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. Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships. 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.
Author quotes
We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity. It’s a skillset we develop over the course of our lives, and there are concrete steps we can take to build resilience long before we face any kind of difficulty.
When you treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you’d show a friend, that’s self-compassion. When you believe in your abilities, that’s self-confidence. We can practice self-compassion and develop our self-confidence on a daily basis to build resilience.
We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.
About the author
Sheryl Sandberg is chief operating officer at Facebook, overseeing the firm's business operations. Prior to Facebook, Sheryl was vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, chief of staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Clinton, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and an economist with the World Bank. Sheryl received a BA summa cum laude from Harvard University and an MBA with highest distinction from Harvard Business School. She is also the author of the bestsellers Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Lean In for Graduates. She is the founder of the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to build a more equal and resilient world through two key initiatives, LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org. Sheryl serves on the boards of Facebook, the Walt Disney Company, Women for Women International, ONE, and SurveyMonkey.
Website: www.optionb.org
Why LoA loves it….
This is a very personal book, written from experience and dealing with adversity through loss. However, all the learnings can be applied to women entrepreneurs who are going through challenges and adversity in their own lives, and who are in need of building the same resilience that Sheryl Sandberg did when facing the loss of her husband. In life and in business, it’s essential to build self-confidence, self-belief, and the ability to come out fighting, no matter what life throws at us. It’s a great read that shows it’s possible to bounce back, no matter how great the adversity. --- Melanie Hawken, founder and editor-in-chief of Lionesses of Africa