You KNOW I like my books with supported data especially when it comes to anything that may help us with human kindness.  Success Built to Last is based on the interviews of 200 of the world’s most successful people.  And though it is supported by the interviews of these 200 people this book is not like Putnam’s Bowling Alone where each page seems to have a chart or graph – if that kind of thing doesn’t wind your watch.  No, this book is in narrative form, but combines and massages the information gleaned from these successful people.

      Ah!  So who might those people be depends on your definition of success, right?  Right!  Famous Philosopher Thomas Hobbes first saw the struggle of man as a quest for fame, wealth and power.  Long have these three things defined success in Western Culture but the people interviewed for this book do not see these goals as an end in themselves but only as a reflection of having a passion for and loving what you do.  In fact these three things are seen as creating a treadmill of cynicism leading to a prediction by the World Health Organization that depression will be the leading cause of disability by the year 2020.  Therefore, doing something for yourself that has meaning is the only way to achieve success and avoid these dire consequences to a life … well … without meaning.

      The people interviewed in this book have much to teach us in the way of living a life that matters.  They have each sustained a 20 year history of success as defined in this book and thus are at least in their mid forties.  The authors refer to the people they interviewed as ‘builders’ to give them a collective name for the wondrous things they have achieved for themselves and others.  These folk do the things that are meaningful to them despite what their friends and family think they should do.  They have not followed the common path to the ordinary but the extraordinary path to a meaningful life – and this doesn’t always mean they have found pots of gold at the ends of their rainbows.  They have led extraordinary lives by doing what is 1: meaningful to them and having the right 2: Thoughtstyle and the right 3: Actionstyle to achieve their goals.

      This book is so good and the concepts so true and my resistance to these simple truths is so high, I’m putting it in my read again pile … and I’m reading it again … very soon!

Go Put Your Strengths To Work – Marcus Buckingham

      As soon as I saw this book I knew it to be one of the super series of books from the Gallup Organization that has promoted the theory that we should run with our strengths rather than work on our weaknesses.  This organization suggests that we cannot change all that much and if we see no advantage in doing something we can learn all the knowledge and attain all the skill we require to overcome our weaknesses, but we still won’t overcome them … hence, we should identify and focus on bettering our natural strengths.  This feels so much like common sense and something the Human Kindness audience should read about that I have loved these books and quoted many of them to you in previous articles.  (They also back up their claims with reams of statistics to suggest they are REALLY onto something!)

      The other books are: Now: Discover Your Strengths – Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton; First, Break all the Rules – Buckingham and Curt Coffman; and Discover Your Sales Strengths by Smith and Rutigliano.
So imagine how disappointed I was when I realized there was little or nothing new here in Buckingham’s latest work.  In addition to there being nothing new the book rubbed me wrong in three ways – admittedly due to my own personal preferences which you may not have:  One Buckingham asks us to go to a website to watch an on-line video, which I am game to do, but only the first one is free – the others have to be paid for.  I don’t like this kind of commercialism where one product comes incomplete and you have to buy more to make the first one fully work.  Second, it is a workbook and had I done some homework I might have discovered this before buying it.  Now I might still have bought it anyway, but I would have been mentally prepared to work through things, rather than being surprised.  When I came to this book, I was not prepared to ‘work’ through things … I didn’t want to play.  Admittedly this is ‘my bad!’  Third, the book asks you to read a chapter a week.  And I went away to the cottage to read fiction and non-fiction and I didn’t want to read a workbook in this fashion … I wanted to get the book done so I could move on to a host of other interesting books I intended to read.
So, there you go.  If you really like personal workbooks where you work through your own ideas in order to apply your strengths and let go of your weaknesses, then buy the book.  If you want to increase your knowledge in the “Strengths’ Field,” buy the other books!

Why Can’t We Be Good – Jacob Needleman

      This book is deep.  Deep-deep-deep-deep-deeper-deep!  It would be best to have at least SOME philosophy in your hip pocket before wading in.  I think you would get something from it if you didn’t have any philosophy, but the basics will make your read much richer.
      
      Needleman’s answer … in the big picture to why we can’t be good … while including faith perspective in the answer to his question?  We must find a way to go inside ourselves and first love God and then, love ourselves.  If we do this we can step out of this internal journey and come out into the real world and act with the integrity and morality we require to treat others well and to Be Good in the world.

      He said that the world cannot make us happy.  Stuff, money, prestige … none of it brings about happiness.  Chasing after ‘stuff’ in the world is like the tail wagging the dog.  When we act in the world to get more of the world, we’re likely to not be good.  We have to love God and ourselves and then … then we have a chance for happiness.

Pay It Forward (Fiction) – Catherine Ryan Hyde

      I’ll not spoil the ending if you haven’t seen the film, but there were two things in this book that www.thehumankindnessproject.com found fascinating.  Several times in the book various people said the boy’s project wouldn’t work for a couple of reasons.  Trevor, a young boy is given a social science project of doing something … anything to change the world.  He comes up with the following plan.  He will do three things … three big things to help three different people in order to make their lives better.  The only cost to the three people he helps is that they must do the same thing for three other people – three different people – very human-kindness-like!

      The reason why adults feel this project will fail is two-fold: one they think that people simply won’t help others after they’ve been helped because either they will forget or there is nothing in it for them … the sheer nature of the idea is TOO altruistic.  Second the people doubt if the project will work because people have to ‘voluntarily’ help one another.  Without being paid to help others, it is felt the “Pay It Forward” project simply will not work.

      These are the kinds of things that we here at www.thehumankindnessproject.com spend a great deal of time thinking about.  Can people … will people voluntarily, actively, be kind towards one another on a regular basis or are we simply ‘not built that way?’  The book offers some interesting and subtle answers to these big questions.
This book is a fast read!