A dynamic and actionable self-help book for those seeking transformation.
McStravick presents a modern motivational guide to personal growth.
This self-help book contains 40 lessons from the author’s own online M. E. School, a place where, McStravick asserts, “everything that’s stuck in your life starts moving again, where everything unhealed gets healed, and new choices and opportunities take shape and begin to blossom.” The transformation process begins with identifying “Weasels in the Road,” or obstacles to evolution. The author urges readers to get out of the “Known Zone” and into the “Grow Zone” and explains why “The Queen” (the emotionally intuitive force that wants to expand one’s world) must trump “The King” (the protective, rational force that keeps one’s world small and safe). Readers learn techniques like “Flowdreaming,” a daydream meditation that inspires positive feelings. McStravick warns of the “Dead Zone,” where “your snap-back ability has been spent” and cautions against becoming a “Backward-Looking Girl,” who has “pinned the Moment of Perfection onto her past, and now nothing in her future is going to match that.” The author directs the reader to identify energy-draining “Power Leaks,” reclaim their agency, and confront resistance. She also encourages brave and inspired action and prompts readers to journal at the end of each chapter (accompanying worksheets and a podcast are also available online). The author’s voice is that of a foul-mouthed cheerleader, down-to-earth yet still authoritative. McStravick makes the idea of transformation fun, using a strength-based approach while acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all destination to this journey. She is reassuring in her advice, such as when she shares that “feelings are your mile markers, and it means there’s a turn up ahead,” or insists, “You’ll fix it when you’re ready to fix it.” While some of the concepts are familiar (getting outside one’s comfort zone, prosperity thinking), many more are novel and memorable, like the “Trifecta of Trust” (trust of self, trust of others, and trust in the universe).
A dynamic and actionable self-help book for those seeking transformation.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780757324680
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HCI Books
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2023
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
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