BOOK REVIEW                               NON-FICTION

CHECKMATE: Tips & Lessons to Help You Make the Right Moves to Achieve Happiness!

AUTHOR: Greg Davis

Is happiness elusive? Planning with due checks and balances ensures the coherent execution of our aspirations. Greg Davis vouches for readers to make happiness go up in grabs. Checkmate comes with turnkey solutions for happiness. With the paradigm of chess, one sees movers and shakers; winners and losers finding a whoop of joy in serving checkmate to oddities and stumbling blocks. The book narrative impels tingling flashbacks with thrilling gusto. You get trapped by Greg, the Ancient Mariner beckoning a joyride to El Dorado. Checkmate is filling out a panacea to all and sundry.

How prudent is this illustrated helpbook or is it a placebo gimmick? It says, “Happiness is a combination of factors that is hard to achieve, especially during these trying times.” And that squares out: “Only 19 percent of American adults say they are very happy. We struggle with being happy.” Emotional responsiveness has gone tattered and relationships are tending to high fragility rates, Greg opens up his affaire de coeur with Abby Warner which shot off with a softball game, and finally, the nuptials knotted.

The author subtly instills common dictums that can be a game changer. The remarkable illustrations and anecdotes are bound to rope in any willy-nilly reader. Greg props up Milton Hershey, the patriarch of his own employer company, who at a time was an absolute washout. The tack of narration is so insinuating that the reader finds oneness with the pervading flops and then challenges oneself to fit in the shoes of both the loser and the winner, thereby learning to serve checkmate. “Reflecting on my second goal of becoming a professor with a significant impact on my students, I realize I experienced many highs and lows in academia.”

What ‘form of checkmate’ can ‘achieve happiness’? A reader doesn’t find tough tasks to follow but run-of-the-mill chores can be spruced up with diligent ways to churn out happy times.

Greg has a novel trope to convince people. He’d cite some impressive cases or newsmakers and then delve into various aspects of the related achievement and failure that can make a difference in our outlook. And then to chalk out the action plan, Greg would narrate some witty and often nutty incident from his own personal or professional life. ‘..a nineteen-year-old Canadian tennis player, upset highly ranked Serena Williams, the greatest women’s tennis player of her generation.’ The readers find media reports behind this success, the tack being visualizing success over years and then Greg goes bolstering them with survey reports of people doing so.

And to deal with the final blow, he’d open up his own professional portmanteau of strength and weaknesses and thereby hatched the strategy to rope in his readers – ‘I learned to become a better leader and take on future challenges with a clearer mind.’

Can we believe, “Half of all Americans have no..retirement savings at all”? The book discusses some cardinal social security plans and talks of some misplaced practices that make Americans barely, ‘receive 70 percent of your full benefit..’ Consultation with a financial advisor can go a long way in knowing for instance, when one should start collecting Social Security benefits. One has to even take stock of unforeseen situations like inflation that can destabilize old-age support. There are warning signals over misplaced notions like, “We assumed our government would take care of our retirement needs through the Social Security and Medicare programs.” And then Greg goes emphatically saying, “As a professor, I would give all of us a failing grade of F…I staunchly feel it is our responsibility” What a myth buster! The book analyses types of retirees and various advantages they have and also debilitations they may not be suspecting. Greg hardly makes personal conclusions but deliberates with evidence and case studies to bank upon. Greg is in his element to declare aplomb, “Thus far, I have retired twice.” and quotes a TEDx speaker, “On a final note, retirement in Spanish is the word jubilacion, which stands for celebration.” Reading goes on in full spirit flying upon a chessboard while serving checkmate to others. “While the game of chess does not match the rigors of life, I learned at an early age to step outside of my comfort zone to achieve my goal of helping my chess team win the overall match.”

The chapter Overcoming Obstacles starts on a somber note, where health problems impinge upon our fate. Greg talks about friends gone by and finally about himself and his wife Abby getting entrapped with medical maladies. Bear and grin it, taking it with stride. And then Greg reveals some sordid heists, ‘US businesses will lose an average of 5 percent of their top-line gross revenues to fraud.’

If you’re a misery gut floundering for that cure-all, this book is a surefire. The book is laden with parables coupled with lucid and simplistic guidelines that don’t sound like a rulebook. One-dozen chapters to give you esoteric lifetime achievement! Readers find snappy precepts tumbling out of commendable research and the book ends with twelve reflections surmising each chapter.

What should the attributes be for seeking SMART goals? Greg is at his best to smart his readers!     

Paperback: 164 pages