An inspiring and invigorating self-empowerment guide that shows the value of connecting with others.
A life coach outlines a 60-day action plan to start journaling, providing a series of questions for contemplation and some commentary from herself and a host of female friends and acquaintances.
This guide offers a road map for readers to take up the challenge of journaling for 60 days straight in order to form the habit since it is “the best self-coaching tool available!” Leid presents “Ask Yourself This” questions for Days 1 to 51, organized under the categories of “Childhood, High School and College Years, Early Adult Years, Adulting, Today, Inspiration and Motivation, and Beyond Today.” These questions include “Who taught you to ride a bike?”; “What career advice would you give your sixteen-year-old self?”; and “What life lesson took you more than once to learn?” For each query in these categories, the author delivers an introductory essay featuring a woman to whom she asked the question and a discussion of the response. Then a mostly blank page with the question is supplied. Each category also has a summary section of Leid’s own answers to all of the questions. For Days 52 to 60, the author gives readers a final set of questions on primarily blank pages to “Complete the #60dayjournalchallenge.”
Leid is truly an inspiration in terms of her energy and enthusiasm. She developed this book, the third installment of her Friendship series, following her personal challenge, at age 49, to meet with 50 women during the run-up to her 50th birthday “to let each of them know what I’ve learned from them.” As the author notes in the manual’s “Going Forward” coda, her efforts in developing this series ended up “consisting of 152 dates with 144 different women. They are diverse in age, race, ethnicity, economic background, educational background, and political and religious views.” This wonderful diversity is reflected in Wallace’s stunning black-and-white portraits of most of the interviewees as well as Yalom’s many photographs of the author, a Korean adoptee in a Japanese American family. Thus, this guide is not the typical self-help book but instead offers a colorful mosaic of women and a taste of their experiences to help readers consider how to probe their own. While the volume’s focus is on midlife female perspectives, the questions and conversations generally have applications to all audiences. Leid makes a convincing case for the benefits of journaling in order to “help bring some of your unconscious beliefs to the surface so that you can reflect and consider whether they are serving you, and see if you need to rewrite any of those beliefs to support your goals. The process will also remind you that you have all of the skills, tools, and talents to manifest and create the life of your dreams.” The author also encourages readers to continue to engage with others. She recounts how she achieved this even during the pandemic shutdown, since “good friends reflect our soul,” and with pals we can “journal and grow together!”
An inspiring and invigorating self-empowerment guide that shows the value of connecting with others.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-954920-42-2
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Capucia Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2022
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
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
