The Tools: Transform Your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity

It's the most important audiobook I've ever read, hands down. This may ultimately be the most life-changing book I'll ever read. If it doesn't change my life, it will be because I didn't work hard enough with the tools every day. This is not so much a self-help book as it is an existential guidebook to the universe.

Barry tells about how he discovered, while talking to his very skeptical friend, that all the adversity we face in life is meant to get us to access the Higher Forces. It helped me to answer the question of suffering very clearly. Earlier in the book, Barry refers to Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning," in which Frankl recounts how he persevered in the Nazi death camps by holding onto the fact that the Nazi's could not take away his right to determine his response to his suffering. In my case, most of my suffering is not a result of human evil. I was born with a genetic progressive neuro-muscular disability, and now I am fighting day by day to survive. When I read Frankl years ago, I was very moved, but I didn't get satisfaction from the answer that I am in control of my response to my circumstances. I had nobody to point to as the cause of my circumstances but God, yet I couldn't bring myself to be angry at God the way Frankl was angry will the Nazi's. The standard Christian answer is that God let suffering into the world in response to the sins of the first humans, or that satan is the cause of suffering, not God. C.S. Lewis said that suffering in life was to prepare us to spend eternity with God, and we would become better people through our suffering. I now think Barry's definitely on the right track. The adversity is not to make us better people or to punish us for the sins of the first humans. For us to access the Divine, to get to know God, and to have compassionate, meaningful lives, we need to access the Higher Forces. To access the Higher Forces, we have to have problems, pain, and emptiness, or else we will not understand courage, love, inclusiveness, compassion, or creativity. These gifts are available to us all, but in first world countries, we are all tempted to either believe that humans can solve their own problems, or that there is a "treatment" for all suffering, whether mental, physical, or spiritual. The Tools are not cures, but they help you to access Higher Forces, which I call God, which makes life a powerful, divine undertaking.

If Barry wanted another career as a reader for Audible, he could easily do so. He's in the top ten percent of readers. Phil's New York accent and soft tone make me feel like he's talking to me about the tools, and his life, in a restaurant over dinner.

This Tools are not going to be easy to use daily, but I know I must use them. The methods in the book will be used side-by-side with my prayers, in my case. The tools will enable me to love my enemy, to walk with Jesus on the Jordan in a storm, and to break bread with my inner leper, unclean woman, and tax collector. I just hope the jeopardy tool will give me enough will power to become disciplined, because I have already died, and I am already in real jeopardy. I will have to be like Vinny and "just think about death all day."

If you have clinical depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, schizophrenia, addiction, or any other major psychiatric disorder, do not kid yourself into thinking that the tools are going to be all you need. You do need professional help and quite possibly medication. Consider going to a support group such as the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance or Alcoholics Anonymous (or other Anonymous programs.) The Tools will help you, but you must get your brain chemistry under control to actually use the tools effectively. Trust me, I've been there.

I rarely write reviews, I just had to write how blessed I am to get to read this book.
Thank GOD, he gives people the will to write things that actually help right now!

I enjoyed this book because if it's practical nature and the immediate use of it's ideas and information.

The practical application to what it teaches.

No

That action is a must in any endevour that calls for us to change....even attitude changes have to be re-enforced with action first.

Great book and contribution to mankind !!!!

Tools gives anyone the necessary equipment to make real changes in their life - but it is not easy and it takes time to get it down. But It's Worth It!

Its quick results after years of fruitless talk therapy.

Its giving me the methods to change my life without expensive therapy. Although talk therapy is helpful for diagnosis and medical treatment, it does comparatively little to truly change one's interpersonal relationships.

I only heard them interviewed on the Charlie Rose show.

Visualization tools in the book really do work.

I only wish I had this book many years ago. It would have spared me many lost friendships and made my life far, far more enjoyable.

It gives you practical tools for dealing with your troubles.

What color is your parachute? Both books give you tools for facing your future and advocate finding a higher purpose to give your life more meaning. You don't have to believe in God to seek meaning.

Vinny clutching the doctor like a life preserver. On the one hand he deserved his mess, but on the other hand he had the good sense to return for help.

The visual image of the mall as the pit of ultimate evil. I completely agree that one does not fight a war by spending money at the mall, and a society that does not sacrifice to make the world better is sick.

I'm planning to buy copies to give to family members. It should be great for dinner time discussions.

Yes I would try another book by the authors.

Some of the tools resonated more than others. The ones that did stand out were really good. The ones that did not fell a little flat.

Their own personal story and their experiences.

Yes

Made me think of the "little girl" and who she was and put her with the person I want to be now.

Overcoming my fears and become a confident person I want to be

Yes, finding the complete me and learning to accept and become more confident with who I really am inside.

I started playing the piano again. I wish I could get my sister reading the book and listening as well, I know it would help her also.

I have listened to a few self-help audiobooks and this book by far, has the most practical prescriptions to handle day to day crisis. The book is well laid out and the final tool ensures that the user makes a concious attempt to utilize the right tool for a given situation. In addition to this book, I love the app available on the itunes store. Be sure to download the app once you have grasped the key concepts of the various tools.

Exactly what's needed

Narration frm bth authors

The intonations of the authors speaking about The Tools give the book additional credibility

Not necessarily

Great working concepts we should all use to improve and evolve.