The Courage of a Samurai: Seven Sword-Sharp Principles for Success - Lori Tsugawa Whaley (Review)

The Courage of a Samurai: Seven Sword-Sharp Principles for Success by Lori Tsugawa Whaley

Genres: Nonfiction, Personal Development
Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Aviva Publishing 
Format: paperback, 260 pages
How I got it: Firetalker PR for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 4/5 

Are you concerned about the direction our society seems to be taking? Do you feel concern not only for yourself, but also for younger generations such as your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren? Is it your desire to leave this earth a better place because of you and your contributions? 

Life is full of challenges. Tests and trials can allow a stronger you to emerge. In order to survive and grow in these difficult times, do you know how to weather the storm? Do you have a strategy in place to overcome the challenges that you face? 

Whether a person in transition, a parent, business person or all of these, what can be learned from the bushido code of the samurai? Who were the samurai and how could a people dedicated to war and violence have such an impact on a culture known for its politeness, manners and aesthetic beauty? 

The samurai warrior of ancient Japan lived by a moral and ethical code known as bushido; ‘the way of the warrior.’ This code of chivalry sculpted a culture and influenced all aspects of Japanese society. After the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, the world witnessed the characteristics of bushido: courage, Integrity, honesty, honor, benevolence, respect and ganbaru. The Courage of a Samurai presents these principles as a guide for navigating the challenges we all face personally and professionally, with examples of individuals who exemplify their meaning in today’s world. 

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My thoughts:

This book tells the about the seven principals of being a Samurai.   The seven principals are Courage, Integrity, Benevolence, Respect, Honesty, Honor, Loyalty, and Ganbaru.   Each of the seven principals is broken into a chapter and we get to see what the definition of each word is and then the author goes into examples of how these principals have been shown in the past.

I loved how the author setup this book with explaining the principals and then giving amazing examples of how they were demonstrated.  The author took a large amount of time to research the different events that she referenced and the people she studied.  We get to learn a lot about the treatment of Japanese American’s during the war and how much the Japanese American’s helped during World War II.  I love reading books that contain a lot of learning and showing examples of how people apply these principals works perfectly for this book.

We also get to learn a lot about Japanese business culture and how it stays constant with the guiding principles brought from the Samurai.  The author does a great job making references to home life as well as business culture in this book.

I didn’t know too much about Japanese culture before reading this book, but I do feel I learned a decent amount about the Japanese culture that shows from the past to the present.  The author does a great job explaining all about Japanese culture in this book.  The book flows very naturally and the topic covered are very enlightening.

I could have liked to read more about the treatment of the Japanese American’s that were held in the camps.  We got to hear more about the people that left and where successful in war, but I bet being in that contained area must have also had people showing the courage of a Samurai.  This book does make me want to research and learn about the Japanese during World War II because I don’t remember a lot of this being taught at school and want to know more about this topic now.

I received a copy of this book from Firetalker PR to provide an honest review.  This does not affect my opinion of this book. 

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About the Author

LORI TSUGAWA WHALEY is an author, professional keynote speaker and life coach. Lori is a third generation Japanese American baby boomer and a descendant of the samurai warrior; she is on a mission to empower others to reach their God-given leadership potential no matter their path, heritage, or circumstances. Lori and her husband John reside in a Japanese style home in the Pacific Northwest.

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{Blog Tour} The Black Sheep Shadow - Ashley Terrell (Review & Giveaway)

 

Description:

The city lights blind your amazement. The sound of the traffic challenges you to be alive. Families ask bystanders to make magic and capture the moment with photographs. Newly engaged couples seal their union by kissing under shooting stars while loving by crossing their hearts.

But if your heart was under arrest, wouldn't you want to embrace something to feel like others?

Go insider the world of one courageous sheep as she discovers that her heart was under attack by darkness. As she travels on a spiritual journey to understanding her purpose, overcoming the undertones of low confidence, self-acceptance, and the importance of inspiration, she rose against the odds with forgiveness and strengthening her faith.

Review:
Sometimes life gives you lemons and sometimes life gives you lots of lemons.  Ashley lives through a very rough childhood with a mother who she can't turn to and a father who can't cope either.  Ashley experiences things that no child should have to experience.  The feelings of being alone in this world is something that is extremely hard to overcome and we get to take the journey along with Ashley as she retells the events of her life that lead her to the person she is today. 

I love the beginning of the book it sets up exactly what you are in for.  This book is Ashley's outlet for getting her story out and it is an interesting story to read.  The book is setup based on a basic timeline of her life and then she talks about the major events that happened along that timeline from childhood to her adult life that make her who she is today. 

Ashley did a great job at breaking down the different life events and seeing them through almost a fresh set of eyes.   I think since some time has passed it seems she was able to reflect upon the events and become a much stronger individual.   The relationships with men that Ashley reflects upon show a great depth and understanding that one could only have if they are truly able to look back with a new perspective and grow.  I love that as a reader we get to see where Ashley was to where she is today.   It shows how strong she is and how a person can overcome difficult events in their lives. 

I think this would be a great weekend read.  It does deal with some rough subjects so I think it really does take your mind off your own problems and focus on someone else's issues. This is a short book and would easily be read in one weekend.   

I received a copy of this book from Ashley Terrell for the purpose of giving an honest review.  This does not affect my opinion of this book. 

My Rating: 4/5 

  
Excerpt:

Your past does not define your future.

In the dark, we do not have shadows.

In the light, we do.

Even me.

Even you.

Even sheep.

It is time out for hiding the scars and pain.

It is time out for disguising when we need help.

It is time to stand up and embrace yourself.

Regardless of violence.

Regardless of opinions.

Regardless of loneliness.

Regardless of beauty.

You are who you are.

Your future is what you want it to be.

You have a shadow. You have an identity.

Even black sheep have shadows.

God’s sheep are only black because society locks us in a room with the light off.

What’s going to make you determined

to turn the light on?

 Here is my story.

Bio:

27.
Entrepreneur.
Chef.
Life coach.
Author.
College graduate.
Owner of A Terrell Living & Enterprises.
Owner of BSC & Co. and Stella Bistro Foods & Catering
Addicted to a good book, s'mores & a quiet room.

 

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How To Make A Guy Realize You Are The One For Him - Titania Hudson (Book Review)

How To Make A Guy Realize You Are The One for Him by Titania Hudson
Series Love Matters Series # 1
Genres: Nonfiction, Relationship
Publication date: January 23, 2015
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Format: ebook, 108 pages
How I got it: Titania Hudson for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 5/5
 
Flaunt your feminine wiles to make him fall in love with you!

Chances are, you’ve heard the common advice – “Forget about dolling yourself up! Just be natural and make him accept you for who you are!” These words of wisdom ring true for those women, who happen to fall into the category of natural beauties, but face up to the truth, don’t you wish to accentuate the more outstanding features of your appearance and downplay the flaws? After all, the first shot at love is always about appearance before men pay attention to the other positive qualities inherent in your character and body language.
The key strategy to stop the “ATTRACTION” between a couple from fading, is also centred on “COMMUNICATION” and a deeper “UNDERSTANDING” of what the opposite sexes want, in order to make a relationship last for an eternity.

If you’re interested in learning how to talk to a man so that he opens up to you, listens to you, and willingly gives you what you want without a fuss, this book will help you to communicate with men more effectively and make him highly attracted to you!

Here’s what you’re going to learn inside:

WHAT WOMEN WANT VERSUS WHAT MEN WANT:

• How to get him to fall in love with you after meeting you on the FIRST DATE.
• Discover how to tell him clearly what’s on your mind without challenging his ego and earn his TRUST cum RESPECT.
• Learn how to communicate what you want in a relationship and make him want to do meaningful favours of his own accord to keep you HAPPY, ATTRACTED and COMMITTED.
• Find out FOURTEEN AMAZING SECRETS to getting good men to COMMIT to an exclusive dating relationship with you.
• Discover how to have interesting conversations with him without making him feel like a wimp or pushover.
• Learn how to be a respected and captivating girlfriend by being more assertive with your guy without appearing manipulative or domineering.
• How to understand the male psyche and communicate in his lingo so that he KNOWS exactly how to treat a worthy girlfriend like you.
• Unlock the secret FANTASIES he wants in bed when the time is ripe for both of you to engage in sexual intimacy.
• And much, much more…

Would You Like to Know More?

Get started right away and learn how to UNDERSTAND and COMMUNICATE with the single men out there, paying special attention to the one, who is willing to listen to you, open up to you, and fits your bill of Mr Right.

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My thoughts:

I think this is the perfect book to read when you are in between relationships. It gives great pointers on taking the first step and listing out a set of qualities that you want in your next man.  I love this idea because having what you are looking for written down in front of you helps to keep you focused.  I think coming up with qualities that you are looking for will help you to narrow down maybe men who don't fit into those categories quickly.

I loved the idea of taking care of yourself and always looking your best.  The book did a great job with tips on how to get this done and also outfit suggestions.  I completely agree a men wants a women he can show off to his family and friends and with new outfits and looking your best these are things that are easy to achieve.   Sometimes new clothes really do change your outlook on life you just feel better in your own skin.

The book gives a lot of solid advice that you can use in your everyday life.  It is a great resource for people who might not have had luck in the past with relationships.  It takes a lot to look back at what didn't work and what you can do better to make the relationship last.  I love the idea that each relationship is a journey that is always evolving and you must evolve too.  

Also, I love the first date advice for going out with someone you met online.  I know online dating is a big thing for a few of my friends now and I think the helpful tips in this book are key. Your own safety must be your number one priority.    

I received this book from Titania Hudson for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Quotes I love:
"Nevertheless, make sure to tread on the path to true love with care, so just treat the process of dating and marriage as a continuous learning journey."

"The way you look should matter to you because it only takes a fraction of a second to create a positive first impression on a person and once someone has formed a negative opinion of you, the changes of you rectifying it is indeed slim." 

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About the Author 
Titania Hudson is a veteran dating counselor residing in Los Angeles with her husband and three children. Now, a self-published author, she aspires to develop a series of dating books to help others cruise along their dating journeys.

With a specialized degree in Psychology and years of experience under her belt, she is familiar with the crises in dating and adept at highlighting the troubling issues that can crop up within the dating and marriage mart. Nothing pleases her more than having the chance to publish her relationship guides as a form of giving back to society, and she gains much satisfaction from knowing that her readers are faring well in their love pursuits.

While working as a dating counselor in her earlier days, she came across a varied mix of couples, who upheld different values, beliefs and aspirations in life. Some couples were vexed over their seemingly irreconcilable differences, but they were determined to make their relationship work; others had it easier with their other half, except that they wanted to be mentally prepared to face any trials that may surface in the course of their courtship and/or marriage.

Seeing couples split up was definitely something she hated to see while doing her job, and she felt that couples needed to have a clear understanding of what they want in a partner and not force themselves to accept one another 'blindly' in spite of the apparent faults and differences present in both individuals. That belief led her to start thinking about writing a series of dating books to encourage all couples to adopt a practical yet healthy perspective of what love actually means to them.

Till to-date, she has published a series of dating books under her name. They are none other than: How To Make A Guy Believe You're The One For Him, Get Him To Propose In 80 Days, Go Getter Guy Secrets To Successful Dates and Red Flag: Is Distrust Tearing Your Marriage Apart?

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Clean - Mia Kerick (Book Review)

Clean by Mia Kerick
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Romance
Publication date: December 1, 2015
Publisher: YoungDudes Publishing
Format: ebook, 308 pages
How I got it: YA Bound Book Tours for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 5/5
 
High school senior Lanny Keating has it all. A three-sport athlete at Lauserville High School looking at a college football scholarship, with a supportive family, stellar grades, boy band good looks… until the fateful day when it all falls apart. 

Seventeen-year-old Trevor Ladd has always been a publicly declared zero and the high school badboy. Abandoned by his mother and sexually abused by his legal guardian, Trevor sets his sights on mere survival.

Lanny seeks out Trevor’s companionship to avoid his shattered home life. Unwilling to share their personal experiences of pain, the boys explore ways to escape, leading them into sexual experimentation, and the abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol. Their mutual suffering creates a lasting bond of friendship and love.

When the time finally comes to get clean and sober, or flunk out of high school, only one of the boys will graduate, while the other spirals downward into addiction.
Will Lanny and Trevor find the strength to battle their demons of mind-altering substances as well as emotional vulnerability?

Clean takes the reader on a gritty trip into the real and raw world of teenage substance abuse.

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My thoughts:

This books gives the reader a lot to think about right from the beginning, it starts off with an overdose and then expands on how the characters got into that situation.   The story is very well written in regards to showing the downward spiral of alcohol and drugs.  I will try my best not to give to many spoilers.

Drugs are becoming more of an issue it seems in schools due to the abuse of prescription medications.   I love how the book showed alcohol abuse and needing a high, which lead to using prescription medications.  It is exactly how the news depicts the beginning of drug abuse.  The need to get high takes over and you try different things to achieve that.  The author did an excellent job conveying this to the reader.  It was easy to see how the drinking lead to the drugs.

Another aspect of the book that is very well written is that as a reader we actually get to see what happens after the overdose and how Lanny reconstructions his life this leads people to see there is hope after substance addiction.  Lanny was sent to a rehab facility and entered a AA program.  During the rehab we get to see that the entire family started going to therapy and a  lot of the issues that Lanny was dealing with in regards to his family where confronted head on.  Lanny also needs to make amends with people who he was wronger and that included Trevor.

Trevor's life also has some very large issues that he does not discuss with a lot of people and also tries to run away from.  Eddie becomes his caregiver during the book and tries to help Trevor to confront his issues.   Trevor is not able to fully open to Lanny until he comes to apologize for his wrongdoings.  Trevor does not warm up easily, but eventually see that he can open up to people. 

The author takes several large issues of substance abuse along with sexual abuse and does a great job writing about them where the reader can understand fully what is going on, but also it doesn't overwhelm the reader.  There is enough details that you know what is going on, but not to many details to feel like you can't read through it.   

Another issue touched on is communication, in the end everything does get better because the characters where able to open up and talk to one another.   I think that communication in any relationship is key and trying to ignore issues and not talk about them doesn't help anyone.  Lanny blamed himself for what happened to his sister and thought his parents blamed him as well, but in turn they were all feeling the same way, but not communicating it.   If they had been talking and maybe gone to group therapy before since it was a major life change would the alcohol become a major issue is a question I would want to ask.

I suggest this as more of a weekend read.  It gives you a lot to think about and I feel it takes some time to digest all of this information.   It is not that long of a book so it was easy to read over one weekend.  

I was received this from the YA Bound Book Tours for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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About the Author

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.


Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled men and their relationships, and she believes that sex has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuff'ed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her stories.


Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.

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