SOMEDAY Is Not a Day in the Week: 10 Hacks to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life
Author: Sam Horn
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: March 12, 2019
Genre: Self-Help > Time Management > Success > Motivational
Page Count: 288 Pages
ISBN-10: 1250201225
ISBN-13: 978-1250201225
Available for Pre-order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, Powells
My Rating: 4 Stars
Author Bio (From Publisher’s Author Page):
“Sam Horn, president of Action Seminars, has presented her real-life workshops to more than 400,000 people since 1981. Her impressive client list includes Young Presidents Organization, National Governors Association, Hewlett-Packard, Four Seasons Resort, the Fortune 500 Forum, the US Navy, and the IRS. She was the top-rated speaker at both the 1996 and 1998 International Platform Association conventions in Washington DC, and is the emcee of the world-renowned Maui Writers Conference. She is also the author of Tongue Fu!, What’s Holding You Back?, and ConZentrate, which have been featured in Readers Digest, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Family Circle, Bottom Line Personal, and Executive Female, to name a few. She is a frequent media guest who has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, including “To Tell the Truth” and NPR’s popular “Diane Rehm Show.” She lives with her sons Tom and Andrew in Virginia.”
Social Media Sites: Twitter, Facebook, Author Blog, Author Website, Goodreads
Book Description (From Publisher’s Page):
“Full of inspirational insights and advice, lifehacks, and real-world examples, Someday is Not a Day in the Week is CEO Sam Horn’s motivational guide to help readers get what they want in life today rather than “someday.”
“Are you:
• Working, working, working?
• Busy taking care of everyone but yourself?
• Wondering what to do with the rest of your life?
• Planning to do what makes you happy someday when you have more time, money, or freedom?
What if someday never happens? As the Buddha said, “The thing is, we think we have time.”
Sam Horn is a woman on a mission about not waiting for SOMEDAY … and this is her manifesto. Her dad’s dream was to visit all the National Parks when he retired. He worked six to seven days a week for decades. A week into his long-delayed dream, he had a stroke. Sam doesn’t want that to happen to you. She took her business on the road for a Year by the Water. During her travels, she asked people, “Do you like your life? Your job? If so, why? If not, why not?”
The surprising insights about what makes people happy or unhappy, what they’re doing about it (or not), and why…will inspire you to carve out time for what truly matters now, not later.
Life is much too precious to postpone. It’s time to put yourself in your own story. The good news is, there are “hacks” you can do right now to make your life more of what you want it to be. And you don’t have to be selfish, quit your job, or win the lottery to do them. Sam Horn offers actionable, practical advice in short, snappy chapters to show you how to get started on your best life ― now.”
Sam Horn is the Author of 6 Award-Winning Books From Major Publishers that have been translated into upwards of ten languages.
Got Your Attention? (April 6, 2015) GOLD MEDALIST IN THE 2015 FOREWORD REVIEWS’ INDIEFAB AWARDS IN CAREER!
“Did you know:
• Goldfish, yes, goldfish, have longer attention spans than we humans do?
• One in four people abandons a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load?
Imagine if there were ways, in a world of impatience and INFObesity, to quickly intrigue busy, distracted people and earn their interest, trust and buy-in?
Imagine if there was a process for pleasantly surprising decision-makers and convincing them you’re the right person for the job, position, project or contract?
You don’t have to imagine it, Sam Horn has created it. Sam’s innovative techniques have helped her clients close deals and raise millions of dollars and will be your “secret sauce” to getting funded, hired, elected, promoted or referred.”
POP! (September 5, 2006) “Why do some ideas break out and others fade away? What causes people to become so excited about a product that they can?t wait to tell their friends? How can an idea be communicated so that it catches fire in people?s imaginations?
Popular author, consultant, and workshop leader Sam Horn identifies what makes an idea, message, or product break out, and presents a simple and proven process POP! (Purposeful, Original, Pithy) to create one-of-a-kind ideas, products, and messages that pop through the noise, off the shelf, and into consumers? imaginations.”
Take the Bully by the Horns (September 9, 2003) “How often have you wished you knew how to defuse the difficult people who wreak havoc on your life? Whether it’s a neighbor who keeps disturbing your peace, an employer who manipulates you into unpaid overtime, a spouse who criticizes and controls your every move, a colleague who uses scare tactics to intimidate you, or a student who teases your child without mercy, Take the Bully by the Horns will give you real-life strategies stop people from taking advantage of you, including how to:
* Adopt a “don’t you dare” attitude
* Refuse to play The Blame-Shame Game
* Beat em to the punch…line
* Stop paying the price of nice
* Put all kidding aside
* Act on your anger instead of suffering in silence
* Savior Self from martyrs and guilt-mongers
* Not be victimized by crazy-making Jekyll/Hyde personalities
* Adopt the Clarity Rules and Rights
With these tools, you can take back your peace of mind and your sanity. You’ll be able to fight back constructively and prevent harassment by bullies, from the workplace to the schoolyard. The bold suggestions in Take the Bully by the Horns will show you once and for all how to convince unfair or unkind relatives, co-workers, customers, or strangers to either behave cooperatively or leave you alone.”
ConZentrate (February 6, 2001) “If you ever feel: cluttered, scattered, distracted, unfocused, disorganized, preoccupied, overwhelmed, out of control, out of your mind… you can change your life! ConZentrate shows you how to master the art of paying attention, in thirty-five clear, practical, simple ways. Whether it’s how to focus on a tedious task when the office is buzzing around you, or how to stop procrastinating, or how to keep your home from being a place of overwhelming clutter– or ever how to tackle the challenges of A.D.D.– Sam Horn’s user-friendly book will inspire you to learn how to conzentrate, and discover the key to peak performance.”
What’s Holding You Back? (March 10, 2000) “You never again need feel powerless in the face of uncertainty, awkward with strangers, or helpless in new situations. With What’s Holding You Back?, Sam Horn shows you the way to a solid sense of self-assurance that doesn’t depend on where you are or who you’re with. This is a practical, user-friendly program that is filled with techniques you can begin using immediately. In With What’s Holding You Back? you will learn how to:
-Walk into a room full of strangers and turn them into friends.
– Be a self-coach rather than your own worst critic, able to turn mistakes into lessons instead of failures.
– Converse with comfort and never again worry about what to say.
– Go places alone and have fun instead of being intimidated.
– Spring free from the comparison trap.
With Sam Horn’s down-to-earth advice, amusing anecdotes, and no-nonsense wisdom, this valuable guide will benefit anyone– regardless of background or circumstance– who wants to move through life with ever-present grace, serenity, and strength.”
Tongue Fue! (March 15, 1997) “If you’ve ever been tongue-tied – or if you’ve ever given a tongue-lashing (and regretted it), Tongue Fu! offers constructive alternatives that will turn hostility into harmony and help you avoid a mental breakdown in the face of aggression. With straightforward strategies and proven techniques, Tongue Fu! examines almost every kind of verbal conflict – from fights with your spouse or a stalemate with the kids – and shows how to use martial arts for the mind and mouth to deflect attacks, disarm disputes, and defuse any explosive situation. With Tongue Fu! you will learn words to use (and words to lose) in tense situations, the power of the phrase “You’re right,” the tools to use when people push your “hot buttons,” how to handle a verbal bully who enjoys attacking and tormenting, how to gracefully exit an argument, what to say when you don’t know what to say, how to use silence to your advantage, how to be pleasantly unpleasant, and how to take charge of your emotions.”
My Review:
I did not only read SOMEDAY is not a Day in the Week, but I also became a participant by sitting with another and taking the Four Minute-Four Box Happiness Quiz. Upon analyzing our responses, neither of us learned anything we were not already aware of; however, the quiz served as a reminder that neither of us had yet to do or begin to do the things that are the most important things to either of us. These things had been discussed in depth countless times, and yet we had not initiated a course of action to execute the pivotal changes that would goad us into action. Seeing the results on paper served as an “I told you so” opportunity for me, as I frequently talk about how short life is. The Happiness Quiz indicated we are living in Someday land. I would add, if you are going to take the Four Minute-Four Box Happiness Quiz with another, honesty is a prerequisite in this quiz, and all other exercises you do with another; otherwise, what’s the use?
I found much of what Horn writes about in SOMEDAY is Not a Day as repetitive, whether through other self-help books, the media, workshops, et cetera. I agreed and disagreed (how’s that for an oxymoron?) with Horn when it comes to the adverse effects of technology addiction. Unfortunately, some of humanity is born with an addictive personality which makes the propensity for addiction to anything a possibility, whether it’s technology, alcohol, drugs, lying, smoking, pornography, sexual deviancy, et cetera. And yes, we have all gone out to eat, and we look around at other tables and see more and more parents and children with their attention focused on the electronic devices in their hands, unaware of one another. In my humble opinion, this is a precedent the parents have set, as well as a lack of discipline.
There are exceptions to all things, and in this case, I am going to use authors, writers, and book reviewers as my exceptions. All of whom have their eyes on a screen for ten to twelve hours every day. They may be writing, researching, maintaining websites, blogs, and social media platforms, all of which are essential, unless you have the extra money to hire someone to manage your social media platforms for you. That’s great for those who do, but I also feel when you are not managing your own social media, you’re not interacting with your followers, and therefore you are not going to grow your following. Interaction is key. I cannot speak for everyone, but after I have spent ten to twelve hours online, writing and researching for myself, writing book reviews, and showing up on my social media platforms, the last thing I want to do is spend time on my personal FB page. And I feel bad that I am not keeping up with what’s going on in my friend’s lives, missing birthdays and other significant milestones, missing out on something to laugh about, missing the news of a passing or birth, et cetera. But I am tired and need to shut the tech world off for the day. The bottom line is while there are cases of technology addiction, it’s not a one size fits all.
The next exercise Horn provides is an exercise that evaluates whether or not your life is aligned by listing your True Priorities and Time Priorities, which I found intriguing when we returned to the Happiness Quiz for comparisons and finding a correlation between the two exercises. I don’t want to provide any spoilers, so that is as much as I am going to say in regards to the second exercise. The last activity I took part in was the Happiness Interview and this you must do with another, and as I said earlier, if you’re not completely honest, what’s the point? There are some thorny questions to answer, but if you do the exercise and you are honest, there is much to be gleaned by the results of the interview.
I found the exercises beneficial to my life and believe others will as well. At the end of the activities, the one I chose to do the exercises with also admitted to finding the exercises beneficial. I could not go directly to the exercises without reading SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week aloud, and once I started, I had to continue. The rejoinder I received at the end of the book was, “You and I are too smart for this. We know all of this already, it’s just a matter of carrying through.” I could not disagree. And this is due to what I started with, “I found much of what Horn writes about in SOMEDAY is Not a Day as repetitive, whether through other self-help books, the media, workshops, et cetera.”
Don’t get me wrong, and please don’t take any of what I have written as negativity towards SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week. I fully endorse Horn’s book and believe the exercises she has incorporated within the book will benefit everyone who takes the time to do the exercises, but I’ll say it again, you must be honest, with yourself and with whomever you choose to do the exercises with. I also firmly believe there are specific audiences that SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week that would benefit profoundly from reading this book. Just off the top of my head, I would say those with no or few interpersonal skills; those that have unrealistic expectations and have not been taught the skills required to meet their needs; those that have been raised on the internet, social media and reality TV, and those who live on credit.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Sam Horn and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Book Reviews & Musings 