Necessary Endings audiobook

Perhaps the best book I've read thus far this year. I highly recommend this book. A few insights: "Getting to the next level always requires something, leaving it behind and moving on. Growth itself demands that we move on. Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them." "Good cannot begin until bad ends." Endings are not only part of life, they are a requirement for living and thriving. "Am I having on to an activity, product, strategy or relationship whose season has passed?" Accept Life Cycles and Seasons. There are the tasks of spring, summer, harvest and winter. Be aware of the seasons. Reality is tough but as Woody Allen said, "Reality is still the only place to get a good steak." Take a piece of paper and divide it in two columns. On the first column write down all the things you don't have control over. On the second column, write down things that you do have control over. Focus on the second column. True hope, true perseverance = a real reason to believe that tomorrow is going to be different from today. The past is the best predictor of the future. FOUR QUESTIONS OF HOPE: 1. What has the performance been so far? 2. Is it good enough? 3. Is there anything in place that would make it different? 4. If not, am I willing to sign up for more of the same? There are three kinds of people: 1. Wise people -- they welcome constructive feedback. 2. Foolish people -- they reject constructive feedback. 3. Evil people -- they destroy. Have nothing to do with them. The mature person meets the demands of life, while the immature person demands that life meet their demands.

This is a book to read slowly....very slowly. Read Chapter One and then spend a week thinking about it. Do that for each chapter - meditate on it. There is so much good advice dripping from every page. So many times, change = loss in life. Many times the change is necessary, whether it be moving to a new place, taking a new job or cutting ties with someone in your life. We mourn the loss created by the change, whether the change was good or not. This book provides insight into our feelings and makes it easier to swallow the loss - or better yet - deal with it positively.

Thank you Henry Cloud. Much needed solid advice! One of my favorite quotes from the book, “There is a difference between helping someone who is disabled, incapable, or otherwise infirm versus helping someone who is resisting growing up and taking care of what every adult (or child, for that matter) has to be responsible for: herself or himself. When you find yourself in any way paying for someone else’s responsibilities, not only are you stuck with a delayed ending, but you are probably harming that person.” - Henry Cloud Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

This is a must read! A truly excellent book full of wisdom. True, endings are necessary and they do take courage and faith, and this book is one to help you through it. Take courage, endings are not all bad and they are indeed very, very necessary. This book will remain on my shelf for the rest of my days. I will read it again and refer to it often.

This book is about ending relationships between people. Saying that brings to mind romantic relationships, but this book applies equally to business relationships as romantic ones.Should you quit that job? Should you leave that church? Should you break up with that girl? Should you fire that employee? Should you excommunicate that parishioner? Should you divorce that spouse?These questions are answered in the affirmative when it is a "necessary ending" to the relationship. Thus it's important to understand whether the ending is necessary or not. I believe that one should manage all his relationships in a sustainable fashion so that ending a relationship generally won't happen unless it is necessary.To assist in figuring whether a relationship is at a necessary ending, Cloud partitions humanity into three classes: the wise, the fools, and the evil.The wise are people you can share negative facts with and they'll respond gratefully. ("You have bad breath." / "Oh, sorry. Here I'll take a mint. Is that better?") The fools are people who edit their perceptions of reality to remove the parts they don't like. ("Your software has a bug." / "No, it doesn't. You're not using it right. That's not my problem.") When dealing with a fool you have to change the conversation from the problem at hand to why they're not listening.The evil are people who will use whatever you give them against you. For these people you send "lawyers, guns, and money" and get away from them.Recognizing where you are in this continuum and recognizing where those you deal with are on it serves to guide in evaluating one's relationships. It's a negative book for negative times when one may have to painfully choose to give up on a hopeless business or dismiss a marginal employee. Recommended.

To get to the new beginning you need to make the necessary ending first. I wish I had read the book 20 years ago. He makes the point that in the day-to-day, it isn't too hard to put up with something that is no longer right for us. We make it through one day, then another, and the days turn into years. We have an incredible tolerance for pain, especially if we think it will "get better." So, we tell ourselves little lies like "It will turn around" or "it's not always like this." We numb ourselves as a method of coping. So, here is the part that got to me: "Then, stop the excusing, the medicating, the rationalizing, or any other interference, and project into the future: one month, six months, one year, two years, five years, or more. See yourself at that time having the same discussions you are having now, with no better results. Picture it, feel it, smell it. You already know what it is like, so you don't even have to use your imagination. You are living it right now. I just want you to picture yourself living it for real five years from now. Is that what you want?"

I'm not sure why I felt it was important to read this, but I did. I admittedly fought the ideas in the book for almost the entire first half. I could see where this might be important for business leaders and that part made sense. However, I felt it was too simplistic for relationships. After all, relationships are more nuanced and complex. Plus, as a person of faith, I feel like I'm told never to give up on people since God never gave up on us. Where is the love, faith and hope in giving up or becoming hopeless? The book didn't seem to make very strong connections between the two and gave me plenty of space to negate the ideas. Then came chapters 6 and 7 and I found myself seeing such familiarity that I didn't have as much space anymore. I found myself sadly agreeing that some relationships that just ended were necessary endings.This book helped me see how much energy I was spending in a situation that wasn't going to change, at least not any time soon, and that was energy that could be spent on things that would bear more fruit. An even harder realization was in how much energy another person was having to spend on me, not to have any forward momentum. We were causing each other to get stuck. A bit of an ouch, but a necessary ouch.According to the book, I haven't been horrible at saying good-bye in the right way, but I haven't been great at it either. I agree. It was helpful to read the chapters on how to possibly go about it that would bring about health and closure.I think a bigger take-away was that endings are new beginnings, which I assume could also mean a full circle back around once all of us have grown and matured a little. However, the book points to signs as to whether that is possible or not. I guess I would prefer, at least when it comes to relationships, that it was titled, Necessary So-Longs. However, if we never take that step we will never get to that place where there is any kind of health.There is a no-nonsense type of approach here that my sensitive nature had to adjust to a bit, but it wasn't too difficult. I listened to the title on Audible but have now bought a Kindle copy so I can refer to the chapters with questions to ask if I ever feel the doubt about saying "so-long" again.This was very helpful.

I think this is a great book. Since I am no longer in the workforce, I wanted to skip through some of the business related illustrations, but the personal material was fantastic. I especially liked chapter 7 on. I would love it if Henry Cloud would modify the book so that those of us not dealing with the work sector would be able to benefit as well. I would recommend this book to some people, but I think it is difficult to wade through the business examples. Don't miss the last chapter. It is great.

If you are contemplating a change in your life, this book may help structure some of your thinking. Whether professional or personal, any change requires an "ending" which can be difficult but will likely be liberating in the end. I recommend the book for its ability to add a sequence to the process; I do wish the editor had taken a red pen to about 25% of the material as it was repetitious at times.

Well, this book needs to go into my top ten of all time favourite books. If you are feeling drained by life or by your business then this book is a must read. For me, it clarified some decisions that I have made in the past, which has enabled me to reach the point that I am at today. There was one chapter in the book that resonated with me, and this was the way in which you deal with different people when ending something or trying to implement change. When I reflect on how I have done this in the past, I have always managed the process in the way that I personally like to be managed, and now I appreciate that this is not the best way of dealing with the problem. Dr Cloud talks about three types of people:-1. Wise people - the ones who take on board what you say, learn from it and move on. 2. Foolish people - A fool shoots the messenger, it is never their fault, and they tend to get angry when faced with a difficult solution. These people do not listen, they don't want to talk about it. We have all had to deal with this type of person and the way to manage them when you need to end something that they are doing is to give boundaries and communicate a consequence. 3. Evil people - The evil people intend to destroy things. We have heard of the phrase "bad apple", well sometimes you just need to get rid of the evil people in your life and business, which will enable you to move on. Stop being nice, and just do it. Cut all ties. Don't return emails, phone calls or tweet! Out of sight is out of mind. If you have someone in your life like this then please, please read this book!There was a lot more to this book, and I am now keen to read more of Dr Henry Cloud's work. A good read!

When I was in administration, I regularly read leadership books. Most are not great, many are repetitive (that is, repeating what's in other leadership books, or repeating itself within the same book. Steven Covey does all of that!), and it was rare to find one that's helpful, well-written, and thought-provoking. One of the books that met that standard was Henry Cloud's Integrity. Cloud is a good author, very grounded not only in reality but also in compassion.It's been some years since I read in the leadership genre, but Cloud's book Necessary Endings has been on my shelf for a while, and it was recently brought to my attention and recommended. So I opened it up, and I'm glad I did. I found Cloud's advice and experiences extremely helpful at a time in my life when I've got some "necessary endings" that need to happen. Reading the book helped me analyze some situations and create plans to make changes for the good. Cloud's guidance to consider whether the person you're dealing with is "wise," "foolish," or "evil" (the actual chapter is more nuanced than that list makes it sound) is a really great way to make sure you're not wasting effort—or even just the mental strain of caring about a situation in a certain way—on someone who doesn't even see the world the same way you do, as far as responsibilities and integrity.Most of the book is about the business/workplace context, but there is also quite a bit of content that's relevant to other areas of life. I wish that it was a little less focused on just business, because what Cloud writes is incredibly relevant to a lot of situations, and people who need the advice might miss it because it's in a leadership book.

What a great book for the everyday working person. We don’t see how important some endings are or how to end some things that are long over do. This books really explains the why and how of necessary endings. I enjoyed seeing the different approaches and the views of others. We all tend to feel stuck sometimes and we trying everything to change that but we never think we should end the thing we are stuck in. Seeing how not everyone deserves your trust and how to see which people should be trustworthy. My favorite is the last few chapter, it was a perfect closing to this amazing book. Dr. Henry Cloud never disappoints.

Wow! This is an amazing and extremely important book. It isn't an easy read, because you probably won't progress very far before thinking about aspects of your life that may require a necessary ending. And, that is a huge part of why this is an important book.The author applies his ideas to personal relationships and business decisions and even lifestyle choices. Many examples are given from his decades of counseling and executive coaching. You are likely to find some of your own life experiences in the examples.This book will help you identify aspects of your life that need to be changed, things that need necessary endings. You will read sage advice on how to determine what can be salvaged and what cannot. Where personal relationships or business relationships are concerned, you will read wise communication strategies. The distinction between wide people, foolish people, and evil people is clear and priceless-the advice on communicating with each type is vital.Where the book really shines is Cloud's writing about why we resist making these necessary endings and how to find the motivation and courage to follow through.This is a great book that presents life skills that everyone needs to master. Hands down - the book is pretty indispensable. Get a copy. Don't just read it, master it! Enjoy!

Author has an easy reading style and he writes with a Christian perspective. In a nutshell necessary endings is removing whatever it is in our lives whose reach is unwanted. I liked how he further broke it down...”given your abilities, resources, opportunities, etc. are you reaching your full potential, or are you drifting toward a middle that is lower than where you should be if you were getting the most from who you are and what you have?”His section on the 3 types of people was excellent. The wise, foolish, and evil.

People who should read this:- anyone responsible for their [company's/ team's/ colleague's/ own] performance- anyone who makes hiring/ firing decisions- anyone who can't seem to leave toxic [work environments/ relationships/ friendships]- anyone who struggles with the sunk cost fallacy- anyone who needs clarity on whether an ending is necessary or not- anyone seeking practical advice on how to carry out necessary endings- anyone who struggles to find the right words to end things

Great book, the one to keep and open from time to time to learn more and more. Very useful and insightful.