Review by Marlaszw -- From Drift to SHIFT by Jody B. Miller

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Marlaszw
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Review by Marlaszw -- From Drift to SHIFT by Jody B. Miller

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[Following is a volunteer review of "From Drift to SHIFT" by Jody B. Miller.]
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1 out of 4 stars
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The book From Drift to Shift by Jodi B. Miller is a collection of stories about people who had some type of shift in the focus of their life. Many of the stories are tragic, full of hardship and disappointment. The examples of how these people overcame their tragic situations and were able to do something meaningful with their life is meant to be an inspiration to us in our own lives.

I will warn that some of the stories get a bit detailed in their descriptions of the gore which took place with the ensuing tragedy and could be triggering, or just too disgusting, for many readers.

The author constantly interrupts the stories she is telling with either other stories or her thoughts on how these people shifted.

I thought when picking up this book that it would be about stopping the practice of drifting through life and explain to us how to purposely shift our lives instead of just drifting. However, I found no such instruction in this book. In fact, in several end-of-chapter take-aways, the author encourages us to 'just go with the flow'. It seems to be more about how you can accidentally shift by drifting if you just let life happen.

Many of the stories were not at all inspiring to me and some of them were actually downright disturbing. I am sure these are all great people and that inspired the author to tell their stories, but several stories were not an example of a person choosing to shift, but just stories of tragic accidents. In one story she makes a point a saying the person has 'shifted' to become an artist...but before his tragic accident, he was an apprentice to an artist. This is not an example of the person changing or shifting, what they wanted to do with their life, just of someone who overcame great obstacles to continue on his path.

I mentioned earlier the take-aways at the end of each chapter. This seems to be the author's attempt to tell us what we are supposed to be learning from the stories told in the chapter. This is not obvious in the way any of the stories themselves are told, so we need this section to instruct us. Unfortunately, these takeaways often had no relationship at all to the stories told, are vague, and there is no actionable advice given. Here are a few examples of the type of advice you can expect at the end of each chapter.

"No one is as dumb as you want them to be."
"You get the best movie of our life when you observe and you are not in it."
"Go with the flow of life. Don't try to control it all; you'll miss the joy in the journey."

Overall, this book was a disappointment. I expected a self-help style book and instead read a random selection of tragic stories and some vague advice that does not seem to be remotely connected to the stories.

What I disliked most about this book is that it drifts around in its ideas, and within its own stories, creating a confusing experience for the reader. I finished the book wondering what point the author was trying to make. Why she chose the stories she did, and how she connected the end-of-chapter advice with the stories? What is in her head that she failed to communicate with me, the reader?

Or was her point that you could drift into a shift, and the book just drifted around as an example to us? I'm not sure what lesson I was supposed to learn or how to apply that lesson to my life. There is no portion or aspect of the book that I liked the most.

Her dealings with religion in the book are also very confusing. She quotes whole stories from the Bible on two occasions, then refers to the Bible as mythology. People who are Christian may be offended by her outright labeling of the Bible as mythology. And those who are not Christian may well be offended by her inclusion of these Bible stories. In another part of the book she tells a story of someone who opens a Hindu temple and in the one piece of actionable advice in the whole book, she tells you to find your Hindu archetype, meditate in front of it (each archetype has a figurine or statue associated with it), chant a mantra, then open your eyes and look at your archetype. Why are we being told to engage in Hindu religious practices? This seems very out-of-place for what I think is meant to be a secular book.

I am giving From Drift to Shift 1 out of 4 stars. I would not recommend the book to anyone as the advice is not consistent or actionable, the stories are not retold well, and there are many cases of grammar issues throughout the book. In addition to that, there are many instances where the author simply states the obvious. Here is an example, "Every decision we make in life is a choice."

I do love self-help books in general but this book just does not live up to its own name.

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From Drift to SHIFT
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