Editorial Reviews
Imagine the leaders of one of New York City's top real-estate firms
coming together every Monday morning to hear...the moral and spiritual
thoughts of a Rabbi.
Imagine them returning, week after week... coming to eagerly anticipate those five minutes as a moment of uncommon peace in the world's most brutally competitive environment.
Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall? To hear the paths Alan Lurie traced for his listeners, how he helped them bring together their spiritual and business lives, the sacred and the profane? Five Minutes on Mondays compiles these talks for the first time, sharing Lurie's deep and profound inspiration on the challenges we all face - at work and in life.
Lurie draws on millennia of philosophy, theology, and science to help us answer our deepest questions, comfort our deepest yearnings, and become better people - more connected to each other, and to the Greater Purpose. Here's how to:
Imagine them returning, week after week... coming to eagerly anticipate those five minutes as a moment of uncommon peace in the world's most brutally competitive environment.
Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall? To hear the paths Alan Lurie traced for his listeners, how he helped them bring together their spiritual and business lives, the sacred and the profane? Five Minutes on Mondays compiles these talks for the first time, sharing Lurie's deep and profound inspiration on the challenges we all face - at work and in life.
Lurie draws on millennia of philosophy, theology, and science to help us answer our deepest questions, comfort our deepest yearnings, and become better people - more connected to each other, and to the Greater Purpose. Here's how to:
- Prosper while keeping your integrity
- Balance faith, honor, and ambition
- Use your workplace as your moral and spiritual "gymnasium"
- Find deeper meaning and purpose in your work
- Face your fears and failures, and keep going
- Gain real respect - and give it
- Live one authentic life - at work, and everywhere else
2 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Both inspiring and thought provoking, September 14, 2009
By
This review is from: Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected Purpose, Peace, and Fulfillment at Work (Hardcover)
Alan Lurie is a Rabbi and thus - I presume - has spent many hours
pondering deep philosophical questions and thinking about the meaning of
life. It shows. While he may not have any answers for you, he does have
questions and observations that will knock your own thinking machine
off its habitual paths and and get you thinking about your own life and
dilemmas in fresh ways that enable you to discover the answers you are
seeking.
For example, he tells the story of the philosophy professor who posits that the true test of any philosophical belief itself is paradoxical. In other words the belief must be internally self-contradictory. Initially this seems perverse, even stupid. As you begin to ponder the implications - and he helps you travel some of this path - you realize that this is actually very profound. In fact, there are entire schools of Eastern practice based on wrestling with the conundrums of paradox utill the thinking mind simply gives up. That opens up the way to a deeper form of knowing and is the point of the exercise.
And he has the droll tale of how all of us are graduates of MSU - making stuff up. And this is precisely what we do. We tell ourselves stories all the time and start believing in those stories and they gradually construct the world we live in. Change the story you tell yourself and your world alters.
There is much wisdom here. This is not a book to be read. Take it like a vitamin pill - a small dose every day.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Minutes on Mondays, April 10, 2009
This review is from: Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected Purpose, Peace, and Fulfillment at Work (Hardcover)
These are amazing essays on life, attitude and tolerance.
They are inspirational and enjoyable.
Alan Lurie is a gifted thinker and writer.
Can I give it 6 Stars?
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a quiet gem, August 30, 2009
This review is from: Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected Purpose, Peace, and Fulfillment at Work (Hardcover)
Five Minutes on Monday is quiet gem. I have not seen it on any
lists, but it should be. The author is an architect turned rabbi turned
manager. He brings a wide breadth of knowledge and experience to his
quiet Monday insights. The book is a compilation of Monday morning talks
a business team. While many of the insights come from the Jewish
tradition, they are peppered with stories and concepts from philosophy,
science and other religious traditions. The tone of the book is very
soft, encouraging reflection on the deeper meanings of the ideas.
The topics range from justice to creativity to resolving conflicts to being authentic while facing fears and cultivating happiness. Quiet and powerful. I started to just read through the book, but found that randomly opening it and reading a bite-size section was better. There is an index that is very helpful in finding pertinent themes. Even the short highlighted quotes are useful. For example, I just randomly opened the book to this one:" With experience and guidance, we discover that mistakes can, in fact, often be turned around and transformed into a positive growth experience."
The chapters are short since each was a short Monday talk. I recommend reading one at a time, perhaps daily, and spending some time with the thoughts presented. Again, it is a quiet gem. It does not loudly shout about transformation, the power to change or our need to heal the planet. The truths are simple, direct, and applicable to individual life. The chapters left me thoughtfully inspired...a nice feeling.
I recommend this book to anyone in a leadership position needing some insight, anyone wanting to deepen their daily reflective practice, anyone wanting some quiet inspiration, and anyone interested in applying Jewish (or other) philosophy in a mainstream setting.
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