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Just Who Will You Be?

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Just Who Will You Be?

Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within.

Hyperion,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

At every stage in life, ask a simple but significant question – “Just Who Will You Be?” The answer might surprise you.

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Well Structured
  • Background
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

This brief little book by Maria Shriver is sincere and simple. In it, she poses the question; “Just who will you be?” She tells of her own journey to find the answer, sparked by a commencement speech – including an extended poem – that she gave to her nephew’s graduating class. She realized that stripped of her exterior roles and identities – First Lady of California, wife of actor turned politician, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, member of the Kennedy family and network television newswoman – she felt empty and uncertain. Not surprisingly, her spiritual search revealed that roles and fame don’t define you. Every human is worthy of love and respect. If you don’t mind an occasional touch of the sentimental and even, sometimes, sophomoric, and you’re curious about the book’s famous author, getAbstract believes you’ll enjoy this visit with her.

Summary

Maria Shriver’s Meltdown

One day, Maria Shriver was shopping with her teenage son. A passerby asked her son if Shriver was a model. “A model!” he exclaimed. “No, she’s just a housewife.”

That was a pivotal moment for Shriver. After all, she had never thought of herself as a housewife. As a little girl, she had spent many hours dreaming about what she would be when she grew up, but “housewife” never made the list.

She decided on her future course when she was a teenager in 1972. She attended the Democratic National Convention with her father, Peace Corps founding director and former Ambassador to France, Sergeant Shriver. [After the Convention’s vice presidential nominee, Thomas Eagleton, turned out to have mental health issues, Shriver’s father replaced him and campaigned to become vice president alongside presidential candidate George McGovern. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew defeated them.] For Maria, the highlight of the whole experience was sitting in the back of the campaign plane with the reporters. The journalists covering the convention impressed her so much that she decided to pursue a career in television journalism.

After she graduated from college...

About the Author

Maria Shriver is an award-winning journalist and the author of five bestsellers: And One More Thing Before You Go... and Ten Things I Wish I’d Known – Before I Went Out into the Real World for adults, and three children’s books written with Sandra Speidel: What’s Heaven?, What’s Wrong with Timmy and What’s Happening to Grandpa?

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