Don't Worry Make Money

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 3 AUG. 1998

Employing a format similar to that used in his current runaway bestseller, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, psychologist Carlson's new book offers 100 short essays on how to flourish financially by giving up fear. Our thoughts create our worlds, according to Carlson in a sunny adaptation of an ancient understanding. "As I worried less," he reports of his own life, "I began to expand my knowledge about different kinds of investments and options." As we learn to let go of our paralyzing anxieties about rejection, loss and the unknown, Carlson promises, we will not only prosper but enjoy a new capacity to help others. While Carlson offers many practical tips ("Buy Large Deductible Insurance," for instance), the overall message of this cheerful guide is spiritual; emerging from the cave of our limiting thoughts, he explains, allows us to experience the abundance of the universe. What distinguishes Carlson's advice from standard, self-centered think-and-grow-rich handbooks is his heartening contention that kindness, service and living in the present are riches in themselves, not just clever means to a bigger bank account. While Carlson's approach to life--forget your worries and "dive in"--may strike some readers as simplistic, it has the ring of truth. Even though he's writing unabashedly for a relatively well-off Western readership, not for the hungry or the oppressed, Carlson succeeds in showing his audience that real riches are to be had only when we learn to live fully in the moment. 75,000 first printing; author tour.