at a sporting goods store. Through their examples, he came to discover that “The meaning of life is to live with a purpose; by putting work into relationships and loving others.” After a brief introduction, Burnett puts forth the concept of the CXO in the form of a job description, complete with a professional presentation with multiple sections: “Position Summary”; “Principle Duties,” a list of 10 relationship-building qualities; “Requirements” (“No experience necessary”); “Core Competencies,” including approachability, humility, and generosity; and “Physical and Sensory Demands,” a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chapter about the joy that comes from being a CXO (“Must be able to withstand extended periods of peace and joy”). The principles and tone in this book are reminiscent of those in Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989). Not only does Burnett keep his explanations clear and concise, but he also accompanies them with real-world examples that will drive the principles home for readers; for example, he uses the concept of road rage to show how CXOs should pay attention to their values instead of their specific circumstances. The layout of the book is excellent, with a preface that builds the author’s credibility, an introduction that draws readers in with concrete examples, and then a multifaceted job description that’s enjoyable to read, easy to remember, and full of applicable wisdom. The Christian references throughout serve to strengthen points for religious readers, yet they’re subtle enough that non-Christians may also easily enjoy and profit from the book. An innovatively organized guide with a wealth of inspiring, transformative principles.
Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-7943-1
Page Count: 108
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | GENERAL NONFICTION
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Categories: PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
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