Life’s Messy, Live Happy: Things Don’t Have to Be Perfect for You to Be Content by Cy Wakeman Book Review

 

In Life’s Messy, Live Happy, Cy Wakeman teaches readers how to find happiness and learning to be content no matter what we face in life. She explained how she had a messy life. She made some bad choices when she was in her 20s. She was dating the wrong type of guy. She got involved in drugs, alcohol, and wanted him to love her. In school, she was determined to get straight A’s and being the teacher’s pet and wanted to be perfect. He ended up cheating on her with her best friend and she struggled with leaving him. Each time he would become more demanding. A counselor ended up helping her on the road to recovery and she found healing. 

 

 

She shared how her best friend died from stage four breast cancer. She met her at a Behavioral Health center and they became fast friends for over 30 years. She explained how they relied on gratitude and tried to focus on being present in the moment. She revealed key principles she used to create a gratitude practice. Some these included, “acknowledge impermanence, if not grateful for, then grateful while, develop mental flexibility, stay curious, just to name a few. She teaches readers how to learn to breathe, learning to feel your emotions, become generous, and asking questions. 

 

 

One of the most powerful lessons in the book was the key word, “given”. This can assist us in reframe our thinking and our obstacles. It helped us to see the potential and to witness how it could be. We can stop focusing on why something can’t happen. This provide people a way to rethink about what they are thinking about and to see the possibilities. This will become a powerful tool for us to use to happily enjoy the moment. 

 

 

 

In the book, she opened up about how she struggled in her marriage. She faced money problems when her consulting company went out of business. She lost lucrative contracts and should have written up cancellation policies. Her husband felt betrayed and her also invested in her dream. It led to conflicts in their marriage. After 23 years of marriage, he wanted to get a divorce. He almost died 5 years before that when he fell into a pool and hit his head and she saved him. He chose to leave her and his four sons. She explained her experiences with her two marriages. She also shared how her husband was also having multiple affairs. She revealed in the book how she dealt with the changes and how she found clarity. 

 

 

I would recommend this impactful book to anyone who is seeking happiness and contentment and they are tired of feeling stressed out. I immensely loved how principles she enclosed in this book and how she was very open in sharing how she had to learn to happy going through difficult life changes. I liked how she explained how we can all learn to recover from self-abandonment and to give ourselves compassion and not be too hard on ourselves. She covered a wide range of topics and how she discovered her own happiness. Her story is a very relatable story for readers to connect with. 

 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, St. Martin's Press for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Messy-Live-Happy-Perfect/dp/1250275164/

The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society by Mauro F. Guillen Book Review

In The Perennials, Mauro F. Guillen explored the new trends that occurring in the different generations and how times are changing. He defined the term perennials as, “people who are not characterized by the decade in which they were born but rather by the way they work, learn, and interact with others.”  He explained how creativity boosts on their twenties and again in their fifties. In their 20’s they rely more on cognitive abilities and when their brain slows down, they rely more on their experience. He looked at BMW’s pioneering and how they choose to approach mutigenerational workplace. They strive to mix over fix generations where they can all collaborate together with their own perspectives and this led to greater productivity and higher job satisfaction. In the book, he also looked at how the common trend is having three careers in a lifetime, how retirement is changing, inheriting, consumer market, and longevity and health. 

 

 

The book explored the role of the nuclear family structure and how it has changed and fallen. Children used to always move out of their parents’ homes and they would get married and raise their own children. He looked at the history and how divorce and separation is causing more single parent households. There is also an increasing happening of being choosing to live alone all together. They are being described as singletons and some choose to never marry or have children. It also means that living alone is becoming more expensive. There is a trend of seeing the breakdown of the sequential model and the nuclear family. Some of this is related to independence and more self-reliance. He shared how young adults without a college degree are living with their parents. In the past, we believed that parents at some point in life would be empty nesters and this is greatly changing. 

 

 

I would recommend this wonderful book on the mutigenerational workplace and family dynamic to anyone who is wanting to earn more about what is occurring right now. I loved how he did tons of research for this book and included a number of different studies to clarify the message of this book. I was shocked by reading about the benefits of flex work and how this helped people to feel less stressed and this in fact prevent job burnout. People are also less likely to retire or quit their jobs. I wonder if companies would provide this key feature how much more happiness, we would in turn witness. There should be a fine line balance between work and living your life. Companies could also see less turn over and not waste their times in training someone who doesn’t want to stay. This book is an incredible resource for us to use to learn more about the mutigenerational and the changes that are happening. 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Perennials-Megatrends-Creating-Postgenerational-Society/dp/1250281342/