LESS EGO, MORE SOUL

By recounting her own experiences, a leadership coach urges female readers to shed the psychological masks they use to “please, polish, and prove” and unleash their “inner wise woman.”

In this guide, Ioli begins her call to action by sharing her struggles with lazy eye in the second grade and how the admiration she was accustomed to changed to contempt and fear from her classmates. Even though her lazy eye was corrected with surgery, this incident taught her that the psychological mask she donned had to be enhanced for her to be accepted by others. She eventually went on to hold leadership roles in several Fortune 200 companies, where 80% of her daily efforts were spent on her mask identity—pleasing, polishing, and proving. But then her father was diagnosed with lung cancer and given six months to live shortly after he retired at the age of 60—what she calls her “thunderbolt experience”; his subsequent death hit her so strongly that “its force tore off my mask and challenged the identity I had created up until then.” The second half of the book walks readers through three exercises, each a week long, designed to help them tear off their own masks and find their true life’s purpose. The first week invites readers to create a life’s journey timeline with an example provided. The second week leads the audience through a visualization exercise that includes “listening and introspection.” The third week shows readers how to write a personal manifesto, with a template and examples. There are worthy question prompts throughout the text, designed to help readers use their own intuitions to unleash their inner wise women. This manual is easy to read with plenty of advice that will help readers unlock their full potentials by looking within themselves.

A valuable, empowering guide for women wanting to align themselves with an inner purpose.