A Book That Changed My Life

A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues

Author: Terrie Williams

Length: 300 pages

Publisher: Warner Books

Price: $14.95 (NEW PAPERBACK)

A Book That Changed My Life

By: Christina Wood

In today’s society, it is important to understand the importance and value of living your purpose, and Terrie Williams is the first person that will advocate for soulful living in her latest book, A Plentiful Harvest.  This book promotes the seven Kwanzaa-inspired virtues—calling, thrift, responsibility, community, love, spirituality and creativity—as the essential ingredients for balanced living.

Terrie Williams is a professional in the public relations world and has authored three books: The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to Succeed in Today’s Fast-paced Business World, Stay Strong: Simple Life Lessons for Teens and A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues. Stay Strong has been used nationwide in schools, and was the catalyst for launching the Stay Strong Foundation, a nationwide non-profit organization for youth.  Her insight and knowledge of not only professional development but also purposeful living makes her books credible in my book to apply to my life.

The process of the book was to read and journal over a period of time, in which I felt, was rushed because I read this book for class. Although, the meaning and depth behind the text was something I felt I could apply to my life today.  I love that Williams encourages us to pursue our calling.  It can be stressful at times to know what that specific calling is, but if all college students read this book, they would understand the importance of discovering that calling at a younger age.  In my opinion, any age should read this book, especially if you are stuck in your professional development.  Williams sold my heart in A Plentiful Harvest, and I hope it does for other readers too.

For more information on A Plentiful Harvest, visit these articles below:

Publishers Weekly

Good Reads

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Biography of Terrie Williams

Faces of Depression: Terrie Williams

A Plentiful Harvest

A Plentiful Harvest
BY KIERAN OVERSTREET 

A Plentiful Harvest

Author: Terrie Williams

Book Length: 289

Publisher: Warner Book Inc.

Price: $10 (New hard cover)

A Plentiful Harvest was one of the most encouraging books I have ever read. Terrie Williams does a great job of expression herself, her values, and her struggles throughout her life. One of the most compelling moments was when she was talking about the stage in her life where she was battling depression. You really felt like you could understand where she was coming from yet become encouraged but her hard work and dedication to overcoming it.

            Terrie Williams is a woman of history; she has been in the Fortune 500 as well as been the main communicator for stars like Eddie Murphy. She also founded the Stay Strong Foundation, which is a non-profit national organization for youth.

            The subject of this book was great. She did a wonderful job at expression her talent towards multiple areas of her life. She goes into great detail on how to figure out where you are going with your life as well as encourage you to chase your dreams.

One strength that I found in this book is that it is a self-help book in a sense. It gives you a journal topic for 52 weeks. The goal is to help you achieve what you want in life. One weakness is that it is extremely wordy. I feel that the content could be condensed and to the point. There were a ton of stories, which are good, but sometimes, it is just too much.

Despite the length, I do recommend this book. I think that it will open your eyes to a lot of different things in life as well as encourage you through life’s hard moments.

This is just a brief comment on this book. For more information about the author and her book check out the links below!


Terrie Williams: The History Makers 

About Terrie Williams

Let's Reallt Talk About It

Finding Your True Callng

Terrie Williams New York Women in Communictions

A Plentiful Harvest

A Plentiful Harvest

Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues

By Katie Smith

A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues by Terrie Williams is fantastic if you have the time. The book is kind of like a self-help book. It’s meant to be read week to week and you are supposed to do journaling as well. Going through the different chapters, the journaling would definitely be beneficial to a person’s life and career. Having to go over the book in less than four months is a little too much to handle for one class. I’ll definitely keep the book and do the year’s worth of reflection and journaling once this class is over.

The story Terrie Williams tells about how she had a successful career, but wasn’t happy and how she changed that is good for students to hear. She found a Kwanzaa card on her bedroom floor and it reminded her of the principles of Kwanzaa that she liked. Williams created her “Seven Living Virtues” based on those Kwanzaa principles. The “Seven Living Virtues” are calling, responsibility, thrift, love, community, spirituality and creativity.

In the first few weeks, you do exercises to reveal your true calling and purpose. It continues on with responsibility and so on with the rest of the virtues. Doing the exercises and journaling for the entire book would definitely be 52 weeks of growth and change. I look forward to being able to work through every single week of this book and hopefully 52 weeks later, I will be on my way to a happier and more abundant life.

Will You Catch What's Contagious?

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Author: Jonah Berger

Book Length: 244 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Price: $26.00 (NEW HARD COVER)

Will You Catch What's Contagious?

By: Christina Wood

           After reading Jonah Berger’s illustration of a “Contagious” world, I never thought I would “catch on” to his insightful message and be able to apply it to my professional life.  Through the numerous examples of pop culture such as Rebecca Black’s “Friday” one hit wonder explanation of how it spread like wild fire, I truly believe that through the understanding of this book, the world of public relations can truly benefit from Berger’s findings.

            Jonah Berger is the James G. Campbell Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  According to Jonah Berger’s official website, “He has published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals, and popular accounts of his work have appeared in places like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Science, Harvard Business Review, Wired, BusinessWeek, and Fast Company.”  His research has also been featured in The New York Times Magazine’s annual “Year in Ideas” issue. Berger has been recognized with awards for both scholarship and teaching, including being named Wharton’s “Iron Prof.” 

Berger is especially known for studying social epidemics, or how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on and become popular. He examines how individual decision-making and social dynamics (e.g., social influence) between people generate collective outcomes such as social contagion and trends. Most recently, Professor Berger has examined why certain products get more word-of-mouth than others and why certain online content goes viral.

Berger’s perspective based on the the studies mentioned above, really gave me a visual understanding of why things do catch on in new media.  His insight explains why certain things become popular and why certain brands trend over other brands. He gives examples from pop culture that are specific and easy to understand.  I believe that all practitioners studying public relations should read this book considering new media is rapidly growing every day, and Berger does a phenomenal job of explaining why.

For more information regarding Contagious check out these articles below:

Mapping Out the Path to Viral Fame

Jonah Berger | "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" YouTube

Goodreads.com

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