A useful guide for readers aiming to conquer negative thinking.
An insightful self-help book that seeks to help people free themselves from the negative thoughts that prevent them from achieving success.
Everyone’s familiar with the concept of physical gravity, but in this book, debut author Epperson coins the term “Mental Gravity” to describe a constant downward tug on one’s emotions. Every person faces a struggle with negativity, he writes, and “[t]he only way to survive Mental Gravity is to be keenly aware of it, and take specific actions to moderate the effects it produces.” Unlike other books on positive thinking, this one emphasizes that positivity alone is not enough, because a well-balanced individual should be prepared for times of both levity and gravity. The author illustrates this balance by relating some of his own negative experiences—including a family car crash and personal financial collapse—and telling how he used them as opportunities to learn and grow. He also writes of his own difficult relationship with his father, and how he used it to become a better person. He warns readers that “we need to become very adept at dealing with disappointment,” as it is sure to come eventually. He also points out that his philosophy extends to the past as well; it doesn’t matter what a person’s background is, he says, because each new starting point is a gift. There are a few startling requests to “download my free report” on various topics, which feel out of place and would have been less obtrusive at the book’s end. Still, with his friendly, encouraging tone, Epperson does a fine job of offering practical ways to overcome Mental Gravity, and many of his tips can be put into action rather quickly. For example, with a hat tip to self-help guru Tony Robbins, he advises readers to pretend they’re movie producers, in order to reframe negative memories as positive ones. He also advises writing a list of at least 101 positive memories, and making it one’s goal to collect more.
A useful guide for readers aiming to conquer negative thinking.Pub Date: April 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495236464
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
