The authors, founders of and executives at LGE Performance Systems, an executive training program based on athletic coaching programs, offer a program aimed at stressed individuals who want to find more purpose in their work and ways to better handle their overburdened relationships.

Just as athletes train, play and then recover, people need to recognize their own energy levels. "Balancing stress and recovery is critical not just in competitive sports, but also in managing energy in all facets of our lives. Emotional depth and resilience depend on active engagement with others and with our own feelings."

Case studies demonstrate how some modest changes can have an immediate impact. Loehr (Mental Toughness Training for Sports) and Schwartz (Art of the Deal, writing with Donald Trump) also include a chart highlighting Action Steps, Targeted Muscle, Desired Outcome and Performance Barrier and apply these tenets to individual cases.

A chart analyzing the benefits and costs to taking certain action shows the impact negative behavior can have on both physical and mental well-being. However, the actual "training program" whereby readers can learn how to institute certain rituals to change their behavior is less well-defined.

Managers and other employees who have attended HR seminars may find this plan easy to use, but self-employed people and others less familiar with "training" may be unable to recognize their behavior patterns and change them.

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The Power of Story written by Jim Loehr

According to this pragmatic self-help, each person has a story they tell themselves about themselves, which is often flawed and misunderstood by the conscious mind telling it: "Residing in the subconscious is most of the hidden matter that influences our stories-all the instinctual urges coded in genes... all the conditioning that took place during childhood... all the trauma and conflicts festering."

Performance psychologist Loehr, coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement, shows how these stories, which can be as broad as a worldview ("The world is full of traps and misfortune") or focused unhealthily on a particular "subplot" (like work), define our reality and "destiny." To fix a story gone awry, Loehr explains how to plumb the mind's depths with honest questioning and self-regard, then to rewrite stories using three basics of storytelling-purpose, truth and action-in order to fashion a new, healthy, mission-oriented narrative.

Later chapters provide guidelines for rewriting, with instructions on "indoctrinateing yourself" and creating specific training "rituals" you can adopt to turn "story into action." Loehr draws a lot of complex, convincing points from his seemingly simple premise; his book should give anyone suffering from general life dissatisfaction or business malaise plenty to think over.

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