A succinct guide that refreshingly redefines the concept of wealth.
This debut manual proposes a process for developing personal and financial wealth.
Financial adviser Clure uses the acronym GUIDE to represent a five-step process for first discovering one’s purpose and then following a financial plan to live a purpose-driven life. Part I of the book concentrates on nonfinancial (or “True”) wealth, which the author writes is “your unique purpose in life and unlocking your potential so you can live a life that you love, have the means to support it, and positively affect the lives of others.” Here, Clure discusses the process, which may seem obvious to some but still presents a challenge: gathering information, unlocking one’s potential, identifying one’s own passions, determining a purpose, and evaluating and evolving. To assist readers, the author offers an exhaustive list of questions divided into such areas as early childhood, adolescence, college, and work life that he says should be answered with the aid of “a trusted helper” who is not emotionally close and can be objective. He urges readers to discover “Themes in Your Life’s Stories” in order to help determine a purpose that can best be defined by using a “purpose statement.” This methodology is not unique; it will look familiar to readers of self-help motivational books, but Clure neatly defines the steps and explains them in uncluttered prose. Part II employs a parallel structure but focuses on finances. In this part, the author makes solid use of specific examples and provides useful spreadsheets to make a case for developing a financial plan. A chapter on investing relates one’s “core beliefs” to various strategies and includes a helpful nine-item “Rules for Successful Investing.” The concluding chapter suggests that, in order to move from one’s “current life” to an “ideal life,” there are three “principles that drive change”—“Social Incentives,” “Progress Monitoring,” and “Immediate Rewards.” Pertinent examples are used to help explain these principles. Clure’s writing is lucid and jargon-free throughout. The questions he poses are incisive, and the counsel he delivers is practical. What the book lacks in depth (a mere 85 pages, exclusive of two appendices), it makes up for in clarity.
A succinct guide that refreshingly redefines the concept of wealth. (appendices)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1456-7
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.
An exploration of the importance of clarity through calmness in an increasingly fast-paced world.
Austin-based speaker and strategist Holiday (Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, 2018, etc.) believes in downshifting one’s life and activities in order to fully grasp the wonder of stillness. He bolsters this theory with a wide array of perspectives—some based on ancient wisdom (one of the author’s specialties), others more modern—all with the intent to direct readers toward the essential importance of stillness and its “attainable path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence.” Readers will be encouraged by Holiday’s insistence that his methods are within anyone’s grasp. He acknowledges that this rare and coveted calm is already inside each of us, but it’s been worn down by the hustle of busy lives and distractions. Recognizing that this goal requires immense personal discipline, the author draws on the representational histories of John F. Kennedy, Buddha, Tiger Woods, Fred Rogers, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other creative thinkers and scholarly, scientific texts. These examples demonstrate how others have evolved past the noise of modern life and into the solitude of productive thought and cleansing tranquility. Holiday splits his accessible, empowering, and sporadically meandering narrative into a three-part “timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the human body.” He juxtaposes Stoic philosopher Seneca’s internal reflection and wisdom against Donald Trump’s egocentric existence, with much of his time spent “in his bathrobe, ranting about the news.” Holiday stresses that while contemporary life is filled with a dizzying variety of “competing priorities and beliefs,” the frenzy can be quelled and serenity maintained through a deliberative calming of the mind and body. The author shows how “stillness is what aims the arrow,” fostering focus, internal harmony, and the kind of holistic self-examination necessary for optimal contentment and mind-body centeredness. Throughout the narrative, he promotes that concept mindfully and convincingly.
A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53858-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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