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Thorsons
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in the US by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
This UK edition published by Thorsons 2019
FIRST EDITION
© Gary John Bishop 2019
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Gary John Bishop asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008344412
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008344429
Version 2019-04-17
I dedicate this book to the helpless and hopeless, the frustrated and defeated: today is a day when it can all begin anew. I don’t care about your past, and you shouldn’t either.
Thanks to my beautiful wife and inspiring sons, without whom I could never be the man I have become. Through your generosity and love, we are a family committed to making a difference in this world.
Contents
12 Redirecting Your Way Outta This
13 You Can Finally Stop Doing That Shit—No, Really!
Other Books by Gary John Bishop
About the Publisher
In your day-to-day life you are, for the most part, on autopilot.
Someone once asked me, “What’s at the core of every human being?”
“Bullshit,” I replied.
There were a few nervy moments of shoe-gazing silence followed by a gust of swirly, disjointed questions to cover the unease.
Apparently, they were expecting some new-age, metaphysical answer about untethered spirit or essence of ancient forests or particles of distant stardust sprinkled with fairy juice. But my response was (and is) unequivocal. In my experience of people (yes, I’m people too, as are you), if you set aside all of the positivity and hope, there is quite clearly a whole other animal lurking below the surface, a conversational bullshit if you like, something not quite as empowering or comforting as we’d all like to believe. Not evil or nefarious but rather something more akin to cynical, constraining, repetitive, and ultimately unfulfilling.
The kind of stuff that undermines a life. Sabotages it, to be precise.
This wee book is my take on finally uncovering and transforming your bullshit. The kind that constantly sabotages your life.
So, if you’re tired, overwhelmed, overworked, underloved, stopped, paused, bored, broke, too anxious, too analytical, lacking confidence, uninspired, disconnected, on the wrong path, headed in the wrong direction, bottomed out, mired in the past, worried about the future, disappointed, afraid, untrusting, unforgiving, suspicious, angry, frustrated, or just plain stuck in a cycle, I’m your guy and these are your pages.
No, really, they’re yours. Don’t just read them, use them.
Let’s get to the blackened heart of that bullshit, then root it out.
In my last book, Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life, I wrote about the constant internal chatter that we all deal with. The noise of opinion, judgment,