I would have to agree with that ringing endorsement of Susan Jeffers' self-help classic. This wonderful book, the author's first published work, represented her successful endeavor "in taking the concept of fear out of the realm of therapy and into the area of education."

Ms. Jeffers (a Ph.D. in psychology) does not promise that change will be easy, but she does know her subject well, and offers some pointed insights, inspiring calls to action and powerful but accessible techniques to help "start taking charge of your life." Moreover, her prose is a pleasure to read.

As she points out the "secret in handling fear is moving yourself from a position of pain to a position of power. . .the fear then becomes irrelevant." As a matter of fact, whatever your fear, that should be your next step. If you fear public speaking--feared more than death by most people--your next move should be joining a "Toastmasters" group. There you can take some "baby steps" in a supportive environment as you overcome your problem. As you get used to speaking in front of your peers, you begin to wonder just why you were so afraid in the first place.

A technique presented by Ms. Jeffers that really helped turn my life from a negative emphasis to a more life-affirming one was to make a list of 150 positive events in my life, past or present. As I worked on my list, examining past events in my life, I began to see that I had lived a much fuller life than I had previously thought.

Many events that seemed negative at the time actually had a silver lining or were not as adverse as I had thought. For example, I changed my attitude towards a previous relationship that had ended disastrously, as I saw that this person and I had actually enjoyed many happy times together, and that we apparently needed to be together for a while though not permanently. I found myself laughing with amusement at some of our moments together. There was some joy with that person that I had forgotten about as I concentrated too heavily on the pain of our separation.

Another exercise that I found most useful was the whole life model or the "don't put all your life eggs" in one basket technique. So often, we focus narrowly on one aspect of our life. We may be totally immersed in our children or our relationship with our spouse or focused on a career or some other activity to the exclusion of any others.

Well, what happens when the wife or husband leaves, the children go off to college or as happens much too often these days, your company downsizes and decides your are not so valuable as you felt you were and lays you off. If a person has no other meaningful activities or interests in life, such a loss can be crushing, leading to depression, a negative spiraling into destructive behavior or at the worst extreme, hospitalization or suicide.

As Jeffers points out such behavior really exhibits extreme neediness, as we have consciously or subconsciously decided that we cannot live without that person or that job or whatever. In this regard, her exercise to develope a "whole life grid" is extremely valuable. Here she instructs the reader to draw up a grid of nine spaces and fill it with various life concerns. Relationship or work or children become only one of the nine areas. Then should you have problems with one area, you have eight others that provide you with reasons to live. My grid, for example, included work, relationship, creative writing, volunteering at the local library, reading, computing and others. Using this technique, I was able to develop greater perspective on my life and my critical interests and directions.

Space does not permit a total explication of her many practical techniques and exercises. For example, she has a terrific chapter on writing and using affirmations. One way she uses affirmations is to help her readers develop and accept personal power.

In any event, let me leave you with a few chapter titles to give you a look at the breadth and depth of this masterful book:

Like I said at the beginning, I give Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway the highest compliment that I can give a book: I give it away to others constantly. As a matter of fact I had to go out and purchase another copy in order to write this review as I could not find mine around the house.