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Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters by Greg McKeown (view source)
Revision as of 08:48, 15 April 2021
, 08:48, 15 April 2021no edit summary
That's what happened to Patrick McGinnis. It's no exaggeration to say that he devoted his life to the company he worked for, struggling through, even when he was ill, only to find that he was working for a bankrupt company. His stock had fallen by 97%, he had lost his health and his job had little value. He made a bargain with God; if he survived, he would make some changes. He did survive and came through stronger - and richer. There is, you see, a different way: ''great things are not reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break.''
Before you start to wonder if this book might be the answer to all your problems I'd better tell you that Greg McKeown is clear that life can be hard for all sorts of reasons and the book can't eliminate those hardships. It ''can'' help when you feel that life has already been stripped down to its essentials and it still feels impossible to cope. If you've read McKeown's {{amazonurl|isbn=0753555166|title=Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less}} you'll know what he's talking about. He describes the difference between the two books as ''Essentialism'' was about doing the right things. '''Effortless'' is about doing them the right way. ' My immediate reaction was that it might be a waste of time to read ''Effortless'' before I read ''Essentialism'': how would I understand how to do things the right way if I didn't know what the right things were? But - I'm a reviewer and we don't always get books in the order we'd like them, so I persisted and I'm glad that I did.
You're going to learn how to reintroduce your effortless state: that's the point at which you're relaxed and it's actually easy to do things. Then you'll learn how to take effortless action and get effortless results. That might sound simple and too good to be true - when I put it so bluntly - but you are going to have to examine yourself, your motivations and be prepared to be brutal about changes you're going to make.