Reviews and Feedback...

This book (Fully Alive from 9 to 5!) has been a real `find.' I have worked with low morale, stress, burnout and organizational change as a consultant in the health industry for some years, with a modicum of success. Reading this book has given me a new direction, a spiritual and philosophical place to stand and tools that can dramatically transform working environments and the individuals within them. LeBrun seems to have captured the essence of what we all knew at some level about the way we wished our workplace could be, but instead of philosophizing, she harnesses a powerful and humanizing process based on cutting edge material from the field of NLP and associated methodologies.

This approach is based on the understanding that there are no victims at work, but instead, we all actively participate in creating our working environments. She reiterates the belief that the health of any organisation is a function of the health of the individuals within that organisation. This approach acknowledges the inherent power of the individual and provides insights and immediately practical tools to access that personal power. I have seen many team building approaches fall short of success because the participants do not leave with tools or the understanding of who they are, the values and beliefs that make them who they are and how we each participate in creating the environments in which we work. LeBrun provides a simple, yet extremely effective process for raising our level of thinking about the `problems' at work with communication tools that rapidly build individuals' sense of personal power and respect for each other which then enables individuals to negotiate healing working environments.

I used this as the basis for a 2 day team building workshop for an organization with extremely low morale (and all its' attendant problems), only a few days after reading the book. I found the process was enjoyable and easy to work with and I (along with the management team) was amazed at the rapid shifts within interpersonal dynamics of the organization. Five months on, morale, absenteeism and even workers' compensation claims have dramatically improved. This process is very humanizing, you see people standing up to their full height, feeling excited about the insights into themselves, their peers and their potential to `create' the sort of working environment that did not feel was possible.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to lift themselves above the problems they face at work, to understand the real issues and the tools that can really make the difference.

Marilyn Powell
Newcastle, Australia

The title of this ground-breaking book describes its contents and outlook aptly; however, most of us might pass it by on the bookshelf simply because we could not conceive of the type of work environments the author is proposing we create for ourselves. To pass it by would be to miss the opportunity to be guided through an examination of the work world today and the kinds of views that have created it, and gently and without judgment, see where you fit in. Because, according to author Louise LeBrun, you are the key ingredient in changing your work experience.

LeBrun uses a simple analogy right at the beginning of the book of how, once, not that long ago, the belief that world was flat defined everything we did, and a subsequent shift to realizing that the world was actually round redefined it all and expanded our world profoundly. She suggests that we all hold a context of how the world of work is, and that real change within any work environment comes from within each person through the willingness to believe differently and therefore think and behave differently as a result. This shift automatically empowers each person in the workforce – a small but important change uncovers the enormous potential within all of us, individually and collectively.

Writing to an audience of readers who either know or who are beginning to know that there is a solution to their discontent, and drawing upon over 25 years of experience, LeBrun describes, with wit and wisdom, the difference between closed loop systems (which are our workplaces) and open loop systems (her vision of what is possible). Closed loop systems are characterized by shame, denial, resentment and crisis, to name only a few key characteristics identified by LeBrun, and are not just dualistic but rigid and static. Open loop systems, on the other hand, are fluid and dynamic, and cycle through an evolutionary process which adapts to surroundings, including people. A further examination discusses how our workplaces became closed loop systems.

Having prepared the reader with an understanding of how they came to be where they are now, within the systems that were already in place, the book then describes the individual and neurological make up of each person. The WEL-System™ approach is explained, which puts the reader right into the driver's seat of his life and invites the reader, through an examination of belief structures and levels of thinking, to begin to change his workplace experience by simply becoming fully alive to himself.

All of this may sound impossible to grasp, but the author's conversational and non-judgmental style brings an easy accessibility to the material. With full acknowledgment that moving from a place where work is 'out there' and not within our control to a place of being fully in charge within any workplace is a fundamental and even radical shift, she presents information that truly has the capacity to transform the workplace. An easy read and an invaluable resource, Fully Alive From 9 to 5! is for anyone at work who is ready and willing to be part of a larger solution by beginning with themselves.

Corine Dixon, Publisher
Editor-in-Chief IntraZine

The book (Fully Alive from 9 to 5!) is a stunning accomplishment. Ms LeBrun is clear, concise, creative. Her research is thorough and imaginative, she irresistibly invites the reader to join in and she provokes recognition at all aspects of daily life. Creating what we want, stands in the power to change ourselves as individual human beings. In this book the map of change is laid out in its utter complexity and simplicity. But the map is not the journey ... it is up to us to take the first step ... to be aware that at each moment we stand at the power point of choice. Fully Alive kept me riveted to the very last word ... it will happen to you too, and you will never be the same again. 

Graziella Malagoni, Executive Director
NHC Institite, Montréal, Canada