Someday - when the kids are grown, when work lightens up, when I win the lottery - I am going to start that business, become a yoga teacher, write that book, develop that app, paint that picture, finish my degree, pick up that musical instrument.

There’s a Japanese proverb: “The day you decide to do it is your lucky day.” But how do we make the decision to actually start and complete creative things? This is the question that author and nationally acclaimed storyteller Matthew Dicks explores in Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life.

Someday Is Today empowers readers to make manageable changes so they can achieve the things they would love to make happen without upending their lives. The practical advice Dicks shares has worked for him and countless other creative people he has consulted with, whether their goal is to sing, knit, draw, write, or teach.

“You’re reading this book for a reason. Presumably you want to change or improve some aspect of your life,” writes Dicks. “The strategies and ideas and philosophy that I will present in the coming pages have helped many, many people transform their lives. You’re no different from any one of them if you have the desire to do great things. It’s not rocket science. I promise. It’s not complicated, nor is it difficult. Anyone can do it. Even you.”
The actionable steps Dicks offers include:
        • silencing negative messages from family, friends, and teachers
        • eliminating time-sucking people and activities
        • being willing to be lousy when you first begin
        • finding supporters here, there, and everywhere
        • cultivating optimism. in the face of negativity and obstacles

Someday Is Today is divided into four parts: Time, Taking the Leap, Support, and Living the Life. Each strategy Dicks offers is accompanied by amusing and inspiring anecdotes from his own creative life. The appendix also includes a series of action plans for each chapter of the book so readers can immediately begin implementing the strategies he offers into their everyday lives.

Don’t spend all this time with me, reading this book and learning my strategies, only to resume your life unaltered,” writes Dicks. This is your chance to make tangible, sustainable differences in your life using the strategies I have provided. Your one-hundred-year-old self wants you to do this. Listen to that version of yourself.”

About the Author: Matthew Dicks is the author of Someday Is Today and nine other books. A bestselling novelist, nationally recognized storyteller, and award-winning elementary schoolteacher, he teaches storytelling and communications at universities, corporate workplaces, and community organizations. Dicks has won multiple Moth GrandSLAM story competitions and, together with his wife, created the organization Speak Up to help others share their stories. They also cohost the Speak Up Storytelling podcast. He lives in Connecticut with his family. Visit him online at http://www.MatthewDicks.com.

July Book Reviews

    

Garnered from her more than 10 years as a pain management physician and the medical director of the Orthopaedic Integrative Health Center at Rothman Orthopaedics in Philadelphia, Saloni Sharma, MD, FAAPMR, LAc, offers a patient-proven approach to pain prevention, relief, and eradication without medication, surgery, or special equipment. This is a timely book in light of the worsening opioid crisis and little options for other forms of pain relief and prevention.

She begins by sharing the personal story of what inspired her mission to help people live better and with less pain.

“Two metal rods ran the length of my spine. A third metal rod emerged from the plastic that encased my abdomen, lay across my breastbone, and met the other rods to form a ring around my neck like a metal dog collar. Little screws on the back of the brace tore out strands of my hair. I was eleven years old, and this was the treatment for a curved spine. From this experience, I learned what it meant to live with orthopaedic pain long before I became a physician certified in treating people with pain.”

Fortunately, most people do not spend years encased in metal restraints, but an estimated 80 percent of Americans experience back pain at some point in their lives. This statistic does not take into account other types of orthopaedic pain, including muscle sprains, arthritis pain, joint pain, and neck pain. While orthopaedic pain may seem inevitable for most people, we can lessen its impact on our daily lives. We can reduce its intensity and duration, protect ourselves against future pain, and stop suffering by making small changes in the way we live,” Dr. Sharma maintains.

The search for relief has created a different kind of epidemic. We have a medication crisis because we have a pain crisis. Pain hijacks lives, destroys families, and disables communities.”

As Dr. Sharma shows, all of us can learn to prevent, ease, and even triumph over pain. With empathy and scientific savvy, Sharma offers a personalized five-step pain relief program built on what she calls “microboosts,” little steps that add up to big pain relief. Her techniques will help your audience:
        • understand the unique aspects of their pain
        • develop a path to resuming their most cherished activities without pain
        • easily incorporate food changes to alleviate pain and build a pain-fighting gut microbiome
        • move better, at home and at work, to release natural neurochemical painkillers
        • recharge and recover through sleep, mindfulness, stress reduction, and supportive social relationships

About the Author: Saloni Sharma, MD, LAc, is double board-certified in pain management and rehabilitation medicine. A popular speaker at Google and an award­ winning clinical assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. More information at www.salonisharmamd.com.  

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Relationship Essentials by Lauren Reitsema & Joneen Mackenzie
•  168 pages • $17.95 • ISBN 978-1-60868-761-9
Book Release from New World Library