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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
