The Good Person Guidebook: Transforming Your Personal Life

By Richard Bayer

What type of person should you be? What should you do when faced with a decision of ethical importance? Those are the two key questions that everyone should answer, and The Good Person Guidebook helps... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0944054161
• ISBN13: 9780944054161
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Five O' Clock Books
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Just a regular guy with realistic results

First off I'd just like to thank Richard Bayer for writing this, it doesn't necessarily take a genius to understand these principles which most are embedded within us from birth...but hey I had to read the book to really get it sooo... I'm not gonna bore you with some insightful review or anything just give you my experience. I'm a 24 year old regular guy whom had a pretty mundane "going nowhere" kind of life. I've read other books but never finished them from authors like Dr. Laura or some other psychological guru. But Richard really puts it point blank right in your face, factually which I liked. The chapters were quick and easy to comprehend. Before reading the book I had a 9-5 office job (which I'm just about to leave for something that really drives me), was hanging out the same old bars with the same old friends doing the same old thing day after day & weekend after weekend. Their didn't seem to be any sort of enjoyment or purpose in life. I couldn't maintain relationships, I had no hobbies, and my moral system was didn't make me feel like I had any worth. Throughout reading this book I discovered I was starting to take on some of the positive moralistic principles not by a total conscious decision, most of the time they just started coming naturally. So since finishing reading it which has been about 6 months ago I have an incredible life that is balanced in family, friends, hobbies, work, spiritual and emotional aspects. I feel for the first time in my life like I am doing what I always should be and love it! I would recommend this book to anyone that just feels kind of lost or down in the dumps or even someone that feels like they don't get the respect they want or are always finding themselves stuck in a bad situation.

Learning to be good and moral in a world that, sadly, needs more like that...

Let's face it... For all the talk of ethics and responsibility these days, there's never a day goes by without some new story of executive X or celebrity Y doing something that reeks of greed, selfishness, or a "me first" attitude. That doesn't even begin to cover all the lapses of non-headliners, the Joe Six-Packs, who find themselves in less-than-desirable situations due to choices they've compromised on along the way. The Good Person Guidebook: Transforming Your Personal Life By Dr. Richard Bayer is a series of relatively short essays on how to be an ethical person in today's workplace, but the lessons apply to both the marketplace and the personal home front. Contents: Part 1 - A Perspective on Ethics: Ethics in the Information Age - The Puritan Work Ethic and Beyond; Our Social Nature; Law vs. Ethics - The Limits of Law; How to Overcome Suffering - Especially in Your Career; Humility and Success; Compassion; Hope! What Is It? What Good Is It? Who Needs It?; Generosity in Deed - The Virtue of Thrift; The Search for Truth - or Not: The Problem with Secularism; Cheated by Writing a Blank Check! - To Science; What Is America All About? A Perspective from "America the Beautiful"; How to Make Ethical Decisions in Business; Good Ethics Is Serious Business - Objections and Answers Part 2 - What Type of Person Should I Be?: Why Be Moral?; Virtue in Your Personal Life - The Meaning of Love; Raising Children Well (Not as Complex as It Seems); Raising Children with Prudence; On Gratitude; Violence; Virtue in Your Work Life - What Makes a Meaningful Work Life?; One Economy "Under God"?; Avoiding Shipwreck: Ethics and Entrepreneurship; Human Capital - The Key to Our Future; Five O'Clock Clubbers Talk about Their Good Habits; Maintaining Focus Part 3 - Guidelines - What Must We Do (Ethical Principles for Action): Freedom, License, and a Way Out; Getting Where You Are Going - The Only Way to Go!; Targeting - The Truth Is Out There; Be on Track - and the Right Track - A Reminder from Islam; An Approach to New Year's Resolutions; Is My Potential Employer Ethical?; When to Blow the Whistle; How to Terminate Employees While Respecting Human Dignity Appendixes: The Seven Stories Exercise; Analyzing Your Seven Stories; Your Fifteen-Year Vision and Your Forty-Year Vision; Your Fifteen and Forty-Year Vision Worksheet Index; About the Author; Five O'Clock Club Books; About the Five O'Clock Club; Fruytagie Wall Canvas Dr. Bayer runs a company called The Five O'Clock Club, the goal of which is to develop good, moral, and ethical people who can then apply those principles to their lives in the corporate world and with the larger community as a whole. His book starts out with defining what is meant by "ethics", and what it means to be a "good" person. Don't assume that's an easy answer. If it was so easy, would we be in the trouble we're in as a society right now? The second part of the book then works to apply those principles to your core person, into the

Being a good person in a self indulgent society

Inspirational books often tend to wander, appealing to the imagination more than to the logical mind. Not so with Richard Bayer's The Good Person's Guidebook. On the first page, he makes it clear that the good person is "a person of moral excellence, but not in vacuum." Being good does not mean standing on a pedestal for passersby to admire. It means acting morally and responsibly in interactions with others. The author describes his writing as inspired by religious principles and applicable to the business world. People not driven by religious beliefs or immersed in business will still find this book applicable to their daily lives. Rather than simply musing about being good, Beyer presents an organized and well reasoned approach. His book is divided into three sections consisting of ways to consider living ethically, deciding what kind person to be and how to implement ethical choices in daily life. His Seven Stories exercise helps make sense of your life so far. His Fifteen Year and Forty Year Visions offer a framework for charting your future. I have found that readers looking for inspiration often do not want to sift through page after page of reflections in search of suggestions on ways to handle a particular life difficulty. They like brief concise treatments. Bayer provides these along with frequent suggestions for practical applications. His comprehensive table of contents and index make it easy for the reader to find a particular topic of interest. In these days of reckless self indulgence, The Good Person Guidebook stands as a compass for readers looking to reorient their lives and live in a meaningful way. Joseph G. Langen, Author of Commonsense Wisdom for Everyday Life.

Managing Your Career

If you've ever wished that you could have your own personal career coach, this Five O'Clock Club book for you. Sized (5" x 7") to fit into a pocket or purse, this handy guide is especially good for business-oriented people. Each chapter is chock full of inspirational, thought-provoking quotes, tables, and group discussion questions. I can envision an entire office staff choosing this book to read and work through as a group for the betterment of all. It's divided into three parts: 1. A Perspective on Ethics, 2. Virtue: What Type of Person Should I Be? and 3. What Must We Do (Ethical Principles for Action). There are thirty-three short chapters, written so as to easily be picked up and put down. The chapter that I feel could be most effective is How to Terminate Employees While Respecting Human Dignity. Actual words are given to help managers make this dreaded task doable. This is a worthwhile self-help book.