Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler (English

Description: Life Is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler From the New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, a pioneering study of the disruptions upending contemporary life and a bold guide for how to navigate lifes growing number of transitions with more meaning, balance, and joy.A New York Times bestseller!A pioneering and timely study of how to navigate lifes biggest transitions with meaning, purpose, and skillBruce Feiler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, has long explored the stories that give our lives meaning. Galvanized by a personal crisis, he spent the last few years crisscrossing the country, collecting hundreds of life stories in all fifty states from Americans whod been through major life changes-from losing jobs to losing loved ones; from changing careers to changing relationships; from getting sober to getting healthy to simply looking for a fresh start. He then spent a year coding these stories, identifying patterns and takeaways that can help all of us survive and thrive in times of change.What Feiler discovered was a world in which transitions are becoming more plentiful and mastering the skills to manage them is more urgent for all of us. The idea that well have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated. We all feel unnerved by this upheaval. Were concerned that our lives are not what we expected, that weve veered off course, living life out of order. But were not alone.Life Is in the Transitions introduces the fresh, illuminating vision of the nonlinear life, in which each of us faces dozens of disruptors. One in ten of those becomes what Feiler calls a lifequake, a massive change that leads to a life transition. The average length of these transitions is five years. The upshot- We all spend half our lives in this unsettled state. You or someone you know is going through one now.The most exciting thing Feiler identified is a powerful new tool kit for navigating these pivotal times. Drawing on his extraordinary trove of insights, he lays out specific strategies each of us can use to reimagine and rebuild our lives, often stronger than before.From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Bruce Feiler is the author of six consecutive New York Times bestsellers, including The Secrets of Happy Families, The Council of Dads, and Walking the Bible. Hes the writer/presenter of two primetime series on PBS, and his two TED Talks have been viewed more than two million times. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their twin daughters. Review "One of those books thats so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book. . . . Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey." —Arianna Huffington, Thrive Global "This is a remarkably poignant read about the pivotal moments in our lives. Bruce Feiler gets to the heart of how turning points shape us—and how we can shape them. The wisdom and stories in this book will change the way you tell your own story." —Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take "Crammed with cutting-edge research and compelling real-world examples, Life Is in the Transitions provides a framework of striking originality that explodes with thought-provoking insights. It has profound implications for how we view and handle the transitions—voluntary and involuntary—that increasingly disrupt our lives. And its one of the rare books that is a pleasure to read in the moment and impossible to forget once youve finished the last page." —Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies "I dont know whats more astonishing, the range of stories Bruce Feiler has found in asking people about their lives, or the wisdom he extracts from them. There is no more powerful reminder that the stories we inherit define success—and that definition constantly needs updating. This beautiful book is an indispensable guide to accepting change—as it really is, rather than what its supposed to be—and becoming who we really are." —Charles Duhigg, author of bestsellers The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better "Life Is in the Transitions is essential reading for anyone in the act of becoming—which is to say, all of us. Timely, wise and ultimately uplifting, the 15th book from Savannah native and self-described lifestorian Bruce Feiler (The Council of Dads) offers an insightful, pragmatic toolkit for navigating the unexpected, uncertain and often upending disruptions of our lives, and for rewriting the next chapters in our ever-changing stories." —Charleston Post & Courier "[Feiler] offers in this insightful work timely suggestions for anyone adapting to significant life changes . . . He also presents evidence discrediting the notion of the midlife crisis and demonstrates that everyones life contains multiple significant upheavals and uncertainties, which should thus be accepted as normal, contrary to conventional wisdom. The findings buttress practical suggestions for responding to major change, including identifying emotions, giving up old mindsets, testing alternatives, and seeking help from others. This logical, persuasive resource will resonate with any self-help reader." —Publishers Weekly "This highly recommended title couldnt be more timely. . . . Feiler details a model for life transitions based on thousands of interviews with people from all walks of life and tells readers how to memorialize changes and give up old mind-sets. A helpful bonus is the complete outline for writing ones own story or that of others." —Library Journal "An engaging consideration of how people navigate the highs and lows in their lives . . . [Feilers] relaxed, informal style is reassuring, and the numerous anecdotes gleaned from his wide variety of interview subjects keep the narrative fresh. His encouraging counsel will appeal to many." —Booklist "In Life Is in the Transitions, Bruce Feiler listens to, synthesizes, and helps make meaning of the American story at this complicated moment. With a big, open heart, he helps us all better understand our own stories, what it means to be human and how to navigate challenges and change. Along the way, he powerfully reminds us of the singular importance of honoring each others stories and lives through listening." —Dave Isay, founder, Storycorps "Bruce Feiler has a real knack for helping us see what is not obvious but is right in front of our eyes. In this clear, terrifically compelling book, full of instructive examples, he names and describes the lifequake personal transitions that affect so many of us today and offers genuine wisdom, valuable counsel, and moving inspiration that make the journey easier. Read this book to open your eyes and lighten your heart!" —William Ury, co-author of Getting to Yes and author of Getting to Yes with Yourself Review Quote "One of those books thats so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book. . . . Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey." --Arianna Huffington, Thrive Global "This is a remarkably poignant read about the pivotal moments in our lives. Bruce Feiler gets to the heart of how turning points shape us--and how we can shape them. The wisdom and stories in this book will change the way you tell your own story." --Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take "Crammed with cutting-edge research and compelling real-world examples, Life Is in the Transitions provides a framework of striking originality that explodes with thought-provoking insights. It has profound implications for how we view and handle the transitions--voluntary and involuntary--that increasingly disrupt our lives. And its one of the rare books that is a pleasure to read in the moment and impossible to forget once youve finished the last page." --Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies "I dont know whats more astonishing, the range of stories Bruce Feiler has found in asking people about their lives, or the wisdom he extracts from them. There is no more powerful reminder that the stories we inherit define success--and that definition constantly needs updating. This beautiful book is an indispensable guide to accepting change--as it really is, rather than what its supposed to be--and becoming who we really are." --Charles Duhigg, author of bestsellers The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better " Life Is in the Transitions is essential reading for anyone in the act of becoming--which is to say, all of us. Timely, wise and ultimately uplifting, the 15th book from Savannah native and self-described lifestorian Bruce Feiler ( The Council of Dads ) offers an insightful, pragmatic toolkit for navigating the unexpected, uncertain and often upending disruptions of our lives, and for rewriting the next chapters in our ever-changing stories." -- Charleston Post & Courier "[Feiler] offers in this insightful work timely suggestions for anyone adapting to significant life changes . . . He also presents evidence discrediting the notion of the midlife crisis and demonstrates that everyones life contains multiple significant upheavals and uncertainties, which should thus be accepted as normal, contrary to conventional wisdom. The findings buttress practical suggestions for responding to major change, including identifying emotions, giving up old mindsets, testing alternatives, and seeking help from others. This logical, persuasive resource will resonate with any self-help reader." -- Publishers Weekly "This highly recommended title couldnt be more timely. . . . Feiler details a model for life transitions based on thousands of interviews with people from all walks of life and tells readers how to memorialize changes and give up old mind-sets. A helpful bonus is the complete outline for writing ones own story or that of others." --Library Journal "An engaging consideration of how people navigate the highs and lows in their lives . . . [Feilers] relaxed, informal style is reassuring, and the numerous anecdotes gleaned from his wide variety of interview subjects keep the narrative fresh. His encouraging counsel will appeal to many." -- Booklist "In Life Is in the Transitions , Bruce Feiler listens to, synthesizes, and helps make meaning of the American story at this complicated moment. With a big, open heart, he helps us all better understand our own stories, what it means to be human and how to navigate challenges and change. Along the way, he powerfully reminds us of the singular importance of honoring each others stories and lives through listening." --Dave Isay, founder, Storycorps "Bruce Feiler has a real knack for helping us see what is not obvious but is right in front of our eyes. In this clear, terrifically compelling book, full of instructive examples, he names and describes the lifequake personal transitions that affect so many of us today and offers genuine wisdom, valuable counsel, and moving inspiration that make the journey easier. Read this book to open your eyes and lighten your heart!" --William Ury, co-author of Getting to Yes and author of Getting to Yes with Yourself Excerpt from Book INTRODUCTION The Life Story Project What Happens When Our Fairy Tales Go Awry I used to believe that phone calls dont change your life, until one day I got a phone call that did. It was from my mother. "Your father is trying to kill himself." "Hes what?" Suddenly she was talking and I wasnt really following. Something about a bathroom, a razor, a desperate lunge for relief. "Good God." "And that wasnt the last time. Later he tried to climb out of a window while I was scrambling eggs." As a writer, Im often asked whether I learned to write from my dad. The answer is no. My father was uncommonly friendly, even twinkling-- we called him a professional Savannahian, for the seaside city in Georgia where hed lived for eighty years--but he was more of a listener and a doer than a teller and a scribbler. A navy veteran, civic leader, Southern Demo- crat, he was never depressed a minute in his life. Until he got Parkinsons, a disease that affects your mobility--and your mood. My dads father, who also got the disease late in life, shot himself in the head a month before I graduated from high school. My father had promised for years he wouldnt do the same. "I know the pain--and shame--it causes." Then he changed his mind--or at least that part of his mind he could still control. "Ive lived a full life," he said. "I dont want to be mourned; I want to be celebrated." Six times in the next twelve weeks my father attempted to end his life. We tried every remedy imaginable, from counseling to electroconvulsive therapy. Yet we couldnt surmount his core challenge: He had lost a reason to live. My family, always a bit hyperfunctional, dove in. My older brother took over the family real estate business; my younger sister helped research medical treatments. But Im the narrative guy. For three decades, I had devoted my life to exploring the stories that give our lives meaning--from the tribal gather- ings of the ancient world to the chaotic family dinners of today. I have long been consumed by how stories connect and divide us on a societal level, how they define and deflate us on a personal level. Given this interest, I began to wonder: If my dad was facing a narrative problem, at least in part, maybe it demanded a narrative solution. Maybe what my father needed was a spark to restart his life story. One Monday morning I sat down and did the simplest, most restor- ative thing I could imagine. I sent my dad a question. What were your favorite toys as a child? What happened next changed not only him, but everyone around him, and ultimately led me to reevaluate how we all achieve meaning, balance, and joy in our lives. This is the story of what happened next, and what we all can learn from it. This is the story of the Life Story Project. The Story of your Life Stop for a second and listen to the story going on in your head. Its there, somewhere, in the background. Its the story you tell others when you first meet them; its the story you tell yourself when you visit a meaningful place, when you flip through old photographs, when you celebrate an achievement, when you rush to the hospital. Its the story of who you are, where you came from, where you dream of going in the future. Its the high point of your life, the low point, the turning point. Its what you believe in, what you fight for, what matters most to you. Its the story of your life. And that story isnt just part of you. It is you in a fundamental way. Life is the story you tell yourself. But how you tell that story--are you a hero, victim, lover, warrior, caretaker, believer--matters a great deal. How you adapt that story--how you revise, rethink, and rewrite your personal narrative as things change, lurch, or go wrong in your life--matters even more. Recently, something happened to me that made me focus on these issues: I lost control of that story bouncing around in my head. For a while, I didnt know who I was; I didnt know where I was going. I was lost. Thats when I began to realize: While storytelling has drawn signifi- cant academic and popular interest in recent years, theres an aspect of personal storytelling that hasnt gotten enough attention. What happens when we misplace the plot of our lives? When we get sidetracked by one of the mishaps, foul-ups, or reversals of fortune that appear with uncomfort- able frequency these days? What happens when our fairy tales go awry? Thats what happened to my dad that fall, to me around that time, to all of us at one time or another. We get stuck in the woods and cant get out. This time, though, I decided to do something about it. I set out to learn how to get unstuck. How I Became a Lifestorian What I did next--traveling around the country, gathering hundreds of life stories of everyday people, and then scouring those stories for themes and takeaways that could help all of us navigate the swerves in our lives--has a bit of a backstory. I was born in Savannah, Georgia, to five generations of Southern Jews. Thats two storytelling traditions of outsiders that collided in me. I left the South and moved north for college, then left college and moved to Japan. There, in a town fifty miles and fifty years from Tokyo, I began writing letters home on crinkly airmail paper. Youre not going to believe what hap- pened to me today. When I got back home, everywhere I went, people said, "I loved your letters!" "Thats great," I said. "Have we met?" Turns out my grandmother had xeroxed my letters and passed them around. They went viral the old-fashioned way. If so many people find these interesting, I should write a book , I thought. With some luck, I landed a book contract. More important, Id found a calling. Stories were how Id always found myself. How I put my unease and outsiderness into coherent form. Over the next two decades, I wrote stories--books, articles, television--from six continents and seventy-five countries. I spent a year as a circus clown and another traveling with Garth Brooks. I retraced the greatest stories ever told, from Noahs ark to the Exodus. I also got married and became the father to identical twin girls. Life was ascending. Until I had a back-to-back-to-back set of experiences that shattered that linearity--and with it any illusion that I could control the narrative of my life. First, I was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive bone cancer in my left leg. My disease was so nonlinear it was an adult-onset pediatric cancer. Frightened and face-to-face with death, I spent a brutal year enduring more than sixteen rounds of chemo and a seventeen-hour surgery to remove my femur, replace it with titanium, and relocate my fibula from my calf to my thigh. For two years I was on crutches; for a year after that I used a cane. Every step, every bite, every hug Ive taken since has been haunted by the long tail of fear and fragility. Then I nearly went bankrupt. The modest real estate business my father had built was gutted by the Great Recession. Three generations of dreams were dampened. I emptied my savings. At the same time, the internet decimated the world of print I had worked in for two decades. Friend after friend was out on the street. I woke up three nights a week in a pale sweat, staring at the ceiling, wondering. Then came my fathers suicide spree. The conversations that fall were almost unhaveable, the language inadequate for the choices we faced. For me, though, there was something achingly familiar about this period. It drew me back to what had always been my default reaction to a crisis: When in turmoil, turn to narrative. The proper response to a setback is a story. That notion had been gaining currency. A year earlier, while research- ing a book on high-functioning families, I had gone to the home of Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University. Marshall and his colleague Robyn Fivush had been studying a phenomenon first noticed by Marshalls wife, Sara. A teacher of students with special needs, Sara had observed that the children she worked with seemed better able to navigate their lives the more they knew about their familys history. Marshall and Robyn devised a set of questions to test this thesis: Do you know where your grandparents met? Do you know an illness or injury your parents experienced when they were younger? Do you know what went on when you were being born? Children who scored highest on this test had a greater belief that they could control the world around them. It was the number one predictor of a childs emotional well-being. Why would knowing your familys story help you navigate your own? "All family narratives take one of three shapes," Marshall explained. First is the ascending family narrative: We came from nothing, we worked hard, we made it big. Next, the descending narrative: We used to have it all. Then we lost everything. "The most healthful narrative," he continued, "is the third one." Its called the oscillating family narrative. Weve had ups and downs in our family. Your grandfather was vice president of the bank, but his house burned down. Your aunt was the first girl to go to college, but she got breast cancer. Children who know that lives take all different shapes are much better equipped to face lifes inevitable disruptions. Details ISBN1101980516 Author Bruce Feiler Short Title Life Is in the Transitions Language English Year 2021 ISBN-10 1101980516 ISBN-13 9781101980514 Format Paperback Subtitle Mastering Change at Any Age Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States US Release Date 2021-08-10 Publication Date 2021-08-10 UK Release Date 2021-08-10 DEWEY 158.1 Audience General NZ Release Date 2021-09-27 AU Release Date 2021-09-27 Pages 368 Imprint E P Dutton & Co Inc Illustrations 2 Illustrations We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:132902035;

Price: 31.8 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2024-11-30T09:46:44.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 AUD