“Optimists Always Win! (Moving from Defeat to Life’s C-Suite)” by Kimberly S. Reed

Optimists Always Win! (Moving from Defeat to Life’s C-Suite)

Kimberly S. Reed, MEd CDP
Health Communications, Inc. (2021)
ISBN 9780757321054
Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Reader Views (12/2021)

“Optimists Always Win!” is an energetic and motivating self-help book to help you overcome life’s challenges. Everyone has problems—that’s an annoying fact. And while some people give in to their problems, others grow, educate themselves, and gain control over how they deal with them. This book will show you how to do the latter—how to go from succumbing to winning—and the key is optimism. Sometimes blessings come with challenges, but we don’t always recognize it. It’s hard to see the good when things are going bad. We humans have a natural tendency toward the negative, but the author knows how to break that age-old chain and unleash the power of positivity.

With clarity and experience, Reed breaks down what it takes to turn your life around, using optimism as the vehicle. You see, happiness and success are possible when you choose optimism over negative emotions and learned mindsets, like anger and resentment. Besides offering good advice, the author leaves room for journaling your own thoughts, and shares what she has learned from her own firsthand experiences: The loss of her mother to a terminal illness, her own diagnosis, and the lessons she has learned from her faith. So, when she says you can turn pessimism into optimism, she is speaking from personal experience. It’s a guarantee that trials will come, but how we deal with them can make all the difference in the outcome. Bottom line: You have more control over your circumstances than you think you do.

One thing I like about self-help books is the wisdom we can gain from others who have been in the same boat we are, and there is a lot of wisdom in this book that you can use on a daily basis. It could help lead you out of a dark place and into a happier mindset. One particular point that I like is “Quieting the Soul.” We live in a lot of chatter today, between work, family obligations, our online life, personal or health issues, whatever it is, and “Quieting the Soul” can bring you back to a place of inner peace and contentment. If you’re accustomed to being negative, transforming yourself into an optimist may be a challenge, but you now have a guidebook on how to proceed. It’s okay to have bad days. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It happens to all of us. Everything doesn’t have a happy ending (no matter what Disney says), and we all don’t respond the same way. But change can be had.

You may not agree with everything in the book, or Reed’s approach or philosophy, but it has many positive things to offer—the proceeds of the book’s sales going to charity being just one of them. “Optimists Always Win!” is a great first step to working through your wilderness!