A vulnerable, no-nonsense roadmap that makes a case that aiming for “just OK” can lead to profound change.
A candid self-help guide offers men a path from feelings of shame to self-acceptance.
Entrepreneur, investor, filmmaker, and motivational speaker Gogolewski draws on his own battles with addiction, divorce, and career upheaval to illustrate that the path to well-being isn’t about quick fixes but about aiming simply to be “OK.” In jargon-free prose, he leads readers through embracing the truth of one’s failures, deciding to change, and cultivating lasting compassion for oneself. Overall, it’s a book about deciding to change after recognizing that “life isn’t meant to be only suffering.” Gogolewski urges readers to use their fears as vehicles for change and to try “facing head-on the terrible facts” about their lives—a vital step, he asserts, toward returning to a healthier mental state. Along the way, he weaves in lessons he’s learned from therapists, energy healers, and the personal community that helped him through his most difficult moments, which included his struggle with alcohol addiction, his separation from his wife, and his estrangement from his children. The narrative’s strength lies in its honesty: Gogolewski spares no detail in recounting how his pursuit of external validation—via Silicon Valley career victories and approval from his father—left him feeling hollow, which adversely affected his personal life. He explains that his own transformation began when he admitted his faults, allowed acceptance to replace self-loathing, and aspired to be “just OK.” His humanistic tone resonates throughout this book, particularly when he recounts how he went through detox four times. Such personal revelations ground the reader in reality and highlight that the healing process is not linear. Exercises throughout the book help to anchor spiritual growth in practical, everyday actions. Although the book’s repetition of core themes (decision versus want, wearing a mask versus embracing one’s true self) may feel insistent, it reinforces the message that authentic progress is ongoing. It reads like a friend counseling you to seek your best—while tossing around a few swear words along the way.
A vulnerable, no-nonsense roadmap that makes a case that aiming for “just OK” can lead to profound change.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798991873116
Page Count: 158
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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