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
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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