From interns to CEOs, this sage manual will improve professionals’ communication skills, confidence, and careers.
A guide offers advice to help readers take control of their careers.
Advanced degrees and technical skills are often touted as the keys to professional success. But, as Oldford explains, reliance on the wrong types of achievements can cost readers time and money on the road to promotions. Meanwhile, the real secrets to accelerating a career are often the unspoken benchmarks against which performance is measured. Referring to these tenets as “Ghost Rules,” the author reveals the hidden path to success in a concise and insightful guide. Covering an assortment of relevant professional topics, Oldford provides wisdom for maximizing workplace visibility, receiving appropriate credit for achievements, managing time effectively, and developing a signature brand. Based on the author’s own experiences, the book is thoroughly practical and occasionally unexpected. Challenging readers to think carefully about the purported benefits of remote work, company hopping, and advanced degrees, he advises professionals to examine the specific benefits of their choices before blindly following trends. And while some of his advice—such as the importance of punctuality—may seem obvious, the author’s recommendations should yield results if consistently applied. Offering a sharp contrast to complex and theoretical business guides, Oldford’s manual is easy to read and ready for immediate application. Designed to be broadly relevant for all stages of the workforce journey, the book intersperses suggestions for day-to-day success with tips for mapping out a professional future, recognizing a stalled career, and determining if it’s really necessary to find a different company to join. Moreover, the author presents step-by-step instructions on the creation of a “Career Management Document,” daily stakeholder reports, “Career Accomplishment Worksheets,” and other materials that will give readers a competitive edge. A useful companion to other professional resources and worthy of successive readings, Oldford’s guide provides readers with a tool that will help them achieve their career dreams.
From interns to CEOs, this sage manual will improve professionals’ communication skills, confidence, and careers.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 979-8788975696
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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