The Integrity Advantage

by Kelley Kosow

Sounds True     2017

193 pages     Self Help

The Shortlist

Kelley Kosow is the CEO and Program Leader of the Ford Institute, a personal and professional training company. She is an integrative life coach, and her book, The Integrity Advantage is the compilation of her understandings of leadership and integrity.

"Every time you bite your tongue," she says, "you swallow your integrity."

Before Kelley Kosow was a renowned life coach and CEO, she constantly second-guessed herself, let her "to-do" lists and others steer her dreams and passions, and played it "small and safe." Inspired by the groundbreaking principles of her renowned mentor Debbie Ford, who hand-picked Kosow to be her successor, The Integrity Advantage is Kosow’s step-by-step guide for facing the fear, shame, and false beliefs that cause us to lose our way.

Through life-changing insights, true stories, and proven strategies, this book shows how to live on your own terms—according to you—from the inside out.
The book discusses how to:

• Connect with your inner truth and keep it growing stronger day by day
• Level up your self-love and self-trust to get where you want to go
• Embrace the totality of who you are
• Turn the tide on mediocrity
• Break free of the "gravitational pull" of your past
• Get fearless and excited about moving outside of your comfort zone
• Stop living from your “to-do” list and start living from your “bucket” list
• Become the person you want to be

One of the things I liked the most is how Kosow weaves her own story into her lessons on integrity. It makes her appear very human, and sometimes very vulnerable. I find that people often learn best with story, and that proves true with this book. She talks about how often we live with the story of our past, but we must step into the reality of our present. In story after story, she shows her readers how to live with integrity.

A friend told me recently how she pushed down her grief after the death of her husband for almost ten years. Just recently, however, she realized that she had not faced her life as a single person but kept living in the story of her past. She said that she was just now stepping into the reality of her present. And she was finding that she was learning to like herself and her life as it is now. She had chosen to live with integrity.

The Integrity Advantage resonated with me. I know it will with you as well.

Kelley Kosow's website.