Summary:
A concise guide outlining seven practical steps you can take to avoid identity theft.

Is it insightful?  4 Stars 
Great very practical actions expressed in both narrative form in each chapter as well as in checklist format at end of book. While the information is good, there were several instances where information was out of date. When taking on a fast-evolving topic the author needs to ensure content stays fresh and relevant.

Is it creative?   4 Stars
Information is presented in a very straightforward how-to format. What would have helped underscore key concepts is to have real-life stories accompany each of the steps.

Is the well written? 5 Stars
Read in about 60 minutes, including clicking on the many helpful hyperlinks. Author makes good use of supporting websites and materials, though at least one of the links transferred me to a “page not found” message.

Is it a page turner? 3 Stars
I almost stopped reading during the introduction. The author uses four hyperlinks: three of which either link to his other products or a teaser to get a checklist if I provided an email address.  I have no problem when an author links to other products at the end of a book (I do this as well), but to do it in the introduction and try to get a reader’s email address before he’s had the chance to establish credibility is poor form. I am glad I continued reading as there’s good information to be gleaned; I just wish the author didn’t take to shameless plugs in the first two minutes of reading the book.

Overall Rating:  4 Stars

In my book Behind Gold Doors-Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment I discuss how to achieve what I term "good-enough" contentment in your life. The book is a story about Ty, who seemed to have it all, then one day it all changed. At the end of his rope, Ty had a chance encounter with a quirky old woman who brought him on a journey to discover the nine crucial elements of good-enough contentment and helped him put a plan in place to fill his contentment gaps. His outlook on life changed forever as a result of him thinking through each of the contentment areas, re-aligning his expectations to think in terms of good-enough, and creating a prioritized plan to work towards good-enough contentment. If you haven't read the book yet I recommend you pick it up :-).

The Scenario: 

• Jake is sitting alone in his luxury penthouse overlooking Central Park.
  
• Jake looks down at his scribbled notes from his doctor visit. Cancer stage 4… too late for chemo… weeks to months left.
• Jake’s wife left 20 years ago after his affair. She’s since remarried and cut off all contact with him.
• Jake tries to call his kids, but neither picks up. They won’t talk to him and haven’t since the divorce.
• After Jake retired from his job as CEO, the coworkers he thought were his friends stopped calling.
• Jake takes out a pen and paper and writes “My Legacy” at the top.
• Jake stares at the blank page, pen ready to write, mind unable to come up with anything.

A client of mine absolutely loved to have meetings.  Regardless of the topic, if there was some reason for at least two people to have any kind of interaction a meeting got called.  Not only were there a lot of meetings but there would almost always be superfluous bodies taking up space in the meeting that had no real reason to be there other than to be “informed.”  Now, if decisions got made and things got done I would have had more tolerance for the meeting mania.  But more often than not little got done at these meetings other than to schedule more meetings.  It was madness, I say!

As a senior manager, I could have spent every working hour of every day in meetings.

I recently did an interview about tips to use when teaching your kids about money.  In thinking through some techniques, I was able to lock on some specific things we did which helped to better instill good money management habits in our kids.  Here they are:

1.  When our daughter was in her tweens, we started working with her about purchasing decisions and saving up for things she wanted. Here’s what we did: