Living Your Best Life Work Home Balance Destiny Ten Strategies for Getting from Where You Are to Where Youre Meant to Be

A prominent personal coach describes how we can attain our “best life” at home and at work-one in which we are more flexible, feel more in control, communicate more effectively, and work less hard but more productively.

“The insights she shares will help you reach the success and fulfillment you are destined for.”
-Ken Blanchard

A founding member of the International Coach Federation and the president and owner of InterCoach, Laura Berman Fortgang is at the forefront of one of the fastest-growing consulting disciplines in the world. Teaching advanced communication and living skills, Fortgang has helped thousands of clients find more rewarding careers, make more money, and exchange a stressful daily treadmill of endless goal-seeking for a life in which gains come easily.

In Living Your Best Life, Fortgang shares her secrets of personal and professional satisfaction. She offers ten tried-and-true strategies to lead readers to what she calls a “best life”-one in which we’ve learned to honor our true desires and work with our individual talents rather than exhausting our energy on a traditional model of achievement. Instead of frenetically trying to have it all, she suggests we focus on asking ourselves what we really want. Her techniques teach us to ask questions that move us forward, not backward, to discover our own unique “lucrative purpose,” and to design a “magnet” life plan that draws to us the more fulfilling existence we deserve. Notes.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A must read for women in business.
Definitely on my recommended book list. A must read for women in business.

Susan Bock

The Success Coach for Women in Business

www.SusanBockSolutions.com

5 Stars Wise questions help you arrive at your own wise answers
This book is a different kettle of fish from many other self-help books, and it deserves a read.

A lot of books shame you about current life choices (you’re dependent; lazy; immature; in denial; codependent; not actualized, etc.) and lecture you about how you must change in order to FULFILL your DESTINY*! “…You’re right,” you might say, sighing. “So if I should do something else instead, why don’t I just DO it?”

Fortgang says you need reinforcement and continuity to bridge the change. Her strongest suite is helping you recognize how your life purpose is already being enacted, to understand how your essential nature already infuses your life, and build from there. For example: My nature is that of an observer and analyst (duh). My purpose is not To Be A [drum roll] “”"WRITER”"”, but to communicate information effectively through my strongest means–which happens to be writing.

The cool thing about Fortgang is that she doesn’t lecture you; she leads you to teach yourself and create the kind of continuity that works for you.

*Anyone else notice irony in that message?

5 Stars Living your life is a discovery
Laura Berman Fortgang derives both wise women brilliance through intellect blended with intution to uncover your true life. Fortgang’s extensive excercises combines and connect head with heart to emerge from our own cocoon.

5 Stars THIS WOMAN IS DOING A GREAT JOB!!!!!
I read this book at a time when I didn’t know if I was coming or going! Although it didn’t get me the ideal job, help me lose 30 pounds in 3 weeks or buy real estate no-money-down, it did help get me in touch with an old friend : my own inner voice!!!

2 Stars Not particularly realistic or helpful
According to the author everyone has a built-in “blueprint for life.” Her job and the reader’s job is to discover what that is. But the discovery process is decidedly non analytical; trying to understand the past - the why’s of this world - is non constructive, if not negative, in this venture. The reader, patient, or client ( the author runs a life coaching business ) must be future oriented, focusing on “wants” and not “shoulds.” One should rely upon intuition and feelings far more so than “information.” Furthermore, all areas of life are equally open to this approach: career, relationships, etc. Details on a micro level are irrelevant or get in the way.

Like virtually every so-called “self-help” book, the author maintains that the person in need of help is the primary obstacle to success. It is up to him or her to make the life-changing transformation, with of course the possible help of a life coach. The author gives the example of deciding on the day on which she was to be admitted to a mental facility, after five years of depression and therapy, to suddenly change her life. Apparently, multi-year depression is some sort of superficial malady that can be cast aside in a heartbeat, if only properly motivated. Also in keeping with the genre, the author admits to no social or economic structures or conditions that can and do present very real obstacles in attaining success in life. Issues like class, vastly unequal resources, or power dynamics apparently do not exist in the author’s world. Being down-sized from a thirty year career is just another “opportunity” in life-coach speak, not a devastating blow that can be extremely difficult to overcome for many realistic reasons.

Granted it is possible to think one’s situation to death. Analysis can be paralysis. But is success in life merely identifying wants, adopting the right attitudes, and getting out of the way to let it all happen? At one point, the author suggests that the “best life cannot help but find you.” For many, life is just a bit more complicated despite efforts made that are least equal to any detailed in her book.

The target audience is not particularly clear. In one example, the author describes a supervisor becoming more effective by asking an employee “what” questions as opposed to “why” questions. That sounds like Mgt 101, not life transformation. In another case, a manager has “negative” guilt over firing an employee. When he realizes that he is helping the firm, apparently that constitutes “living your best life.” And then there is the other extreme of the author going from admittance to a hospital to life coach and successful author in a matter of a few years.

The book is just overly simplistic. It makes both unreal, exaggerated claims and does not realistically examine life’s complexities and the difficulties in assessing and solving problems. In that regard, it may actually perform a disservice. The book offers mostly life cheerleading, which may be exactly what some are looking for.

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