Kind is the New Classy

Title:
Kind is the New Classy

Author:
Candace Cameron Bure

About the Author: (Amazon)
Candace Cameron Bure lights up the entertainment industry as a role model to women of all ages, reaching millions of fans. She is an award-winning actress and producer, New York Times Best-Selling Author, wife, and mother of 3.

Candace is currently performing as the lead in the third season of Netflix's Emmy nominated original comedy series Fuller House where she reprises her role as D.J Tanner. Fuller House celebrated multiple wins for People's Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, and Kids Choice Awards for Seasons 1 & 2. Candace took home the win at the Teen Choice Awards for "Best Comedy TV Actress" two years in a row. Candace recently made her directorial debut on an episode of Fuller House Season 4, which will release this December.

On ABC Network's long-time running talk show The View, Candace wrapped her second season as co-host in December 2016. Candace and her co-hosts were nominated both years for a Daytime Emmy Award, and the show itself also received yet another nomination for Outstanding Talk Show.

A woman of many talents, Candace released her fifth and sixth book in 2018, Kind is the New Classy: The Power of Living Graciously, and her first children's book Candace Center Stage. Her third book, Dancing Through Life: Steps of Courage and Conviction chronicles her journey of self-discovery that came by leaping out of her comfort zone on season 18 of ABC's Dancing with the Stars. It includes the highs and lows, the roadblocks, and the personal victories that she experienced while competing on the show.

Candace is both outspoken and passionate about her family and faith. Candace and her husband, former NHL star Valeri Bure, have been happily married since 1996. Together with their 3 children, Natasha, Lev and Maksim, they split their time between Los Angeles and Napa Valley, California which is home to their highly rated boutique wine label, Bure Family Wines.

Book Summary: (Amazon)
“The world has a way of defining you if you don’t know who you are before you get out there.” —Candace Cameron Bure

As a woman in today’s world, you know what it’s like to feel pressure on all sides from clashing cultural expectations. How can you stay true to who God has uniquely created you to be in the face of the script you’ve been given? What’s more, how can you stand your ground with grace?

The classy confidence you know and love—whether it’s on set at Full House or Fuller House, Dancing with the Stars, The View, or Candace’s Hallmark films—is no act. But it hasn’t come easy. In fact, learning to stay true to herself with grace has been one of the biggest fights of Candace’s life.

The secret, she has learned, is kindness: it’s classy, unexpected, even counter-cultural, and ultimately wins the day.

In Kind Is the New Classy, Candace reveals the thought patterns and practices that have empowered her to stay centered in who she is while practicing radical graciousness toward others. Whether you’re navigating major life choices, questions of calling and career, relationships, or personal goals, this book will show you how to:
Keep your cool under pressure
Respond to criticism with grace
Stay grounded yet go places in life
Stay true to who you are despite the expectations of others
Stay centered in what ultimately matters the most
Kind Is the New Classy is your permission to go off-script, to say goodbye to society’s “should’s” and to step into a new way to flourish as a woman today.

I'd Recommend To:
Christian Women

My Rating:
10/10

My Thoughts:
LOL the theme of this year must be reading books that I planned to read a long while ago but never got around to but now I can read them! I received this book back in 2018, which is a lot more recent than Watersmeet but still two years overdue. I'm a huge Candace Cameron Bure fan so I ordered the signed copy, and she signs her name the same as me - with a little heart above her name.
Anyways, I'm not one to annotate in books but I found myself highlighting a lot in this book - here are a few examples:
"...kindness have been shown to stimulate the production of serotonin, the chemical that calms us down and makes us feel happy. Kindness also produces endorphins, the chemicals that make us feel pleasure. And kindness produces oxytocin, which makes us feel calm, promotes social bonding, increases trust and generosity, and helps our bodies fight disease by strengthening our immune system" (pg 87)
"the ones who show kindness out of concern for others - have 23 percent less cortisol, the stress hormone" (pg 88)
"When our gifts align with our purpose, we feel fired up too. ... Those are stirrings, I believe, that are worth listening to. Those are the stirrings of the Spirit" (pg 107)
"God is an ambitious God. His ambition is as holy as it is wild: to save the whole world" (pg 109)
"...the gardener who prunes the branches so that the garden can grow according to His good design" (pg 211)
This book is very in-powering (a phrase used in the book if you don't get what I mean by in-power vs empower). Candace uses her real life examples to basically show how you can help find your purpose then use that purpose to live your best life, all while staying kind to those around you and yourself. While reading this book, I realized I'm already a lot kinder than I thought as well as areas I definitely could improve my kindness; I also realized how I can use my passions of the water and the animals in it to better serve God - by sharing that beauty and amazingness that He created with others. I see God the most while I'm under the sea, with the humpbacks and the whale sharks and the sea turtles and the minnows, so I want to be able to share that with others as well, which inspired me to take the leap to put my Mermaid Camp plan into action rather than having it just stay a "maybe, one day".
I also now actively search for ways I can be MORE kind. For example, while I was reading this book I was dealing with a "Karen". I'm a lifeguard at the pool and it's been cold, so while people will come sit in the sun, they don't really get in the water (which frankly, I don't get because the beach is less than a football field away from this pool so if you're just coming to the pool to sun, why not go to the beach? But people are crazy). Anyways, it's real windy at the pool because it's in a wind tunnel between a bunch of condo buildings. So this couple came and sat right next to my lifeguard stand because the stand partially blocked the wind. Sitting there for 9 hours a day, I need some music to keep my mind sane, so I have a small speaker next to my lifeguard stand that you can only hear if you're within about 20 feet of it. The days leading up to this, I put on several different stations to see if I got any feedback from anyone, and the day before I had on the Margaritaville station; three different families told me that they loved the music I had on that day! So this day, I had the Margaritaville station on again due to the positivity I received from it. So this lady that sat right next to my chair comes up to me and says "I really hate to be a Karen, but I hate music so can you please turn it off. If it wasn't so windy we'd sit over there but it's just too windy". Being the nice person I am, I turned it off, figuring they'd only stay a few minutes because it was so cold and nasty out. This couple ended up staying for 5 hours!!! Every time I would think to myself "I'll give her 10 more minutes then I'm turning my music back on" I remembered to practice my kindness and my patience, as this was happening literally as I was reading this book. So I persevered and lasted the whole rest of the day without music, which was actually like painful for me but it showed kindness to this lady. Now I think to myself "wait. How can you be more kind?" when I'm in a situation that will try to test me. So far, it's been working (mostly. I'm still struggling w my grandmother because she's so harsh).
So overall, I really like this book as it's really helped me to become a more positive, kind, and purposeful person. At the end of every chapter there's a "Your Turn" section where she puts into simple, easy steps how you can practice being kinder and classier. If you don't want to hear talk about God, this isn't the book for you, but if you like God and want to make your life just a little bit better, I'd check it out. My mother is next to read this book! She's hoping it will help inspire her and give her a more positive outlook on life - I think it just might.