Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Success Self-Help

  • PSYCHOLOGICAL SECRETS For EMOTIONAL SUCCESS by Dr. Kelly Rabenstein – Workplace Culture, Interpersonal Relations, Success Self-Help

     

    Blue and Gold badge recognizing Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success by Dr Kelly Rabenstein for winning the 2023 Mind and Spirit Grand Prize

    Do you often feel that you sabotage your personal and work relationships? In Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success, Dr. Kelly Rabenstein teaches readers exactly what psychological techniques will help them strengthen and maintain their interpersonal connections.

    Dr. Rabenstein is a licensed psychologist offering her extensive knowledge of how to make sound, conscious changes in mindset and perspective to help you thrive in relationships across the board. If a person can thrive, then they can be fully authentic to themselves and to those who surround them.

    Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success follows the structure of thoughtful explanations and emotional explorations, followed by insightful exercises at the end of each chapter to help readers understand and improve both their workplace culture and personal interactions. These questions reveal where we stand and how to develop a more balanced life.

    Dr. Rabenstein lays out the deceptively simple key to emotional success: a combination of awareness, education, and empathy.

    The book starts with the suggestion that the reader keep a simple journal, writing down a sentence or two to track daily happenings. These journal entries, plus mentally engaging questions within each chapter, bring clarity to your personal intentions. You can then begin to reform thought patterns and habits to better serve them.

    Empathy is a cornerstone of productive relationships, no matter which kind they are.

    Without compassionate listening and communication, relationships become stagnant as the wants and needs of others go unaddressed. While professional relationships aren’t put second here, Dr. Rabenstein offers particularly focused suggestions on communication between partners.

    This expert guidance clarifies the ins and outs of sending and receiving information between people. It also highlights the struggles that crop up when communication falls short, such as hiding needs or simply being dishonest. Any move toward improving or hampering communication in a relationship has a compounding effect, for the positive or for the negative.

    Our interpersonal relationships – business, romantic, and otherwise – are the paths to happiness. Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success opens our inner pathways wide for the reader who is ready to listen.

    Learn how to break down aspects of relationships, following clear and simple directions, and implement positive changes in each of them. It won’t be long until you reap the benefits of healthier connections and emotional success in every aspect of life.

    Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success by Dr. Kelly Rabenstein won the 2023 Grand Prize for the CIBA Mind & Spirit Book Awards!

     

  • A PATH To EXCELLENCE by Tony Jeton Selimi – Success Self Help, Personal Transformation, Overcoming Challenges

     

    On the belief that life isn’t just the random cards one is dealt, A Path to Excellence by Tony Jeton Selimi offers a blueprint—the octagon of excellence—to succeed personally, professionally, and spiritually.

    Transcending the pitfalls and spontaneous stumbling blocks along the path of life can open the door to self-actualization and progression. As someone who experienced bullying, sexual abuse, early disability, and homelessness, Selimi sets on to become a beacon of light to the hopeless and marginalized.

    Within each soul lies a bud of genius waiting to blossom. This book focuses on purpose, vision, and persistence to clear the way to that fullest potential. Affirming challenges as immutable truths of life, Selimi employs Buddhist teaching and personal anecdotes to encourage a head-on confrontation with one’s struggles and promotes a feeling of gratitude. As a blend of philosophical wisdom and practical experience, the initial chapters help readers acknowledge their current life situation, perceiving challenges as epochs of potential.

    The intricate symmetry of the octagon, with roots in historical and cultural contexts, becomes a clear visual framework for this book’s instruction.

    Just as the eight corners of the octagon meld to form a combined whole, eight core principles serve as a guiding route to holistic growth. Further sections present true-to-life examples of figures like Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey, framing them as examples of clear vision and self-belief.

    A Path to Excellence ushers one out of the most comfortable route to one scattered with stones and glass, insisting that setbacks are truly catalysts for growth.

    Selimi highlights the importance of embracing change, believing in one’s self, and savoring every small success with a mind that persists no matter what.

    The theme of karma is a core to this book, exploring its role in one’s mindset and passage of life.

    As it emphasizes the concept that every action engenders energy that returns to us sometime in life, the theme touches upon the idea of generating positive karma. This section doesn’t back down from proving the relevance and practicability of karma in modern life through a harmonized connection between karmic cycles and psychological insights.

    A Path to Excellence is a rich fabric embroidered with personal anecdotes, philosophical references, scientific insights, and reflective exercises for readers. It caters to every soul that seeks self-improvement and a holistic take on achieving success. But most of all, it is for those believing in the idea of persistence and courage.

    A Path to Excellence by Tony Jeton Selimi won First Place in the 2023 CIBA Hearten Awards for Inspiring & Uplifting Non-Fiction.

     

  • HEAD ON – Stories of Alopecia by Deeann Callis Graham – Self-Esteem, Success Self-Help, Dermatology

    HEAD ON – Stories of Alopecia by Deeann Callis Graham – Self-Esteem, Success Self-Help, Dermatology

    Instruction & Instight Blue and Gold 1st Place BadgeMore than 10 years ago, when Deeann Callis Graham went through a second bout of alopecia areata (AA), the first was when she was seven years old, she wondered where she could find pictures and read stories of people who were also losing their hair. She wanted to embrace positive messages amid a society that equates baldness with cancer and sickness. Yearning to relate to people who looked like her, she started writing her own story and soon she had connected with others with alopecia wanting to tell their stories.

    Head-On: Stories of Alopecia, featuring 75 narratives from people of all ages and walks of life with alopecia. Graham’s purpose is to educate and shed light on the illness that affects 6.8 million people in the US, according to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF), and help change the world’s attitudes toward hair, beauty, and self-worth.

    In the book, Graham makes it clear that alopecia areata is not cancer, and that hair loss is not any easier for men and boys than it is for girls and women. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune condition where the body gets confused and attacks the hair follicles, which causes hair to fall out. A more severe form is alopecia totalis, where all of the hair on the head falls out. Alopecia universalis, which is less common, is hair loss on the entire body including the head, eyelashes, eyebrows, legs, toes, etc.

    To produce the 216-page book, which features black-and-white portraits and short narratives from each participant, Graham talked to more than 500 people to compile the stories and conduct research. At the end, she includes interviews with Jeff Woytovich, founder of the nonprofit Children’s Alopecia Project (CAP), and Andy Turpen, who started Mondo Baldo to highlight positive messages around baldness.

    Most impressive are the narratives of hope, rebirth and renewed confidence after years of stares, pranks, and bullying in school and misinformed comments, rudeness, and more stares as adults. Being a child with alopecia can be particularly devastating, as the many contributors wrote, being called “freak” or “hairless cat” on the schoolyard. Sophia said she missed going to her junior prom; and Tanya recalls that as a youngster, she felt “ugly and vulnerable.”

    Most of the contributors talk about the countless hours they spent in front of the mirror creatively trying to hide their bald patches with their existing hair. Making the decision to wear a wig in public was a major turning point and a show of independence yet it also came with its own potential failures. Sarah, from California, had a pivotal moment during middle school when a classmate pulled her wig off her head. Sarah was “completely shocked,” but after that incident, she decided to tattoo her eyebrows and leave the wig at home when she entered high school. “I’m just so tired of hiding,” she writes.

    While some of the stories are heartbreaking, they are also uplifting, showing how each person rose from the ashes to use their alopecia for good either for their own self exploration or to help the world understand the illness.

    Steph, a high school swimmer, says when the team gathers for pictures at meets, she proudly displays her bald head. “It’s as if I’m announcing, ‘Here I am. Bald, beautiful, and not sick!’”

    Joyce, who has had alopecia for more than 50 years, had hair loss from age 12 to 24. Her hair fully returned and remained for almost 30 years. “I believed I was cured,” Joyce writes, however there is no known cure at this time although there are treatments. Later, when her son’s hair started falling out, hers did again too and she said she felt relieved she was done with the cycle.

    Not only is Head-On a lovely display for the coffee table, it serves as a resource for parents of children with alopecia and anyone who would like to learn more. Graham has included Alopecia 101 with facts and, at the end, a Resources page listing organizations based in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada.

     

    Head On: Stories of Alopecia won First Place in the CIBA 2017 Instruction & Insight Awards for Non-Fiction.