An uplifting and succinct collection of life lessons.
A manual offers an intriguing approach to pursuing purpose by breaking the rules.
On the road to entrepreneurial success, Russo experienced his fair share of business and personal failures, including divorce and struggles with substance abuse. Rising above such challenges made him realize that his first book, The Art of WHY (2016), required reexamination: “I’ve learned our WHY sometimes needs to be broken so that we can grow as we put the pieces back together.” The notion of rule-breaking is not new, but the author’s briskly written guide skillfully details a set of 10 sensible self-improvement steps—five “start-up steps” and five “lifestyle steps.” Step 1, “Break Your Why,” isn’t so much about breaking down as it is about building up, for it starts with the ability to “know our WHY.” Similarly, Step 2, “Make (or Break) a Plan,” can be viewed through two opposing lenses. While this make-or-break language may lead to some confusion, Russo weaves in his own story of regeneration to clarify the text. Steps 3, 4, and 5 seem to refine the concept. Step 4, for example, stresses the importance of building a support team of advisers and mentors to optimize success. The second half of the book concentrates on the five “lifestyle” steps. Here, Russo delivers some valuable counsel about learning patience and persistence, discovering how to accept or adapt, turning “mistakes into opportunities,” celebrating milestones, and recognizing the importance of giving back. In fact, giving back is the author’s overarching message; he poetically proclaims: “I don’t really own anything until I give it away! Think of it as philanthropy of the soul.” Each step constitutes a chapter in the book and is enriched with numerous anecdotes, many from Russo’s own experiences. The most helpful addition to every step is an interactive section at the end of each chapter entitled “Contemplate,” which encourages readers to “formulate” written answers to key questions and “activate” a strategy. The author writes with sincerity and passion, reflecting on his own life with pragmatic maturity while instilling a sense of confidence in readers that success is achievable.
An uplifting and succinct collection of life lessons.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64543-823-6
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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