A common-sense guide to staying focused on what matters most in life.
In this self-help book grounded in experience, Bailey-Walker offers advice for adopting a more positive outlook.
Why do so many people sell themselves short in everyday life? Writing in a conversational tone, Bailey-Walker argues that anyone can learn “how to feel, look and act like the #1 person that you are.” Her book begins by reflecting that happiness “is a choice you make” and follows up with a chapter on choosing flattering clothes and related subjects such as good posture, little of which will seem new to most women. Later sections deal with topics that range from practical tips on acquiring a wide vocabulary and getting organized to philosophical guidelines for what Bailey-Walker considers a life well-spent. The most valuable parts of the book include a chapter called “Personal Moments,” which urges people to commit to taking breaks from their daily routines, thus allowing everyone “celebrate” their uniqueness. Those sections urge readers, for example, to enjoy nature’s beauty and to “take a hint from the more European habit of occasionally indulging your senses” with a glass of wine. In keeping with its upbeat tone, the book has a “Positives and Negatives” chapter that recommends “prudent optimism” for coping with realities such as job loss. It ends with a discussion of how readers can use their talents to help others and a series of descriptions with accompanying drawings focused on what readers could ideally become at life’s different stages. The wide range of subjects and the brevity of this guide offer few opportunities for much depth. However, the book will encourage people to think about what truly matters, as it offers pointers on finding happiness amid ordinary experiences.
A common-sense guide to staying focused on what matters most in life.Pub Date: May 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1469127217
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
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