Reviewed by JD Jung)
#CommissionsEarned
As a great admirer of the Ukrainian president, I was intrigued when I discovered the book, Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky: Lessons We Can All Learn from an Unexpected Leader. I didn’t know what to expect but I am happy to say that I wasn’t disappointed.
Author Jessie Asya Kanzer immigrated to the United States from Soviet Latvia and has crossed paths with Zelenskyy*. She shares her personal experiences and how they relate to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She believes that he is a “profound philosophical leader of our generation”.
However, it is her analysis of his personality and how we can harness his strengths in our own lives that is the focus of the book. She goes into detail how Zelenskyy reveals authenticity, truth and honesty, and acts according to his core values. He is clear on his objectives and has overcome indecisiveness. Kanzer then details how we can do the same. She also explains his effective methods of communication and how we can develop these skills.
Even though Kanzer maintains that individuals must develop a particular strength or characteristic in their own lives in order to be able to project it to the world, I believe that some analogies are a stretch, relating the global to the individual. One example is comparing the act of choosing your own identity, (not the one predetermined for you) to that of how Zelenskyy is seeking to do that for Ukraine.
I also feel that the structure of the book could have been more consistent. Kanzer jumps around multiple topics. However, I found her study of different aspects of the Ukrainian war quite interesting.
Still, there’s a lot one can get out of Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky. As we look deep into ourselves, there’s much we can learn from the Ukrainian president and former comedian.
*The author uses the Ukrainian spelling of Zelenskyy with the double ”yy”, instead of the Russian spelling using the single” y”, in deference to what she says the Ukrainian president prefers.
