Would you like to Shortcut Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant? My hope is for you to experience 80% of the value from Option B in just thirty minutes including a book summary, a quick lesson in the skills taught in the book, a retelling of my favorite stories, a review of what actions I took as a result of reading Option B, a look at my life as I was reading, and the unique challenges I experienced as a reader. If you want it even faster, here are the notes I took while reading!

Skills

Resilience. Using setbacks, trauma, and struggle to advance. Asking for help is essential. Seek to appreciate and understand instead of saying I am sorry for your loss. See what each of our struggles have in common which is often loneliness, a feeling of uselessness, and self pity. Critical for a healthy relationship to say yes to the other partner’s request for attention. “Hey look at this” with “sure” or “no”

Summary

Sheryl Sandberg is the COO at Facebook and author of Lean In. Adam Grant is her friend and a psychologist. Sheryl’s husband Dave died at 47 years old while they were traveling in Mexico together to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Option B shares what Sheryl has learned through her grief and raising her children without their father combined with Adam’s professional experience. An introduction shares the story of Dave’s death followed by a chapter named Breathing Again which focuses on life after Dave especially processing the grief through personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 discuss building friendships through loss, developing self-compassion, and viewing a tragedy as an opportunity to bounce forward with new opportunities. Taking back joy and raising resilient kids offer stories about noticing each happy moment and helping children see the chance for growth in everything that happens.

Stories
Dave’s death. Nanny kills two children and parents appreciate each other and the third. Survivors of plane crash maintaining hopeBillboard in New York most regrets are failures to act like not following dreams or not giving hugs or not repairing a relationship.

Action
Sent what I hope is a better text to my sisters after they lost their grandpa. Reflected on my actions relative to my own mortality and my family. Made a more loving and honest conversation with my mother after dad has been gone.

Context
Read with wife sitting on couch cried and very grateful a chapter or two at a time over a weekLost my father at 29 and am an alcoholic with three years sobriety that attends AA daily. Related a lot with grief and trauma. Syncs well with Brene Brown.

Challenges
Brings out feelings of separation as a man. Many stories feature violence of man against woman with follow up on woman’s resilience with little attention to how the creator of the violence got that way or can recover or law of attraction that people in pain attract others in pain. Is she doing well speaking to her audience or showing her own limitations or triggering some of my own hidden beliefs? Frequent calls for policy changes to problems which might have more effective solutions outside of policy. Implied assumptions and judgement on poverty that having a life with more is better. Would have preferred more personal stories of “hard times” and less suggestions for what external changes need to be made to see improvement.