Guest Blogger: Counselor Felicia A. Libo Reviews THE NEW GOOD LIFE by John Robbins

Thank you to Libby at Maria’s Bookshop for providing a review copy of The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less by John Robbins.

I like to include books and ideas like this one in my blog because I feel that gratitude and appreciation for what we have and those around us is so important, as is learning to live simply while having the utmost consideration for our communities and environment (and taking action to make a difference).

John Robbins is a humanitarian, author and family man who lives by his word, and graciously offers us many ideas and lessons from his own experiences and challenges.

He’s been instrumental in my life, particularly for his book Healthy at 100: How You Can — At Any Age — Dramatically Increase Your Life Span and Your Health Span. That book came out at a time when I needed to make major health changes and I did — I am very much a different person health and otherwise today than I was just a few years ago. And I’m very thankful for what he offers through his life and work.

I want to thank Robbins and his publisher for sending me a copy of the book so I can donate it to the Durango Public Library — this way more people can read it and have access to the important information within it.

The New Good Life is not just a how-to book about how to make changes in your life financially and otherwise; it’s a testament about gratitude and appreciation from someone who has lived a remarkable — and challenging — life.

At 21, Robbins turned down the opportunity to inherit his father’s company, Baskin-Robbins, and then proceeded to build his own enterprises, living simply yet saving the entire time, eventually investing money so he could continue to live simply yet comfortably (including donating to many causes he believed in).

In 2008 he learned that 95% of the net worth he had built up with his wife over years of saving and investing had been stolen in the Madoff financial fraud. The experience, he said, nearly killed him.

With support of many friends, they climbed out, one step at a time, and this book is partially the result of that experience.

“Born into riches, I’ve gone from there to chosen rags, to self-made riches, to unchosen rags, to now recovering and once again creating self-sufficiency. Through it all, I’ve come to realize that the journey I’ve been on has given me something precious, something actually more valuable than the fortune I walked away from, and worth more than the millions of dollars I earned and saved before they were stolen.”

His intent with the book, he says, is to “help people achieve financial freedom even with a profoundly unstable economy and a world too often succumbing to fear.”

He writes about six money types as archetypes (including “Saver,”  “Sensualist,” “Giver” and others), and draws on the work of Brent Kessel, the Enneagram, and the Jungian-based Myers-Briggs typology and others; with chapters including “The Four Steps to Financial Freedom, ” “Eating Better, Spending Less,” and “The Economics of Happiness,” among others. He writes:

“The new good life requires a different set of tools and a different way of looking at things. It doesn’t require abstinence or austerity, but it does ask each of us for a new thoughtfulness about the way we live and a sober skepticism toward the corporate agenda. It does entail a refusal to be entranced by the messages bombarding us day and night from a culture that sometimes seems to be trapped in a hypnotic trance.”

“On the other hand, I don’t think that how thrifty you are is any indication of your level of moral or spiritual attainment. I don’t think the person who spends less is somehow superior to the person who spends more. That would just be the old good life in reverse. That would just be the mirror image of the idea that the person with the biggest house or the most prestigious car or biggest bank account is the more successful human being and has more value than others. I have no desire to replace conspicuous consumption with conspicuous frugality.”

Robbins seems to practice a consistent and deep sense of gratitude and appreciation, primarily for the family and causes he is so devoted to and has been throughout his life.

Robbins is also the author of several other books, including Diet for A New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth; is the founder of the non-profit EarthSave International, and is the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award and the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award.

I highly recommend this book.

Felicia A. Libo MA is a freelance journalist specializing in holistic health and healing, and owns a consulting practice specializing in helping people make positive and sustainable changes using the creative process and energy psychology. She has been a licensed counselor in Colorado since 2003. Libo can be reached at www.feliciannlibo.com or at felicia@gratitudeproject.com.