Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work, and Manhood in Your Twenties [Hardcover]

Tarek Saab (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2008

Only a few years into a career marked by dazzling early success, Tarek Saab s life took a dramatic turn with his selection for Donald Trump s reality show, The Apprentice. Viewers soon noticed something unusual about Tarek. Throughout the chaos and pressure including several boardroom showdowns with Trump Tarek displayed a forgotten kind of manhood. In a new book, he shares his hard-won insights into love, work, and manhood and their source in a faith that is ever old, ever new.

The biggest problem by far facing men in their twenties is the crisis of manhood. Offering a completely new take on the so-called quarter-life crisis, Tarek describes his reluctant confrontation with career, relationships, and spiritual disillusionment and reveals the surprising truths he learned about what it means to be a man.

A distinctly modern-day Confessions, Gut Check is the wry and candid self-examination of a man whose life, despite its extraordinary twists, is full of lessons for ordinary young men. Tarek s captivating tale reveals a young man with many talents and temptations whose saving grace is a relentless pursuit of truth and the daring to be counter-cultural. Gritty, comic, utterly believable Gut Check is not the usual Christian fairy tale.

Gut Check is a manual for manhood lived the hard way. It is a book for men who never read and for men who think they have read it all. If you think you know what you really want, are you ready for a gut check?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tarek Saab, the son of working-class Lebanese immigrants, became an emblem of confident and successful manhood after millions of Americans followed his fortunes last year on television s The Apprentice. Each year he speaks to tens of thousands across the country about overcoming the crisis of manhood that paralyzes millions of young men. Tarek lives with his wife in Fort Worth, Texas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Spence Pub; First (now superseded) edition (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890626767
• ISBN-13: 978-1890626761
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #688,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take Time for Your Own Gut Check, May 9, 2008

By 

Lisa M. Hendey "Mom, Blogger, Podcaster, Author" (Fresno, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work, and Manhood in Your Twenties (Hardcover)

Don't let the title of Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work, and Manhood in Your Twenties fool you into thinking that former reality television star Tarek Saab's debut book is only for men or twenty year olds. On the contrary, this 44-year-old wife and mom can't recommend Gut Check highly enough. I started off reading the book from the vantage point of a mother of two sons, hoping that my study of Tarek's journey to manhood might shed a glimmer of light on the precarious path of parenting two sons in today's world. But in the process, I found myself truly connecting with the book not only from that perspective, but also more completely as a spiritual seeker. Although Saab's book relates experiences during his formative post-college years, his concepts of seeking real truth in this life are relevant to anyone, at any age, who struggles to make the most of every moment of this time on earth as a voyage to our ultimate goal - eternal life with God.

In today's society, we find ourselves surrounded by media-obsessed, instant gratification, celebrity driven lifestyles. Our children are growing up in a world where one's tally of unmet "friends" in a virtual world trumps real life relationships. We emulate the rich, the impossibly skinny, the overnight sensations - and these action messages trickle down to our kids and speak to them more effectually than the words we speak. So, in reading Gut Check I did learn a thing or two about the type of mom and role model I want to be for my sons. But more significantly, I learned about the importance of "focusing on death" to achieve a true measure of personal success in this life. This book reads almost like a novel, in "can't put it down" fashion, but also has a depth that will make you want to go back and truly study and meditate upon many passages. Tarek Saab's sharing of his own conversion journey has truly touched my life, which will in turn hopefully make me a better wife and mother.

I'm pleased to give Gut Check by Tarek Saab my highest recommendation.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Rare Example of Manhood, but book is titled wrong..., August 20, 2008

By 

Dolans6 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work, and Manhood in Your Twenties (Hardcover)

I read this book after watching Tarek interviewed on "Life on the Rock." I wanted to give it as a college graduation gift but thought I better read it before promoting it. I think the book is wonderful, honest, and a much needed message today, but it should not be limited to "twenty something men." I believe it's content could inspire many men I know of all ages.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trust your GUT, June 9, 2008

By 

Theresa Thomas "Catholic Mom of 9" (Indiana United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gut Check: Confronting Love, Work, and Manhood in Your Twenties (Hardcover)

What a great premise-- thinking about DEATH helps one prioritize LIFE. Scholars have claimed that. Saints have insisted it. Yet, an ordinary, successful-by-the-world's-standards man proposing it in 2008 is something unique.

Tarek Saab's life experiences in a private college mirror a common occurrence for many young men--away from parental controls for the first time, many students *go crazy*. Immersed in freedom, surrounded by college coeds' typical forms of debauchery, Saab is faced with this unsavory environment and ..... with himself. What will he choose as his life's compass? "What is the purpose of his life.....of life itself?" This inimitable presentation got me at chapter one.

GUT CHECK reads like a novel--conversational, descriptive. Yet, the book is deep and rings true. Saab's conclusions are brilliant, and while he seems like a normal every-day guy, it is easy to see he has Mensa brains. (He is, in fact, a member of Mensa) Saab chronicles his financial success story, yet reveals that he finds affluence and material prosperity empty. This is not to say the book bashes wealth. On the contrary, it shows how true wealth goes beyond mere finances and taps into something more enduring.

(As an aside, it is interesting to read how the whole "Apprentice" drama in which Saab found himself embroiled was orchestrated as plot. We probably all knew this, but it confirms that reality TV is anything but.... )

I'm no Mensa member, but I'm smart enough to know a good book when I read one. Grab a copy and curl up under a comfy quilt. Or better yet, buy one of these books for your son or your husband for Father's Day. After all, every man needs a GUT CHECK.