Book Review, Summary, Highlights and Quotes from The Big Leap – Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks has a really unique and eye opening perspective on how to take your life to the next level. It was a solid book, yet for me, it still manages to fall short in the finer details.
It is my first Gay Hendricks book, and I see a lot of promise in his work and his methods. I also recently read The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp. Frankly I enjoyed that book a lot and will review soon!
So, I have a love/hate relationship with this book.
The main reason for this is because Mr. Hendricks really is great at explaining the bigger picture, but short in the details. Really it wouldn’t take much, but citing more research and giving more concrete examples would have taken this book to the next level.
He simplifies some of our limiting behaviors which he calls “The Upper Limit Problem” by making it seem like we are purposefully getting ourselves sick, and self sabotaging ourselves from living the true life that we want.
While I do agree that we do sabotage ourselves, I do not believe that getting sick is necessarily one of them. Even if it is true, I’d like to see some evidence, which is missing.
Hendricks doesn’t give a real concrete plan of action for anyone looking to move past their “Upper Limit” behaviors. There are a couple of questions in there to try to consider it, but not enough depth here IMO.
This is also probably why we now have what looks like a follow-up book with The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity.
All that said, I had several insights into my own limiting behavior while reading this book.
I wouldn’t put it at the top of your queue, but if you feel like you are struggling to live up to your full potential – EVEN if you are a high achiever – it is probably worth a read to try to dive inward.
Coming away from the book with a few key insights into my own “limiting behavior” made the book worthwhile for me.
AR’s Book Score: 6 out of 10
Key book highlights from The Big Leap – Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks
The main premise of the book is that each of us self-sabotages in some manner and prevents us from moving from what Hendricks calls our “Zone of Excellence” to our “Zone of Genius.”
Hendricks calls this behavior “Upper Limiting:”
The Upper Limit Problem is our universal human tendency to sabotage ourselves when we have exceeded the artificial upper limit we have placed on ourselves.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
And this sabotage prevents us from living the life that we want to live and from operating in our “Zone of Genius”
By age forty, may of us have tuned out the Call to Genius and are getting loud, repeated alarms hidden in the form of depression, illness, injuries, and relationship conflict. These alarms are reminding us to spend more time feeding our natural genius and letting it do its magic in the world.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
He then goes on to discuss how you can get from your “Zone of Excellence” to your “Zone of Genius” and gives many examples of how he has helped others take the big leap thorough several chapters.
Later on in the book Hendricks delves into “Living in Einstein Time” – which is the ability to get everything done in whatever time you have available.
i saw time as a big, threatening pressure that was always about to overwhelm me. When I learned the real truth – that I’m the source of both the time and the pressure – it was like a huge weight lifted off me.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
And lastly, there is a solid chapter on “Solving the Relationship Problem” in how to remove the Upper Limits from your relationships.
In fact, the greater success you achieve, the bumpier your relationships tend to be.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Best quotes from The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
From my experience with a lot of people, as well as myself, over the past few decades, I think we can put our minds at ease: being willing to feel naturally good and have our lives go well is not a safety hazard.”
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
When things are going well for us, our Upper Limit mechanism kicks in and we suddenly start worrying about things going wrong in some way. We start justifying those worry-thoughts with more worry-thoughts, and soon we are busily manufacturing scenarios of things falling apart, coming unglued, and devolving toward imminent doom.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Money arguments never have anything to do with money. Money arguments are always about something deeper.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Criticism and blame are addictions.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Golf is very much like life itself, which awaits your intention and action before revealing the mysteries of the outcome.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
If you worry long enough about the stock market crashing, you’ll eventually hit the jackpot, because from time to time it’s always going to crash.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Each entity in a conflict has 100 percent of the responsibility for resolving the conflict.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Under the surface of most conflicts, you’ll find that the warring parties are actually feeling the same deeper emotions.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
If you’re willing to adopt a playful attitude toward yourself and your shortcomings, you can make extraordinarily rapid progress. It’s easier to chuckle over things than to fret over them, and chuckling is much more fun for the people around you.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
The same family can produce one child who wears a Rebel persona, another child with a Mom’s Helper persona, and a third with a Class Clown persona”
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Everybody’s got at least one persona, and most of us have two or three we wear for different occasions.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Stress and conflict are caused by resisting acceptance and ownership. If there is any part of ourselves that we’re not fully willing to accept, we will experience stress and friction in that area. The stress will disappear the moment we accept that part and claim ownership of it.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
If you can learn to take time off from the relationship consciously, you won’t need to do it unconsciously by starting arguments and engaging in other intimacy destroying moves.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
The universe will teach us our lessons with the tickle of a feather or the whomp of a sledgehammer, depending on how open we are to learning the particular lesson.
– Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
More from Gay Hendricks
- Website: Hendricks.com
- Twitter: @hearts_harmony
- Facebook: @relationshipadvice
- Youtube: Hendricks Institute
- Videos/Interviews
- Taking the Big Leap into The Genius Zone with Dr. Gay Hendricks – Hendricks Institute
- Gay Hendricks on Creating Luck in Your Life – Inspired Evolution
- Gay Hendricks: How to Stop Self Sabotage by Beating Your Upper Limit Problem – Susie Moore
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