When you pick up a memoir in a bookstore, you have expectations. Some of you don’t know the meaning of a memoir. It is simply a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey touches the light-hearted subject of life and career.

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey is an Oscar-winning American actor. He gained the limelight through commercials and through his role in the movie Dazed and Confused. The movie was considered to be his breakout movie. Furthermore, he has worked in a plethora of movies. The movies include A Time to Kill, Interstellar, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and The Wolf of Wallstreet. Moreover, he has also played the character ‘Rust Cohle’ in HBO’s crime series True Detective. He won an Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club.

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Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

“Greenlights,” Matthew McConaughey’s memoir, has a way of persuading you that being Matthew McConaughey is the easiest thing in the world. Look at his filmography to find an actor who has fought his way to critical and commercial acclaim. He began his career in the 1990s with cameos and low-budget films. He then worked in the rom-com salt mines in the early 2000s, before pivoting to Oscar bait and prestige television, finally reaching the summit with a best actor Academy Award for “Dallas Buyers Club” in 2014.

Time is a flat circle

That’s quite a feat. But the man who turned Nietzsche’s idea that “time is a flat circle” into a meme isn’t going to deliver a simple story about hard labor and steady advancement. According to him, his fame sprang from being preternatural “alright, alright, alright” with everything, every step of the way.

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McConaughey – a macho movie hero

McConaughey’s self-effacing and cool demeanor has made him an ideal macho movie hero for our nervous moment, allowing him to casually drop a few thousand on the hapless Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl. He’s our mindful-breathing Brando, and even though the world is on fire, he’s got you. His gnomic musings in-vehicle advertising practically called for ridicule as a result of this.

The beautiful thing about “Greenlights” is that the character never comes across as phony. The bad news is that it was clearly written by him, and he appears to believe that, in addition to being a memoirist, he is also a licensed motivational speaker and, worse, a poet.

Surviving a tough parent!

McConaughey, who will turn 51 in November, grew up in rural Texas as the son of divorced parents who had three marriages and two divorces. His father was a savage individual. He would enlist Matthew’s brother for a urinating contest and once devised a ploy to have Matthew claim mental discomfort from a breakout-inducing skin product, a hoax undone when he was given a photo calling him the most gorgeous man at his high school. Later in life, McConaughey’s father would realize his fantasy of dying while having sex, and how could McConaughey not be inspired by such a character? McConaughey writes, “Yes, he called his shot all right.”

Living or Livin?

“There’s no ‘g’ on the end of livin because living is a verb,” McConaughey asserts, which is a sensible way of understanding life, though not gerunds. The idea of “livin” is expressed throughout “Greenlights” through aphorisms, bumper stickers, and poetry, the latter of which is uniformly cringeworthy.

He surely makes no grand claims to literary greatness, but that doesn’t take away the sting of bad puns (“Fish for yourself. / Self-ish.”), Dr. Seuss-isms (“I swallow vitamins with a beer I do, / chew more tobacco than I should”), or poems with titles that should deter you from reading further (“Today I Made Love to My Woman”).

Final Verdict

The title “Greenlights” refers to moments when the universe grants us permission to try new things; reds and yellows represent obstacles. Although McConaughey has clearly navigated this successfully, his knowledge isn’t exactly transferable. Yet the book is a conversational, and pleasing look into McConaughey’s life and thought.

Rating: 8.5/10

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Colleen Hoover, the author

Colleen Hoover’s novels have a way of pulling the rug out from under your feet and leaving you with a haunted feeling. I had the same feeling when I read It Ends With Us. Colleen Hoover is a young adult novelist and a romance novelist. Slammed, her debut novel was released in January 2012. She released Hopeless in December 2012, and it quickly soared to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

Her book “Layla” is one of her works that has a similar feel to it, but with a romantic twist. Her books are always accompanied by a content warning, and this one evokes feelings of imprisonment, mental illness, and an eating disorder.

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Layla by Colleen Hoover storyline

Leeds Gabriel meets with a detective while his love, Layla, is held captive in a room one floor above them near the beginning of the novel. He was wasting both his time and his musical talent playing backup for a small-town wedding band named Garrett’s Band when he spotted Layla dancing her heart out to their poor music at a wedding, according to the interview. Leeds and Layla have an instant and passionate connection when he approaches her. Leeds makes the mistake of publishing a picture of himself with Layla on social media, which leads to a wonderful courtship. Layla is quickly tracked down and attacked by a previous girlfriend turned stalker. Layla spends months in a hospital rehabilitating, and it appears that the girl Leeds fell in love with maybe forever change.

True love ‘can’ blossom

The novel examines concerns about how quickly true love can blossom, as well as the difficulties that can jeopardize even the strongest bonds, with elements of mystery, psychological thriller, and modern romance sprinkled throughout. Despite having a small cast of characters and a restricted number of setting changes, the story manages to be both fast-paced and fascinating. The ending leaves a few too many loose ends, but the characters’ chemistry and the surprising twists throughout make for a satisfying read.

Final Verdict

Although this isn’t my favorite Colleen Hoover novel, Layla still manages to be unique and deviates from her standard. That is neither good nor bad; it is simply different!

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About the authors Kate Purmal, Lee Epting and Joshua Smith

Kate Purmal, Lee Epting, and Joshua Isaac Smith, executive coaches, deal with ambitious, accomplished women whose confidence doesn’t match their accomplishments. Resultant in causing severe tension and anxiety. Their book, ‘Composure: ‘The Art of Executive Presence’ which employs a series of case studies of executive clients to take readers through the typical causes of this lack of confidence.

It provides effective ways to restore it, walks readers through the main causes of this lack of confidence, and effective ways to restore it.

Kate Purmal

Kate Purmal is an outstanding visionary and compulsive optimist who brings out the best in leaders and their teams. She has worked as a CEO, COO, and CFO for start-ups and privately-owned technology and life sciences organizations for over 15 years.

Book Review: Composure by Kate Purmal, Lee Epting and Joshua Smith

Purmal is the protagonist of the novel, which is written in the first person. Its title and framing device, “comfort,” are a bit of a red herring. While Purmal emphasizes the need of developing confidence and self-awareness so that our outer selves can remain calm under pressure, the book concentrates mostly on the more well-known idea of Imposter Syndrome. It states, “a lack of confidence, rejection sensitivity, perfectionism, depressed entitlement [undervaluing what you deserve], and feeling like a fraud.”

The main idea behind Composure: The Art of Executive Presence

The book explores how (mostly) women come to this state of mind, including childhood triumphs and traumas, as well as the characteristics that accompany it.

Overdeveloped external motivation, a collection of performance indicators such as grades and awards, a tendency to avoid new challenges in order to avoid the possibility of failure, and hypersensitivity to criticism.

The authors recommend that readers work on building confidence, composure, credibility, clarity, and connection, which are five important abilities connected with composure. The road to overcoming Impostor Syndrome is long but rewarding, with three stages: awareness, resolution, and change.

The problems of unresolved issues

Furthermore, Kate and Lee provide a lot of information about the waste that occurs when this happens. “Being left unexamined and unresolved,” they write,

Moreover, “Outdated and unnecessary Impostor Behaviors are certain to stand in the way. It also derails us from achieving our most inspiring visions of who we can become,” they write.

The authors’ grasp of the intricacies of insecurity and the mechanics of entitlement is given with a refreshing level of nuance.

Final verdict

Composure by Kate Purmal and Lee Epting is a brief, well-written book that largely consists of conversations between Purmal and some of her clients. They focus on difficulties such as setting intentions. Acting as if, establishing boundaries, dealing with conflict, and limiting negative self-talk and incorrect internal beliefs. There’s plenty of motivation and advice for overcoming frequent professional stumbling blocks.

The book’s misleading title and marketing text may make it difficult for readers who would benefit from it to find it. However, those who do will find helpful thought exercises to help them overcome their Imposter Syndrome.

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