On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life (Hardcover)

~ Arianna Huffington (Author)
Key Phrases: fearless women, New York, Los Angeles, Huffington Post (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her entry into the overstuffed semi-autobiographic inspirational self-help genre, Huffington's main message is more or less unassailable: "Women have so much potential, yet we hold ourselves back. If my daughters, and women of all ages, are to take their rightful place in society, they must become fearless." Huffington ruminates on the cultivation of fearlessness in all aspects of a woman's life: body image, love, motherhood, work, money, illness and aging, with contributions from other fearless females like Nora Ephron and Diane Keaton. Though the author's common-sense feminism is welcome in a sea of women's books dedicated solely to snagging a man, it can at times be overly simplistic; regarding the reason women stay in physically abusive relationships, Huffington states that "if you understand women's deep fear of being alone, it's not a huge mystery." But generalizations such as this are one of the pitfalls of picking a motif-"fearlessness"-and using it as a litmus test for any given situation. Still, Huffington's strident voice and populist sympathies make this an encouraging, if not particularly inspiring, call to arms against the forces that would keep women "sacrificing our personal truth to go along, be approved of, or just plain be 'nice.'"
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Huffington, nationally syndicated columnist and one of the hundreds of candidates for California governor in the election that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to office, offers a surprisingly refreshing look at the journey women take to fearlessness. Huffington observes the standard fears that plague women's lives: insecurities about their beauty and youth, getting and keeping a man's love, the need for approval of others, the demands of motherhood. She intersperses her own personal recollections with essays by women, well-known and obscure, on their own efforts to overcome fear. Among the women who contribute essays or commentary are Nora Ephron, Diane Keaton, documentary producer Kathy Eldon, producer Marcy Carsey, author Agapi Stassinopoulos, a psychiatry professor, and Huffington's office manager. Huffington cites The Rules and stats from women's magazines as well as Shakespeare and C. S. Lewis, the Koran and the Bible, in a wide-ranging look at the challenges women face in family, faith, careers, and personal fulfillment to explore the rewards of facing up to fears and working steadily toward fearlessness. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (September 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316166812
• ISBN-13: 978-0316166812
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #427,831 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Go Fearless!, February 20, 2008

By	Alisa J. Sher - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: On Becoming Fearless...in Love, Work, and Life (Paperback)

I can't tell you how touched I am by this book. Here is Ms. Huffington, a woman known for her political influence and intellectual pursuits, who chose to write a book about her intimate relationship with fear. What an amazing gift that a person accomplished in so many ways paused to share her story of living with, yet breaking through, fear.

Prior to reading this book, I held a belief that great people did not have to work with the same type of inner chatter - "the world's worst roommate," as Ms. Huffington so aptly puts it. Ms. Huffington has given me such a gift; to see that it is not some better, less fearful mind that makes her success a possibility, but rather her feisty excitement at moving through and past her fears!

If you are considering this book, I highly recommend it! If you like this style of writing, in which wisdom is collected and woven together through a series of stories and anecdotes, I also recommend that you check out Ariel and Shya Kane's most recent book, Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment. Like Ms. Huffington, the Kanes are skilled at using their wisdom and life experience to guide their readers past the limiting fears and ideas that naturally impede well being, so that life can be lived at its best: as a daring adventure!!!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Woman Should Have This Book, January 8, 2007

By	Melissa B. Levine "Independent Book Reviewer" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First Things First

Let's address the elephant in the room: Arianna Huffington, author of On Becoming Fearless, ran against Arnold Schwarenegger for governor of California in 2003. She switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Huffington's ex-husband, Michael, revealed in a magazine article following their divorce that he is bisexual. Her piece of the web: The Huffington Post.

All right, everybody good? Let's move on.

What We Fear

"Whatever it is that frightens you has frightened someone before you."

It is a simple, powerful statement and the premise of a book that speaks directly to the issues that make women's knees buckle. Those issues are intimate: love, parenting, our bodies, work, leadership, and a woman's power to change the world. We all seek out ways to combat the fear that paralyzes us frequently and this book is a definite step towards resolving that fear. Huffington has not written a self-help book. This is not a step-by-step instructional manual on attaining instant courage. It is a conversation about a chief aliment among women. The author facilitates this conversation in the manner in which women everywhere communicate--she shares.

Each chapter highlights a subject (leadership, death, spirituality, etc.) and Huffington recounts personal experiences about her struggles as a woman, mother, and professional. She proclaims her own mother as her role model. The author also enlists friends and acquaintances to tell their stories of acknowledgement, confrontation, change, and acceptance of what has frightened them in their lives. There are more suggestions than firm advice. The reader is challenged to think about her own situation in light of revelations of other women.

Now, it is easy to become distracted by the women Huffington features in the book. These women are Nobel Prize winners, CEO's, politicians, heads of commercial and non-profit businesses. It's an intimidating roster until you take a deeper look at their experiences. Their fears are the same as every woman. On Becoming Fearless suggests that the difference between the fearless woman and the woman paralyzed by her fear is not socioeconomics, race, education, or marital status. The difference is that the fearless woman does not allow the fear to stop her. She moves forward trembling knees, sweaty palms, nagging inner voice and all. Huffington shows that fearlessness is only attained on the moving side of action.

Overcoming Our Fears

"Squashing our true selves is a major cause of fear, anxiety, and depression."

Huffington reports that humans have four instincts: survival, power, sex, and spirituality. She tackles each of them in her survey of the areas in women's lives where fear rears up and strikes. She encourages introspection to fish out true desires and wants, the causes of fear. The author also suggests not taking oneself too seriously, because the flaws we obsess over simply aren't that important to other people. And it is other people that women tend to stress over the most. Huffington and the women whose voices share space in this piece describe incidents in which they were consumed with what others thought of them and how time and experience as well as age brought them to a point where other people's perceptions of them no longer held the same weight. The discussions on aging were especially encouraging as the author suggests so much of what consumes women in their younger years simply does not as the years pass. Acceptance of oneself as is reoccurs as a theme throughout the book.

Living a Fearless Life

"Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. Rather, it's the mastery of fear."

Huffington stresses that becoming fearless is a life long, on-going process. There is no one mantra, yoga pose, or secret pill that can lead to the achievement of fearlessness. Even so, the author makes it clear that all women are capable of achieving this level of being in the world.

This book cannot be read quickly. It's not the length, but the content that slows you down whether you want to or not. Huffington gets to the bone of what women as a species struggle with, so every category of fear she writes about is known personally, thus demanding reflection.

On Becoming Fearless is a work that is not to be consumed once and put on the shelf. It is to be kept on the nightstand in ready reach for when life beats at our continuing efforts at building courage.

Melissa Levine
for
The Martini Lounge
[...]

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspirational guide to living openly and bravely, October 27, 2006

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Arianna Huffington could be a role model for any modern woman. She's written ON BECOMING FEARLESS as an invitation to her daughters, Christina and Isabella, to live openly and bravely.

Huffington has never feared the consequences of her political convictions. "At the heart of my political transformation was my recognition that the task of overcoming poverty and social injustice is too monumental to be achieved without the power and scale that only government can provide. Along with this came the conviction that silence is not an option." Huffington has never allowed herself to be silenced. She addresses her adversaries with verve and mental acuity, and is known for her bulldog tenacity in facing conflict. It is no surprise to learn that she headed the debating society at Cambridge University.

In this book she lays out some gutsy principles to live by. Demystify money and don't let it rule your life. Don't be afraid of aging: "fifty really is the new thirty." Be fearless with the possibility of power; Arianna hasn't let men, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 race for governor of California, hold her back with the suggestion that she "drink more decaf."

Huffington has run for high office, made herself a known and to-be-reckoned-with face on our television screens, and has done so without sacrificing her femininity. She would perhaps say that stalking the corridors of political power and making demands of the system is at the very heart of femininity. Citing examples from the world of corporate America, Huffington shows us many exemplars of decisive, assertive women, and concludes, "If you want to succeed big, there is no substitute for simply sticking your neck out."

In her fifties, the author launched a dynamic website, The Huffington Post, quoting research that indicates that "later in life more women than men are jumping in and starting new projects." She presents the example of Sherry Lansing, who "with sixty looming" began a new career in philanthropy, forming her own foundation devoted to cancer research. Throughout this nicely blended book (fact, opinion, humor and theory), Huffington generously gives praise to her friends and role models, particularly her mother, for whom fear was never an option.

Huffington treats without hesitation that most profound of all "what ifs" --- the fear of death --- and in doing so summarizes her philosophy of fearlessness. "Trusting that there is more to the world than what we can see and finding a way to connect to it can help us face our mortality with fearlessness and bring this fearlessness into everyday life."

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott