Chances are I won’t have a million followers. That’s okay. In the book above the author reveals that metaverse platforms like Facebook promote polarizing content precisely because it gets people to react click like and share the content and linger on the sites.
Animosity goes viral. CJ Casciotta the author of the book ends his guide with the call for reconciliation. He thinks the Poets among us have the gifts to change things.
How eerie it was then that in this blog recently I expressed my stance that I’m going to “call in” others not call out real people.
In whatever I do say and write I want to make people feel good. No–I won’t contribute to making others feel like poop. If I don’t want to feel like toilet scum why would I want others to feel that way.
In here I’ll give away the secret to being effective:
A person who is made to feel ashamed is not going to have the energy nor motivation to change their behavior.
Good luck trying to convert them to your cause when you’re attacking them and cutting them down.
Anger serves only to harm the person feeling that way not the object of their anger. Do we really want to live our whole lives fueled up on resentment?
Bitter dark and small should be a chocolate drop. Not how we think about and act towards each other.
Let’s each of us vow not to sharpen our knives to compete in the shame wars going on. Forks Over Knives should be our life philosophy not just an eating plan.
It’s okay to cut into a chicken cutlet. Why should we cut into others with hateful and hurtful rhetoric. Things haven’t changed so that is exactly why it’s likely we should change our tactics.
Like the author of the above book I choose to be a “hopemonger” not a hatemonger.
Let’s resist the siren call of clicking share on incendiary invectives. The best way to neutralize the attempts to shame each other is to not respond to the original attack. To not swallow the “click-bait.”
The year is ending. It’s time to think about where we have been and where each of us wants to go in 2024. I’m an eternal optimist. I think each of us has the power to create the world we want to see.
In my view too it starts with choosing reconciliation. With renouncing harmful acts of hating judging criticizing labeling and acting violent.
We each of us have the right to choose our own path in life. We don’t have to buy what being’s sold about how to treat each other.
The second book I checked out of the library was True Style is What’s Underneath: The Self-Acceptance Revolution.
A candidate for a PhD on recovery interviewed me. She asked what I thought the most positive thing was that came from being unwell.
“I value difference,” I told her.
The unique individuals in this guide take off where the others started in the Street Unicorns: Bold Expressionists of Style book I reviewed in a blog entry earlier.
Authors Lily and Elisa had the calling “to uncover what’s underneath authentic style, helping to build a world where getting dressed each morning is an act of self-love.”
I’ll quote from individuals featured in the book as the sparkplug to ignite readers to buy True Style.
Jillian Mercado:
“If you never had to struggle or fight for anything in your life, how could you know who you are and what you’re made of?
If you’re different, that’s sunlight in somebody’s world.”
Tallulah Willis:
“I always say, ‘You know the feeling you’re supposed to have on your wedding day, that you feel like a princess? Why not have that every day?'”
Little old blogger Christina would rather be the sunlight. Not a tornado.
The author of the book above is on the cover of the October/November issue of Women’s Health. I received the magazine two days ago. This weekend I checked her book out of a library. I recommend you buy the guide.
Her SPEAK manifesto is shorthand for Surrender Power Empathy Authenticity Knowledge.
Tunde tells readers to “lead with empathy.” She recounts her struggle with not liking her muscular arms.
Tunde is a Peloton bike instructor who reaches 20,000 cyclists in her motivational workout sessions. She is a face of Revlon cosmetics and a Nike apparel athlete.
Tunde’s book and the pep talks she gave in it touched me. I have the opposite experience of Tunde and other young women. I didn’t think I had to conform or should choose to conform to have other teens accept me.
By the time I was only 6 years old I was bullied. At the same time I was taught my ABCs I learned that the other kids didn’t like me. An outsider from that early age I had no one I thought I should impress.
Often I read first-person accounts of women who tried to starve themselves thin to fit in or get others to like them. They had body image issues like Tunde.
It is not a compliment it’s racist and insulting to tell a person like Tunde: “You’re pretty for a Black girl” or “You’d be pretty if you lost weight.”
I had no admirers either secret ones or others who gave me comments like that.
As for Tunde’s take on Authenticity I’ll get at her abiding belief in my own words: “When you show up as yourself great things happen.”
Secrecy breeds shame. Hiding who you are–and keeping in a closet the parts of yourself you think no one will like or approve of–causes ill health.
My mother doesn’t understand how I could’ve recovered from the bullying in a way where I don’t often think or talk of it. Yet the reality was 6-year old girls had already become bullies and I was their target. Up until I turned 14 and went to a different school.
This treatment should have been the tip-off that as an adult I’d be attacked for speaking out to say that recovery is possible.
Whether it’s from racism like Tunde experienced, ageism, mental or physical illness, political division or anything else we struggle with my mission in this lifetime is to promote recovery and healing.
In the coming blog entry I’ll review the second book I checked out of the library: True Style is What’s Underneath: The Self-acceptance Revolution.
A chip is not the kind of accessory we should be carrying on our shoulder. We each of us have the power to change our lives for the better regardless of our circumstance.
It starts when we take to heart the Tunde-isms in SPEAK and begin speaking up for ourselves.
The subtitle tells it all: Get from where you are to where you want to be. Like Tunde I believe it’s possible to do this.
I’m a 58-year old white woman who played Run DMC Public Enemy and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on my FM radio show when I was a disc jockey in the 1980s.
In the 1990s I marched to the beat of Queen Latifah singing “U-N-I-T-Y.”
That was the extent of my love affair with rap music.
So when I checked out of the library Life Lessons from Hip-Hop- it was an unlikely contender for the best self-help book I’ve ever read.
The rappers who were interviewed said things that mirrored how I’ve felt in their own words.
So I bought the book to read again. To get readers to buy the book I’ll quote the prime insights from 2 Hip-Hop artists.
Please I implore followers to listen to what they say.
I respect any artists who use their emotional energy to tell stories that can move readers listeners and audience members to action and compassion.
In Big Sean: Talk to Someone
“I realized that the only way somebody can affect how I’m feeling is if I give them permission to make me feel like that.”
In Pharrell Williams: Be Empathic
“Empathy is the skeleton key to any room…It’s the number-one thing we need before love. Because if you have no empathy, then you can’t even get to why you should love someone else.
That goes for the one you marry, the one you hate, your parents, your children, strangers.
If you have no empathy, it’s not possible for you to like and definitely not possible for you to love.”
After reading the above book I coined the term Bite of Life as in taking a Bite of Life.
For Beauty Individuality Truth and Empathy. This is what I believe in.
My view runs counter to the Dermalogica founder author. She doesn’t like and use the word beauty. I beg to differ.
Seeing beauty in the ordinary–in the broken; in the struggle; in the people, places, and things no one else deems beautiful–is a gift each of us can give each other.
What I seek to do is Celebrate Life by dressing up; by making art out of the everyday; by spreading joy and optimism in a world full of despair.
Read Skin in the Game to get a shot of confidence. Jane Wurwand’s life story could be any of ours with a twist. She had a failed first marriage by the age of 21–and things could’ve gotten worse.
Wurwand is living proof of what I’ve written before that where you start out is not where you have to remain.
That ambition born of altruism is the right way to lead in business and in life.
Wurwand references Madam C.J. Walker in Skin in the Game. How could she not. Walker was a radical beauty entrepreneur in her time.
Reading Skin in the Game I thought: “She could do it. So can I.”
Though I checked the book out of the library I recommend you buy it. It’s worth taking the gems of advice to heart.
You want to conquer a market. Or succeed in any venture. Be kind and care about people.
That’s what Wurwand made her mission as the founder of a skincare line that grossed $1Million in its first year in 1986.
How to Date Your Wardrobe is a gift book hardcover packed with ideas and insight.
Page 79 sums up author Heather Newberger’s ethic:
“Instead of wasting your time wishing you were a different person, it’s important for all of us to let go of who we think we should be–so that we may enjoy the individuals we already are.”
This sentence has haunted me as it gets at what I’ve been reckoning with in my life. As hard as it can be to act true to ourselves in a society where you’ve expected to conform, I say being who you are is the only way to succeed in life.
The new electric purple lipstick I bought tells it like I am: The shade is called Unconventional Babe.
As sixty beckons for a lot of us it’s the time to do things differently. I recommend trying out a new haircut or taking up a hobby like cooking or starting to exercise.
It’s the perfect time to date your wardrobe and “revive, revitalize, and reinvigorate your style” like Heather Newberger advocates.
Simply creating new outfits has improved my outlook and given me incomparable joy.
Forget following fashion trends. If you don’t feel comfortable in what you’re wearing you won’t feel good or look good either.
I bought this book and refer to it often.
It’s my contention that when things aren’t going right in your life doing what comes easy to you that you like doing will save you from sinking into despair.
In one instant I changed my thinking. Talking about clothes and fashion isn’t frivolous when doing so can lift up others.
Men are not given grief for talking about and following sports.
Why should women be tsk-tsked for talking about dressing up and enjoying clothes?
I tell you it was liberating to get rid of the donation bags.
When you finally own only what you love to wear it makes getting dressed easier.
Seeing those beauties in my closet puts a smile on my face.
Read How to Date Your Wardrobe. Doing so you just might realize that changing your view of yourself can be as simple as changing what you wear.
The above book is the best of its kind that should be required reading by everyone in America.
The author talks about effective ways to tackle pressing issues like climate change and runaway consumerism.
In my life I choose not to travel long distances on airplanes that use fossil fuels. That’s the way I have of making a difference.
The second thing I’ve done is that I don’t eat meat. Not only for health reasons I do it because of the impact of CAFO slaughterhouses on the environment and degrading treatment of the workers there.
The third prime thing I do is to not shop on impulse. I hold onto the clothes I buy for at least five years or longer.
This year I’m going to retire the winter coat I’ve had for 11 years. Hopefully I can find a 100 percent wool coat this fall.
In the last 3 years I’ve donated 15 bags of clothes to the Salvation Army. The reality is most donated clothing winds up in a landfill in Ghana, Africa after being sold to resellers there.
My goal is to only buy clothes I’ll wear until they’re no longer wearable. Instead of accumulating un-wise buys I bring home that I rarely wear.
Cue the violins for the items I call “1990s office worker” shirts that I’m tossing in a new donation bag.
They. Are Not. Who I Am Today.
I turn 58 this spring. On a kick I am to upend the status quo.
Two years shy of 60 if you’re like me you’ll be reassessing everything in your life.
We’re getting closer to what I call the This is It! decade.
With my time here on Earth getting shorter I don’t want to waste my time money energy or effort on things that don’t positively impact my life or other people’s lives.
I’ll end here by saying that none of us should fear becoming older. Or fear speaking out on the things that matter to us.
The author of Wallet Activism revealed that the ban on plastic straws adversely effected individuals with disabilities. A lot of whom cannot use a paper straw to drink.
The list goes on of “green” practices that aren’t really effective when scrutinized further.
Read Wallet Activism and decide for yourself what measures you want to and can take to protect our Planet–and more than that the People living on our Planet.
Before raving about the guide I’ll bring up one glaring issue.
Author Tori Dunlap talks about ESG investing–Environmentally and Socially Responsible Investment Funds.
The Republicans in the U.S. government enacted a law to make ESG investing illegal.
In Effect you cannot decide for yourself what companies to invest your hard-earned money in.
These kinds of “Social Choice” funds do not invest money in fossil fuel companies, gun manufacturer, or the weapons industry among other businesses like these.
It would’ve become illegal to invest in companies that put people and the planet before the greed that creates deplorable conditions for workers everywhere.
LL Cool Joe–President Joe Biden–did one thing right. He vetoed the act that made ESG Investing illegal.
So as of today we can invest our money where we’d like if we so choose to invest our money in the stock market.
Should a Republican become president we can kiss this free choice goodbye.
Other than this reality that I was compelled to point out Tori Dunlap’s book should be required reading for those of us–even clueless guys–who need this kind of financial help.
Some of us love balancing our accounts and are aware of exactly what our account balances are on any given day. Not everyone needs to read The Financial Feminist.
Either way I recommend this book to everyone.
The difference is Tori Dunlap’s tone of voice is warm and empathetic. Unlike other personal finance authors she asks you not only to record one month’s worth of purchases. Dunlap tells you to write down why you bought the items and how you felt when you paid for them.
The second part that I liked was the chapter where you create financial goals with a mission and timeline that you want to achieve and how to fund this objective.
After that I stopped reading the book and skimmed only the interviews she featured with other women.
One woman was African American and stated point-blank that if she didn’t budget enough money for grooming her credibility would be trashed interacting with employers.
In one other finance book I read and can recommend the author claimed you didn’t need to adhere to a budget at all. Which makes sense. His belief was that you can use your money “to have anything you want–you just can’t have everything.”
So for some of us we’re going to splash cash on makeup at Sephora. Others are naturally inclined to shop at Walmart for Flower Beauty by Drew Barrymore.
The beef that Tori Dunlap has is that women are told to save money and stop spending frivolously. Men are told to invest money and accrue wealth. This fact is evident in the kinds of results that are given when women and men search on this topic on the internet. Different methods are shown for women than the ones for men in the search results.
I check out a lot of personal finance books from the library. First I check to see if a woman wrote the book. In one guide I checked out a woman told women readers to deduct car loan payments on the tax refund when you used your car for a business. Should every women want to be an entrepreneur? How is that advice supposed to help ordinary woman?
The Financial Feminist is the best book of its kind. Even for readers who are shrewd investors or veritable wealth wizards I recommend reading this Tori Dunlap book.
I’ll end here with the best personal finance books I’ve read:
Balance: How to Invest for Happiness, Health, and Wealth. Andrew Hallam, 2022.
Good Money Revolution: How to Make More Money to Do More Good. Derrick Kinney, 2022.
Money Strong: Your Guide to a Life Free of Financial Worries. Liz Davidson2023.
Simple Money: A No-nonsense Guide to Personal Finance. Tim Maurer 2016.
Everything You Know About Money is Wrong: Overcome the Financial Myths Keeping You from the Life You Want. Karen Ramsay, 2001.
Happy Money. The Science of Happier Spending. Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton, 2014.
The Next Millionaire Next Door. Thomas J. Stanley & Sarah Stanley Fallaw, 2020.
The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read. Daniel R. Solin, 2010.
We Should All Be Millionaires: A Women’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power. Rachel Rodgers, 2021.
Invest Like You Give a Damn: Make Money, Change the World, Sleep Well at Night. Marc de Sousa Shields, 2017.
Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing: How to Live Your Values and Achieve Your Financial Goals with ESG, SRI, and Impact Investing. Larry E. Swedroe 2022.
Again the Republicans in the U.S. government are trying to make this kind of investing illegal. Thus this book might become obsolete if a Republican becomes president.
The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+. Suze Orman, 2020.
The only Suze Orman book I recommend. She reduced an adult man to tears in a personal finance DVD where she was giving advice to audience members. She berated him for going to school to get a degree to have a new career. She told him he could’ve done fine in life by remaining a waiter for the rest of his life. What if he wanted to do something else? I was unemployed and had no job when I was back to school to obtain a Masters degree. Suze Orman is against doing this. Take what she says with a grain of salt. In her 50+ retirement guide she appeared to redeem herself with solid advice.
Why Should White Guys Have All the Wealth? How You Can Become a Millionaire Starting from the Bottom. Cedric Nash 2023
It should be essential reading whatever your age race or gender if you want your eyes opened.
The book is geared to Brown and Black teenage girls to get empowered.
I checked it out of the library and read it in two hours. What an eye opener.
Though if you’re not in the demographic of the readers for this book perhaps you know a young girl you can gift this book to.
What you don’t see exists whether you can see it or not from your Point of View.
There’s two sides to every story.
We should each of us bring our truth to light.
In New York City it’s illegal for an employer to discriminate against a worker because of the person’s hairstyle.
Across America high school dress codes prohibit girls from wearing their hair in box braids.
In multiple U.S. states laws were passed making free speech a crime when you’re talking about what a Black author wrote in a book.
Summer Boismer a teacher was fired because she gave her students the link to the Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned Teen e-book library card application.
The Free Service allows teens 13-21 in all 50 states to check out e-book versions of books that have been banned in Texas and elsewhere.
This is America: Land of the Free because of the Brave authors librarians and educators who are acting to free everybody to think for ourselves.
Intellectual Freedom is the cornerstone of public libraries everywhere. Or should be when Conservative gatekeepers limit access to books and knowledge.
Left of the Dial 