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on May 21, 2017
Filled with moving stories, scientific research, and hope in building resilience. Great book - highly recommend. Sheryl and Adam write beautifully.
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on May 21, 2017
Great insights for moving from adversity to resilience to fulfillment.
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on May 20, 2017
Excellent read
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on May 20, 2017
I'm a widower myself. I cried watching the video of Sheryl Sandberg's moving commencement speech on Option B. So I was greatly looking forward to this book. It does deliver, though I have to say I want more. I do commend Sandberg for bringing this topic to the popular conversation, and I think she's making a lot of good things happen. The book itself is a bit on the short side, and yet it has dozens of stories of people, many of whom Sheryl knows personally. Each story is profoundly emotional and makes a point. But after three paragraphs the point is made and we never hear about them again. I was left wanting to know--what happened to the friend with MS? Did the sister of the church deacon who was diagnosed with cancer survive? It might sound crazy for this kind of book, but I really hope she writes a sequel, and therein takes the time to linger on each person's experience.
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on May 20, 2017
Given that I highlighted a passage in almost every other chapter in Sheryl Sandberg’s OPTION B: FACING ADVERSITY, BUILDING RESILIENCE, AND FINDING JOY, you could say that I felt connected to her and pretty much everything that she had to say. While I haven’t lost a spouse and certainly my life was not upended like hers was, I unfortunately know grief, and it has impacted me in ways that I didn’t see coming and had a hard time coping with it. There are two major points in the book that Sandberg addressed that I felt especially comforted by. By comfort, I mean validated. But first, I want to say to those who might think that you have to be suffering from the grief of losing a spouse to want to read this book or to gain any insight from it, it’s not the case. Not only is this book not exclusive to this particular group or to those grieving or those having grieved in the past for anyone, whether a parent, sibling, or close friend, it is for anyone who has suffered a tragedy such as a trauma, disease, divorce, or other life change that has altered their existence. Together with a friend, who is a psychologist, Adam Grant, who helped Sandberg after her husband died, they co-wrote about feelings that you experience, how to ask for what you need from family and friends, how to resume life as you know it in a new world as life as it is now, along with sharing numerous cases of those who have suffered the loss of a loved one, as well as those who have endured terrible tragedies of other kinds.

Sandberg, naturally writes about how challenging it was just to come to terms with the sudden loss of her husband and how she was going to explain the news to her young children. How they were going to get through the funeral, how would she, this strong woman who wrote about co-parenting and working in this modern world, do the same as a single parent, how she would face her colleagues at work, when was the right time to go back to work. So many unknowns. Her new world was so unfamiliar. The things that struck me were her feelings about how isolated she felt. She has a big extended family, including her husband’s. Many friends. Many work friends. Yet, she felt alone. People were scared to talk to her. Or if they asked how she was doing, they didn’t want to hear that she was not ok. It was ‘depressing.’ Asking how are you doing, is not really inquiring about the person on a personal level. You know they are not ok. Try to phrase it to the here and now. How did you get through today? Many people offer to do something but not many just do it. When you lose a loved one, she writes, and this is so true, don’t say “What can I do for you?” Just do something. Leave food for the person’s family so they don’t have to think about cooking, send some beautiful flowers, bring an uplifting book, take their kids out if they are up for it, so that your friend can rest, anything even taking on the most mundane task, just something that shows you care, that they didn’t have to ask for. Sandberg talks about a friend of a friend who lost a loved one and a friend showed up every day in the lobby of his building and asked what he didn’t want on his burger. He wasn’t imposing, wasn’t asking to see his friend, just let him know that he was bringing him lunch.

In the past, before I experienced grief first-hand, I am sure that I was guilty of asking the too general “how are you?” and “what can I do for you?” without ill intentions, but because I didn’t know what to do. Sandberg is well aware that most people do not act to hurt you. As she says, “they’re not piling it on,” but that is how it feels. I do know that when I did offer simple acts of kindness, it went a long way, and vice versa. I can remember a time when a dear friend’s father passed away and friends and family gathered at their house. I asked what her father’s favorite dessert was. Blueberry pie. I promptly baked one and brought it over. Her mother told me numerous times over the years how comforting that was to her. The same has been done for me after losing my mother. A friend knew that there was a cookie recipe in my mom’s cookbook that was a cookie ‘made with love’ and she sent home a batch in my son’s backpack the week after her funeral. I was so touched and comforted at the same time. I will never forget that gesture of kindness. Another friend, would send me a note every week, just to tell me that she was thinking of me. Having endured much heartache, herself, she knew that once the period of Shiva is over, people don’t often check on you. She continued to check on me and this made me feel not only loved but as if she were hugging me. The day after my father died, I received a text from a good friend, who lives in the city where I do, and offered to come to Chicago, where my father lived. I will never forget how deeply this touched me. To know that a friend would do this for me, without my asking. Just as two of my closest, oldest friends did exactly that, flew across the country to be by my side when my mother passed away, will forever be fixed in my memory and in how I managed the initial shock. This is one way in which we are able to ‘build resilience’.

Sandberg shares many of her own stories about how she ‘faced adversity,’ what people have done for her, such as her mother staying at her house for a month, and when she couldn’t be there, her sister-in-law took over. How her boss, yes, Jeff Zuckerberg, and his wife, invited her family to spend time with them on vacation so that they could just get away. When it was time to clean out her husband Dave’s closet, his own mother came to help her.

If you or a friend is in need of a relatable book that can show you that you are not alone, that does not tell you what to do but shows you what others have experienced, and that while some pain never goes away, healing can come.
 
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on May 20, 2017
Awesome inspiring book.
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on May 20, 2017
I'm a huge Sheryl Sandberg fan girl and I loved this book! :)
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on May 19, 2017
Losing mom in my early 20s, I can resonate so much with her feelings. Indeed, the book struck a chord with me. Yes, not only bounce back, but also grow stronger.
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on May 19, 2017
The world is now constantly overloaded with fast consumable faux news and information - reading this book gave me a sense of peace and refuge, and inspired a renewed resilience to face life's curve balls. Despite of the book's title, this book speaks to all levels of life challenges and lows, and you will find it inspiring and relevant even if you are not facing adversities as extreme as Option B and you are just doing some soul searching.
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on May 19, 2017
This is a therapeutic book for Sheryl, and I understand . Even if I had experienced the death of my husband, I would not have felt better reading this book. The cover led me to believe that this was written to deal with adversity, not only the death of a spouse.
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