Un conform: Only the conscious thrive (Core of Steel: The Step by Step Guide to Consciousness) Paperback – 1 Feb. 2014

Beautiful, shimmering and surreal, but also wonderfully practical and soothing. A quite extraordinary read - focussed, powerful and with the force of a sledge hammer but the touch of velvet. The questions and exercises at each chapter's end distil the chapter's meaning."Unconform" offers the reader nothing less than a revolution in our lives. An opening salvo is fired in Chapter 2 with "Life is not be lived via consensus." The author breaks down why we often live by consensus: fear of isolation and the seductive/destructive desire for acceptance, and offers a replacement: the search for authentic self. Although sometimes frightening, in the author's wise and gentle hands, this search it is both practical and philosophical.The reader's confidence is strengthened by the author's own (sometimes astonishing) confidence. She had the "audacity" to take a role as management consultant at a young age, coming from a job as flight attendant. At one point a client put her on the spot for this, asking the author, "What experience do you have that makes you fit to tell me about my job?" The author immediately replied "Life," winning admiration of the client's peers and an apology from the client.Mannas Diefendorf invents the word "unconform" to differentiate from nonconform, and warns against rebelling for its own novelty: "If you buck the trend ... merely to buck it, then conformity still has you in its grasp..." Instead, breaking convention is an natural extension of the most natural and comforting ideas presented by the author: we are by our very birth, a free soul. So to break free of conformity is not as much a rebellion but a return to our natural state."An ideal rooted in what is real is just what this world needs," says the author. The same can be said about this wonderful book, a masterpiece in the literature of finding enlightenment.

This is a different type of book. It is more than a self help effort, it introducesone to a whole unusual way of looking at what happens or can happen in life.The chapter on finding happiness in a mundane work schedule was gratifyingto me and just a good example the author's ability to show how routine can notonly be satisfying but pleasurable.Every chapter has its special message: analyze, take a different approachor make the usual approach somehow eventful.I had to refrain myself, but I found that reading one chapter each day was thebest way to absorb what was being taught.I certainly recommend this book to those already finding success as wellas those seeking new ways to make life more enjoyable.Caroline Washington

A rating of 5 stars describes a work with a word in the title not listed in most dictionaries. The unlisted word is "un conform," and it aptly describes the content; note the break of "UN" and "CONFORM" on the cover treatment--it doesn't conform to the dictionary but it conveys a different way to think, to view the world and to evaluate some people one encounters in life. The wonderful aspects of this work are embedded in a structure of quotations that support the ideas presented in the text. UN CONFORM makes one think "out of the box" so to speak in relation to the norms that structure society, and to motives that drive some people to behave in "traditional" manners to their detriment as well as the detriment of others.

I loved and enjoyed reading and putting into actions the things in this book. I already do many and found the other items easy enough to follow. Life should be authentic and about ones own adventure in the world. It's more fun that way. I highly recommend this book.