Act from Choice: Simple tools for managing your habits, your emotions and yourself, to be how you mean to be

Train your brain to help you manage your emotions, your habits, and yourself.

Everyone says and does things they later regret. We do those things repeatedly, unable to restrain ourselves as often and as much as we want. They’re habits. Act from Choice will help you manage those unwanted habits so you can be the way you mean to be.

Unwanted habits include things like inappropriate angry outbursts, procrastination, breaking the diet or abandoning the exercise program. When unwanted habits have their way, our actions (or inactions) may violate our values and aspirations—even our sense of who we are—leaving us disappointed with ourselves, even feeling embarrassed and out of integrity.Written in accessible, conversational language, Act from Choice presents up-to-date scientific research findings that explain why we have the unwanted habits we do, and why they are so hard to manage. Then it goes beyond mere explanations giving readers the tools needed to manage habits more effectively.

The simple tools presented in Act From Choice will help you manage your emotions and actions more successfully by teaching your brain to interrupt unwanted impulses and bring you to a state of mindfulness before the impulses turn into action. That self-aware, mindful state is essential to emotional intelligence. You’ll discover how to use that mind-state to resist unwanted impulses, act from choice and design your best life. Best of all, you’ll find that the tools are easy to master, and begin to be effective right away.

EDITORIAL REVIEWS:
“[Robert] Goldmann thoroughly examines unwanted habits in this helpful book…. Overall, the book does an excellent job of describing how humans form and keep bad habits, and it offers a wealth of effective tools and exercises to remedy them. The overall tone isn’t one of judgment or criticism, which may be helpful to readers who might be defensive or resistant to change. The guide makes its process a personal one in which the reader is fully in charge. A thorough, conversational guide to aligning one’s habits and actions with one’s intentions.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Wonderful. A twofer — It is written in a style that any overweight smoker can understand and use, and is a finely crafted though easy to understand text book for professionals. A great gift, especially for people raised on guilt.”
—Doug Jarvis, retired former Senior Vice-President, Cablevision Systems Corp.

“Goldmann’s education and decades working at the executive level do not alone account for the remarkable insight in these pages: rather, his insight comes from his obvious hunger to effect change—first in himself, then to cultivate it in his clients and students. What he achieves in his pages is a compelling description of recent neuroscientific findings; his purpose: to support us in making freer choices—to benefit ourselves and others, and live the fullest possible life as we define it for ourselves. He never lectures or dictates; he urges us forward. The Method he designs demands our attention and commitment. It does not fail to reward.”
—Sara MacDwyer, Attorney at Law & Mediator, Certified Family Law Specialist

“There’s one problem with The Act from Choice Method – it works too well! It leaves me no excuse for continuing my so-called “unwanted habits”; either I have to admit I don’t want to quit them or follow the Method and lose them.”
— Clyde Grossman, founder and former Managing Director of Interactive Studio Management, a video game business development. and consulting company, and founder of DoNoHarm.us.

Robert Goldmann is a business and life coach. He coaches and mentors executives, business owners, professionals and others seeking to design and reach fulfilling business and personal goals. He is a meditation instructor, and a former CEO of manufacturing and financial service companies and facilitator of groups dealing with life-threatening illness and bereavement. Though he has extensive experience in business, when talking about this book, he points to his years as a mindfulness practitioner and meditation instructor, as a business and life coach and mentor, and as a facilitator of support groups. Those experiences informed and motivated his self-study of psychology and neurobiology that produced the perspectives and techniques he presents in Act from Choice. His coaching practice, now in its 15th year, has given him a firsthand view of how habitual patterns stand in the way of achieving effectiveness, happiness, and fulfillment. And it's been a proving ground for many of the techniques in the book. As to training, he has a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a MBA from Harvard Business School. He has formal training as a coach, having graduated from CoachU. In addition, he has attended numerous retreats and workshops led by teachers such as Pema Chödrön, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Reggie Ray, Sakyong Mipham, Alan Wallace, and his principal teacher, Tsoknyi, Rinpoche. Before undertaking a career in coaching, mentoring, and consulting, he was CEO of three technology and financial services companies, the largest of which had over $100 million in sales and 1,100 employees. Prior to becoming a CEO he held senior management positions in large public companies where he was responsible for corporate strategy, acquisitions, and marketing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, with his partner, Victoria Self, close to his two daughters, their husbands and two grandchildren. He speaks on personal and professional growth, life balance, corporate strategy, and Buddhist topics and has led seminars and retreats on these and other subjects. He coaches clients in the U.S. and elsewhere, mostly by phone.