An energetic and immensely helpful overview of working life and its challenges.
Calhoun-Senghor presents a comprehensive guide to joining a new workplace and happily staying there.
The author draws on his 40 years of experience in legal and government work, including a stint in the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration, in order to distill the basics of finding a job, as well as starting it, liking it, and keeping it. These basics are organized around 24 “Calhoun-Senghor Rules,” such as “Never Criticize a Colleague or Co-Worker,” “Sometimes People Just Won’t Like You (Or You Won’t Like Them),” and “All Big Problems Start Small.” These chapters, playfully illustrated by Liv Senghor, begin with observations about organizations in general, then move on to explanations of the various rules, including the all-important “Never Send Anything When You Are Angry or Upset”: “If after sleeping on it, you still believe the email should be sent,” he writes, “review it again, drain it of all emotions, and stick to the facts without commentary or embellishment.” Many of these dicta are fleshed out with fictional examples. The book then moves on to other generalities, including the seemingly counterintuitive “How To Get Fired,” which features a tone of dogged optimism that runs through the whole book: “Getting knocked down by life is not a bad thing, as long as you learn from it and keep getting back up.” The book also has some helpful extras, such as a sample cover letter that one might use as a model when applying for a position.
Calhoun-Senghor proves to be an invaluable mentor in these pages. His prose style is clear and personable, with an understated sense of humor and an unfailingly optimistic view of how his readers might improve their situations. This is an essential study of the dynamics of workplaces (including the author’s segment on entering government work), but it’s also a low-key guide to self-improvement. For example, Calhoun-Senghor urges unskilled public speakers to work harder at it; he reminds timid jobseekers that one person can change the dynamic of an entire conversation; and above all, he stresses honest self-evaluation: “Don’t believe your own press releases,” he writes. “Live in a reality-based world.” He also goes through many basics that newcomers to the workforce might not have considered, and always with a refreshing clarity: Never gossip, be generous with praise, try to plan for the unexpected, and perform one’s duties in a way that will impress a supervisor. “The key to success is to make your immediate boss absolutely thrilled with your performance,” he writes. “If you are good, your boss will typically sing your praises, or word will get out anyway.” His tips about negotiating techniques and entering government service clearly come from hard-won professional experience, and they include choice reflections from his time in the West Wing. As Calhoun-Senghor points out, the principles he’s outlining are millennia old, but this is a good thing—time has proven that mastering them can lead to success.
An energetic and immensely helpful overview of working life and its challenges.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798987423707
Page Count: 304
Publisher: John & Courtney Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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