An engaging seven-step plan for tackling seemingly insurmountable problems.
A personal self-help guide to becoming “unstuck” in business and in life.
Johnson (Walking with the Hymns, 2013) uses examples from her own life, and from the lives of savvy business executives and others, to illustrate seven steps to help readers achieve their goals. Each step (for example, “reinvent yourself,” “eliminate distractions,” “play like you’re in the major leagues”) is explored in four or five chapters. Each chapter ends with a “Moving Forward” section, in which Johnson poses thought-provoking questions, calls for action or assigns homework to help readers determine the areas that may require improvement. Although all the steps are quite useful, the sixth section, “Do the Business,” is perhaps the strongest. Johnson asks close friend and successful real estate entrepreneur Jim Heitbrink for his best business advice—which can easily be applied to life in general: “Number one, find your uniqueness….Number two, watch the cash. Number three, work just a little harder than everyone else.” Later, Johnson tells a quick, intriguing story about carmaker Henry Ford that leads to a powerful lesson: “Know your value; then you can ask for what you’re worth”—a very useful concept, particularly in a down economy. Although the first three-quarters of the book unfolds at a fairly languid pace, the last few chapters have a much faster tempo, which gives the ending a rushed, almost disconnected feel. However, despite this, Johnson still manages to get important points across, including the powerful notion that we’re all making an impact—although we may never know the extent of it until much later; she came to that realization after she was asked to sing at a former student’s well-attended funeral. Observations such as these, along with the book’s many helpful tips and suggestions, may help readers to be more mindful of their life choices, think positively and live fuller lives.
An engaging seven-step plan for tackling seemingly insurmountable problems.Pub Date: July 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1475996623
Page Count: 270
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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