Have a New You by Friday. How could anyone resist giving this a read, even if you’re not that unhappy with the ‘you’ you had on Monday? I couldn’t. While I haven’t followed Dr. Kevin Leman‘s career, I did read his book on Birth Order a few years ago and remembered that I enjoyed his writing style…and found that his analysis of firstborns, middle children, babies, and onlies seemed to hold true in many of the people I knew.
In Have a New You by Friday: How to Accept Yourself, Boost Your Confidence & Change Your Life in 5 Days, Leman provides a five day action plan for understanding yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and your possibilities. On Monday, he discusses temperaments. Rather than sticking with the breakdowns of melancholic, sanguine, choleric, and phlegmatic that many of us learned way back when, Leman assigns a dog breed to each temperament. I could see the Yorkie for sanguine and the Irish Setter for phlegmatic, but I’m not familiar enough with Great Danes or Standard Poodle to ‘get’ their traits as choleric or melancholic.
Tuesday’s reading then encompasses birth order, while Wednesday focuses on lies we tell ourselves (based on childhood memories) and how to overcome them. On Thursday, Leman digs into The Five Love Languages as described by Dr. Gary Chapman in his famous book (one which was a standard wedding gift from Jim & I for a few years–that’s how important I think this book is!). Each chapter closes with goals and action steps for achieving them.
With all those pieces laid out on the table, on Friday Leman demonstrates how we can be our own shrink, with additional helps rounding out the closing pages.
While I didn’t become a whole new person ‘by Friday’ I did appreciate having all these segments laid out in one easy-to-read book. We’ve begun getting into a habit of me reading aloud to Jim as we travel. We began this book on the road and completed it over several more evenings at home, finding many things to discuss and enjoy together.
Dr. Kevin Leman is an internationally known psychologist, radio and television personality, and speaker who has taught and entertained audiences worldwide with his wit and commonsense psychology. A bestselling and award-winning author, Dr. Leman has written more than 30 books about marriage and family issues, including The Birth Order Book, Sheet Music, Making Children Mind without Losing Yours, and Have a New Kid by Friday. He is coauthor, with his son Kevin Leman II, of a series of illustrated children’s books for each child in the family. He is also featured on 6 video series on marriage, parenting, blended families, and single parenting. Dr. Leman and his wife, Sande, live in Tucson, Arizona. They have 5 children and 2 grandchildren.
“Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group”.
