Name: Option B
ISBN: 9781524732684

Sheryl Sandberg

Adam M. Grant

"The author's experience with grief after the sudden death of her husband, combined with social science on resilience"--

Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

Option B

Adam Grant

#1 New York Times Best Seller Named a Best Book of 2017 by Barnes & Noble and Amazon From Facebook’s COO and Wharton’s top-rated professor, the #1 New York Times best-selling authors of Lean In and Originals: a powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life’s inevitable setbacks. After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build. Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy. Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B. We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

Jennifer

It was kind of annoying that a lot of her story was "ugh what happened to me was horrible I was so sad and it was the worst, but let me make myself sound less terrible and tell you some stats about people who have it wayyyyy worse than I do. This is such a big problem for poor people and our companies should do more to accommodate this worker at their job with policy change." Give me a freaking break. EYE ROLL. She does this every chapter, with every lesson. I liked her lessons and found them helpful but Jesus, should she transition any less gracefully? I guess it's good she's realizing change needs to occur but also: DUHHHHHHHHHH I would have liked this book more if the sources were linked by footnotes or end notes. Not with the source lists at the end of the book. Not helpful. Overall, I enjoyed her stories about other people and other people's struggles-turned-triumphs. There needs to be a list out there of all the nonprofits she mentioned. Who knew? I enjoyed her story about her struggle too but she kept negating it or Idk...minimizing it(?) by talking about other people who had it worse. Idk how she could have done this better but I found it irritating. Style aside, she had some good gems in there about resilience and joy. I could put them on a banner around my office or something for inspiration. Major irritation point: Sandberg glosses over some crucial details, usually as it relates to things not working out or people not being supportive. What happens when no one is there for you?? A simple explanation of "they didn't want to fall too deep with you" or whatever Sandberg says is not good enough. It's so easy to brush off the negative. Not. Helpful.

Sandberg

Pierre

Couple reasons for the rating:
- the voice actor Sheryl Sandberg gives in to tremolos and you can almost hear sobs in her voice. It’s distracting at best but it feels very tear-jerky 
- some of the lucky happy family recipes that are shared seem light years disconnected from the shit situation most people would toil and suffer through. 
I couldn’t finish it

Claire Knight

This book is excellent. I had doubts, as part of me wondered how much this was related to Lean In, or if this was cashing in. I need not have worried.

It encourages resilience, openness, honesty, and empathy. It covers grief, trauma, and healing. It offers hope for those who might need it. It allows those who don't don't what to say or do some insight into where they can help. It resonated strongly with me over how one feels after sudden trauma (not just death), and how people then interact with you.

I urge everyone to read this to be braver about dealing with, and speaking of, death. Something we are very bad at in the western world. I also encourage people to read this if they want to improve their empathetic interactions with people who have lost loved ones, been diagnosed with serious illness, had major accidents, etc.

I also think this should be required reading for managers, given the support people need (or more likely should be given) in the workplace. And how those you do support repay their reduced hours or apparent loss of productivity though stepping up because you help them to do so. Or, as in my case, leave a role where there clearly was no understanding and long term support.

I've rarely (in my adult life when time has become more pressed) finished a book as quickly while not on vacation.

The audible narration is also good.

Stevie Blundell

I wanted to enjoy this, after going through my divorce and falling into a deep depression I was looking for something to make me feel connected to others again. 
This was not it.

I could not relate to anything about her life. 
You know when it's easy to be resilient? When you have a strong network of friends, family, coworkers, a very high paying job with executive level respect and job security, and a life of comfort and wealth. Im sorry she lost her husband who loved her so much. I'm really not trying to be insensitive. But reading about her privileges made me angry. 

I lost everything in order to leave my abusive marriage. I'm repairing familial bonds that were broken because he didn't like my family. I've dropped dozens of "friends" I couldnt trust to respect my privacy, still have a handful that I know report back to him about me. When I first left I could barely afford rent and food by switching up which bills to not pay each month by working a job I hate that tried to fire me for "having a bad attitude". 

Most of us dont have Sheryl's life and never will. 
This isn't self help, it's just bragging about your life while making money off a trauma.
I'm frankly annoyed I paid her money for this book, for me to DNF this.

Jeni Enjaian

A large amount of time has passed since I read this book but one fact remains with me. I absolutely did not like it. Sandberg dealt with real, traumatic grief. However, she skims over events and jumps willy nilly in the timeline to suit her "narrative" purposes.
I do not recommend this book.

Luca Conti

It's more an autobiography than a how to be resilient book. Not what I was hoping for

Les Reynolds

Really enjoyed this, lots of great insights for everyone.

Anthony Mercurio

Frank Huang

Ember Skies

Mina

Rochelle Butcher

Emily Burns

Pamela Koh

Melissa Railey

Satyajeet Pal

Heiki Riesenkampf

In 2015 Sheryl Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly at the age of forty-eight. Sandberg and her two young children were devastated, and she was certain that their lives would never have real joy or meaning again. Just weeks later, Sandberg was talking with a friend about the first father-child activity without a father. They came up with a plan for someone to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend put his arm around her and said, “Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.” Everyone experiences some form of Option B. We all deal with loss: jobs lost, loves lost, lives lost. The question is not whether these things will happen but how we face them when they do. Thoughtful, honest, revealing and warm, OPTION B weaves Sandberg’s experiences coping with adversity with new findings from Adam Grant and other social scientists. The book features stories of people who recovered from personal and professional hardship, including illness, injury, divorce, job loss, sexual assault and imprisonment. These people did more than recover—many of them became stronger. OPTION B offers compelling insights for dealing with hardships in our own lives and helping others in crisis. It turns out that post-traumatic growth is common—even after the most devastating experiences many people don’t just bounce back but actually bounce forward. And pre-traumatic growth is also possible: people can build resilience even if they have not experienced tragedy. Sandberg and Grant explore how we can raise strong children, create resilient communities and workplaces, and find meaning, love and joy in our lives. “Dave’s death changed me in very profound ways,” Sandberg writes. “I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again.”

Jeffrey Mack

Molly Shipley

Gloria Baeuerlein

Ali Angco

Sierra Nguyen

From Facebook's COO and Wharton's top-rated professor, the #1 New York Times best-selling authors of Lean In and Originals: a powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life's inevitable setbacks. After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in 'the void,'" she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe." Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build. Option B combines Sheryl's personal insights with Adam's eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart-and her journal-to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl's loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy. Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. "I want Dave," she cried. Her friend replied, "Option A is not available," and then promised to help her make the most of Option B. We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

Option B Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

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