by Nick Jacobs

The book, Change or Die by Alan Deutschman, tells a story of three very different situations that prove that the title can, but rarely does happen. The author quotes the fact that, although we may be faced with the alternative of changing or dying, we are plagued with the reality that only about 10% of us are truly ever able to personally make that change. Mr. Deutschman takes us through three examples of an organization, a leader, and a physician who have helped hundreds of us beat those odds: Heart Patients, Criminals and Workers.

He examines the patients of Dr. Dean Ornish's Coronary Artery Disease Reversal Program (which has been in place at Windber Medical Center since 1999), the criminals who are participating in an effort to rehabilitate themselves under the guiding principles established by Dr. Mimi Silbert at Delancey Street in San Francisco, and the members of the United Auto Workers who were employed at a GMC plant at Fremont that was so hopeless mired in its own controversy that it was closed by GM. It was later re-opened by Toyota as a successful manufacturing plant equipped with the same basic tools and machines and 50% fewer employees, but the vast majority of them were exactly the same union employees who worked in that same failed factory for GM.

It's an interesting journey into human nature, the circle of failure and hopelessness, and the promise of hope that has always been a part of achievement and growth, of success and positive persistence, of debunking old myths and replacing them with empowerment. He embraces the three keys of relate, repeat and re frame to help us make positive changes in our lives.

If, like me, you are a little overweight, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a lousy set of genes and are a mouse potato (sit around too much with your computer), you might want to read this book and then, like the journey that I began in 1997 under Dr. Ornish's direction either "Change or DIE."