In any major bookstore these days the “Self Help” and “Life Improvement” sections are overflowing with a myriad of cookie-cutter compendiums with titles that usually begin with “The Inner this,” or “Find Your True that.” In fact, the quantity of such volumes is often so overwhelming that it is easy to feel that one would need a self help program (Find Your Outer Self Help Book?) just to know how to narrow down the options to find one that fits.
Santa Monica resident, author, respected corporate consultant, and life coach, Michelle DeAngelis, has recently published a simple, accessible, and most importantly fun new volume, bluntly titled Get A Life That Doesn’t Suck, and it’s main thrust is to assist the reader in discovering straightforward and easy to apply tools that can transform their life’s journey from one that “sucks” to one that “rocks.”
Get A Life That Doesn’t Suck is written in three parts that will easily and quickly enable the reader to transform their attitude to life, and ultimately discover ways to change their perspective and find a greater level of joy, in other words, become happier. I recently posed some questions to Michelle about the process of creating this remarkable volume, some important aspects of the content and how these methods have changed her own approach to life.
In talking to my girlfriend about Get A Life That Doesn’t Suck we were both impressed by the balance of psychological and spiritual principles that the book possesses, and so I asked Michelle if this was a deliberate consideration whilst writing it. She confirmed that it was and said that she was “determined to write a book that would work for the widest possible audience and be easily digested by men, women, young, old, seasoned self-helpers, and people exploring personal growth for the first time. In order to accomplish that, I needed to meet people where they are – in their anger, sadness, faith, disbelief, overweight, grief, worry, doubt and more, and then offer a roadmap to get them OUT of that place that sucks and into a more joyful place. So I used tools that address everything: body, mind and spirit.”
In writing this book Michelle said that she had to live what she was writing and said that she experienced significant personal growth herself during the process, especially in the areas of “compassion, patience and forgiveness, to name a few,” and also pointed out that like the majority of people her life is “still a work in progress.”
Get A Life That Doesn’t Suck includes a number of exercises and I asked Michelle how important it is to perform them in sequence, to which she responded: “Doing the exercises AT ALL is the most important thing! The order in which the exercises are performed is not terribly important, although the chapter on “Choosing” is designed to be the first of the 10 Life-Changing Ahas! For a specific reason: people need to understand as they go through the book that they always have a choice. That is a foreign concept for most people. Also, a lot of people tell me,Okay, I want a life that doesn’t suck. I want more joy in my life, so where do I start?” I developed the Joy Quotient Quiz to answer this question for them. The JQ Quiz provides people a great starting point because it tells you where your biggest “Gaps” are, and how to close them. There is a chapter that addresses each Gap, so people can take the Quiz and jump straight to the chapters that “solve” their Gaps, whether those chapters are in numeric order or not.”
Given that a lot of authors of self help books tend to have a “do as I say, not as I do” reputation, I posed to Michelle the question of how many of the tools and principles does she herself integrate into her own life and she told me that she has been living these methods her entire life, and perfecting them over the years. “The funny thing is that the 10 Life-Changing Ahas started out as a list of 23 (!) Successful actions that I learned from consulting and coaching with my clients, as well as from observing my own life with tremendous scrutiny. These concepts in the book are road-tested and proven through literally thousands of joyrides!” She added.
So, if you have a life that sucks (or not, for that matter) and wish to create one that doesn’t check out Michelle DeAngelis’ website getalifethatdoesntsuck.com, it will tell you more about the author and the book and also point you in the direction of online retailers from whom you can order from, thus saving you the task of schlepping around town and into the maze of the self help section of various bookstores, a task that in itself could be described as a life sucking experience.
