Accentuate the Positive

You Can’t Ruin My Day: 52 Wake-Up Calls to Turn Any Situation Around by Allen Klein (Viva Editions, $16.95, 340 pages)

“You Can’t Ruin My Day is designed to help you unload the burdens you may have been carrying around with you. It is therefore filled not only with wise words but also with inspiring stories and anecdotes, insightful and motivational quotations, and lighthearted and laugh-producing material. In other words, this book is designed to help you put healthier, happier habits in motion for your personal growth.”

I’ve got to keep breathing.
It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t. – Steve Martin, comedian

Allen Klein, a veteran keynote speaker and believer in the power of humor, presents the reader with an appealing, just-right sized volume brimming with his friendly, conversational approach to advising folks that they can change their mood from upset or angry because no one event can ruin your day.

It’s easy to imagine Klein addressing a group at a convention. His author picture at the back of the book features a prominent clown nose! Do you suppose he ever wears it in real life?

Right up front, the book, comprised of five distinct parts with energetic and positive titles (Wake-Up, Wise-Up, Grow-Up [Not!], Crack-Up and Wrap-Up) alerts readers that help is just ahead. Each of the sections includes several wake-up calls, anecdotes from Klein’s life or those of people he has known over his many years employing applied and therapeutic humor. Readers are encourage to select phrases or affirmations to post at home or at work.

What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are. – Epictetus, Greek philosopher

This reviewer has encountered many of the quotes presented at the beginning and within the sections/chapters that comprise this cute orange book with a half-smiley face on the cover. Klein has chosen well. The breadth of his sources from the past to present day reinforces the timelessness of his message. Rather than setting himself up as one who has the answers, he aligns himself with indisputable wisdom gathered and presented in a way that is both kind and easy to digest. No tough love here!

Well recommended for everyone.

Ruta Arellano

A review copy was provided by the author.

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Be True to Your School

Practical Genius: The Real Smarts You Need to Get Your Talents and Passions Working for You by Gina Amaro Rudan (Touchstone, $24.99, 203 pages)

Ready, set, GO!   Professional development and training coach Gina Rudan can be a bit overwhelming as she enthusiastically offers up her philosophy for success.   Summed up it is – Be the best you by mining deeply held inner goals while simultaneously exploiting people who may be able to assist your climb upward.   Oh, and always maintain personal integrity by selflessly promoting the ones your are using.

That’s quite a challenge; however, Ms. Rudan offers herself as the poster child for this method.   She jumped ship from the Fortune 500 employers of her past to begin a second career as a consultant.   Clearly, the field of personal development is a crowded one that spans several decades.   M. Scott Peck, Jack Canfield and David Shenk immediately come to mind.   Dr. Shenk is listed because he too has written a book specifically focused on the topic of genius, The Genius in All of Us.   His view of genius and ways to achieve it are expressed in a calm, well-considered approach.   (A review of the book will be posted next on this site.)

Ms. Rudan’s target audience appears to be the 35-40 year old female who is at a point where she is stuck in her professional life.   The spin for Rudan’s method is a bit titillating with “the Other G spot” and dating rules for those who can assist with a climb into practical genius status.   She stresses the need for personal congruity – a balance of hard and soft assets.   It is at the intersection of one’s marketable skills (hard assets) and personal passions, creativity and values (soft assets) where the Other G spot exists.   Finding that spot and making it yours is the point of the book.

Each element of the process is thoroughly developed; however, this reviewer found the bouncy enthusiasm and perspective shifts in the early chapters a bit unsettling.   Moreover, the rambling in some sentences makes the case for keeping it simple:

Expressing your practical genius is not about expressing the limitedness of our personalities or egos but more about expressing wonder of the depths of the oceans of who we are as complex multi-dimensional creatures.

The later chapters get down to business with boxed hints for the reader and lengthy descriptions or definitions of what Ms. Rudan thinks is the ideal mix of characters that will become the players in the reader’s life changing drama.

Given today’s legions of unemployed and underemployed persons, this book may have an audience in persons seeking more than just putting food on the table and a roof over one’s head.   Then again, maybe it does not.

Ruta Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

Coming Up Next…

A review of A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life by Bethenny Frankel.

Hungry Heart

This Hungry Spirit: Your Need for Basic Goodness by C. Clinton Sidle (Larson Publications)

C. Clinton Sidle is a recognized expert in consulting, leadership training, and human potential development.   This Hungry Spirit is a departure from his previously published works that focused on strategic planning and achieving personal and organizational greatness.   Instead, Sidle uses his personal journey through difficult times as the structure for sharing the skills needed to make it past the rough spots we all face.   (The original subtitle of this book was Seeking Happiness in the Heart of Discontent.)

This book is well-organized.   There are exercises within each chapter designed to engage the reader and bring to life the concepts being taught.   Key phrases, pearls of wisdom, are highlighted in sidebars that accompany the text.   Sidle draws from a wide variety of resources to make his pitch for mindfulness and introspection.   His approach seems best suited to a reader who has not yet explored the concepts of meditation, keeping a journal and opening one’s heart.

It’s easy to picture the author leading workshops and drumming up enthusiasm for the topic at hand.   He conveys a sense of importance and necessity when describing the steps that can lead the reader to a calmer, more fulfilling, life.   However, Sidle’s writing is a bit labored.   This reviewer sensed that he would rather conduct an interactive workshop than be restricted to mere words on a page.   His message is bold and somewhat aggressive.   The feeding of the hungry spirit becomes a mission with goals and objectives, not unlike the leadership skills and human potential topics he is known for in business and military circles.

A counterpoint to This Hungry Spirit can be found in The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.   Many of the concepts are quite similar; however, the tone and mood created in The Power of Now is highly suggestive rather than direct and blunt as is the case with This Hungry Spirit.   It will fall to the reader to decide which approach is likely to be the most effective for his/her personal needs.

Ruta Arellano

A review copy was received from Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME).

Time Goes By

In the Fullness of Time: 32 Women on Life After 50 will be released by Atria on April 27, 2010 in trade paperback form ($16.00).   This collection of essays, poems, photographs and drawings was edited by Emily W. Upham and Linda Gravenson.   The following is an excerpt from one of the essays included in the compilation.

“My Narrow Escape” – Abigail Thomas

I like living alone.   I like not having to make male conversation.   I like that I can take as many naps as I feel like taking and nobody knows.   I like that if I’m painting trees and the telephone receiver gets sticky with hunter green and there’s a long drool of blue sky running down the front of the dishwasher, nobody complains.  

I’m seldom lonely.   I have three dogs, twelve grandchildren and four grown kids.   I have a good friend who now and then drives down with his dog.   We’ve known each other so long that we don’t have to talk and when we do we don’t have to say anything.   When he asks me if I’d like to take a trip around the world, I can say yes, knowing that I’ll never have to go.

Inertia is a driving force in both our lives.  

Sometimes I feel sorry for my friends who are looking around for a mate.   I don’t want one, and I don’t want to want one.   It has taken me the better part of 60 years to enjoy the inside of my own head and I do that best when I’m by myself.

I am smug.   I am probably insufferable.