The best self-help books fall into two categories. In one are books that teach readers to do a specific thing. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is the bellwether of this group. Other entries include weight-loss books, job-hunting books, and titles on beating depression or anxiety. The other category includes books with a distinctive voice. These writers don’t necessarily offer any new techniques, but their tell-it-like-it-is style makes their books unputdownable. Good examples are Rachel Hollis’s Girl, Wash Your Face (though the Hollis brand has been tarnished of late) and Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
It’s unclear which category, if either, is appropriate for Mary Tess Rooney’s HEART VALUE. The book opens with Nora, a woman who feels unrecognized and unappreciated in her job. Nora lists her struggles at work before concluding, “Maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was . . . maybe everything I do doesn’t matter.” With Nora’s experience as the backdrop, Rooney asks her readers, “Have you ever felt that way? You work extremely hard to meet expectations and make a difference, but you feel invisible or ignored. You feel stuck and unsure, and your heart longs for something more.” The longings of one’s heart become the central metaphor of this book, which Rooney fills with more anecdotes from her career as a business professional. The meaning of Heart Value, for Rooney, is the “energetic and emotional connection to the value you offer.” A related concept, True Stride, she defines as “feeling aligned with your heart in all that you do as you energetically move forward in your truth.” Each chapter is oriented toward helping people discover their Heart Value and True Stride.
Couching a transformation of one’s life in heart and movement imagery is not new or specific. And Rooney’s voice is less instigator than commentator. Yet HEART VALUE, as a complete package, works. Her career stories ground what might otherwise come across as New Age-y bombast. Moreover, reading her is like listening to an old friend, one whose judgment you’ve learned to trust. She makes everything sound doable, which is the best quality a self-help book can have.
Part how-to guide, part why-are-we-here manifesto, HEART VALUE is a worthy addition to the self-help canon.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader