Non­fic­tion

Be A Men­sch: Unleash Your Pow­er To Be Kind and Help Others

Elisa Udaskin
September 1, 2020

Live a more sat­is­fy­ing life and improve rela­tion­ships by giv­ing more of your­self to others.

Who does­n’t want to be a men­sch? Some­one who exudes kind­ness, integri­ty, and hon­or. The type of per­son who knows what to say when a friend’s loved one pass­es away or how to react with empa­thy and grace when some­one at work is being a total schmuck. The kind of per­son your bub­bie or grand­ma would be proud of.

Get­ting into the men­sch mind­set takes prac­tice. But sim­ple shifts in your approach to every­day inter­ac­tions can help you find your inner men­sch, revi­tal­iz­ing and strength­en­ing your per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships and the val­ues you pass on to your family.

A col­lec­tion of humor­ous sto­ries and prac­ti­cal advice‚ sprin­kled with a healthy dose of Yid­dish humor‚ Be a Men­sch shows how to incor­po­rate kind­ness into your dai­ly life and help oth­ers through dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions. It chal­lenges you to get off your tuch­es and get involved, not only to help oth­ers but to improve your own life too.

yid­dish

Discussion Questions

cour­tesy of Elisa Udaskin

  1. Dis­cuss a time when some­one you knew was going through a dif­fi­cult time (a death in the fam­i­ly, ill­ness or lost their job) and you want­ed to do some­thing, but you hes­i­tat­ed and didn’t reach out.Why did you hes­i­tate? How did it make you feel?

  2. Dis­cuss a time when some­one you knew was going through a dif­fi­cult time (a death in the fam­i­ly, ill­ness or lost their job) and you did reach out to sup­port them. What did you do? How did it make you feel?

  3. Have you been the recip­i­ent of sup­port dur­ing a dif­fi­cult time? What was help­ful and what was not so help­ful, or annoy­ing to you in this sit­u­a­tion? What could peo­ple have done dif­fer­ent­ly to sup­port you?

  4. How do you man­age stress and your reac­tions when you have a dif­fi­cult encounter with some­one you don’t know. For exam­ple, at the gro­cery store, a dri­ver cut­ting you off, etc?

  5. What do you do reg­u­lar­ly that is mensch-like?

  6. What do you do to help raise your kids to be a mensch?

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