Option B

Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

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Option B

By: Sheryl Sandberg, Adam Grant

Narrated by: Elisa Donovan

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About this listen

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, read by Elisa Donovan.

From Facebook's COO and Wharton’s top-rated professor, the #1 New York Times best-selling authors of Lean In and Originals: a powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life’s inevitable setbacks.

After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.

Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.

Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.

We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

Sheryl SandbergAdam GrantElisa DonovanVirgin Digital

Grief & Loss

Personal Development

Personal Success

Psychology

Psychology & Mental Health

Relationships

Resilience

Inspiring

Marriage

Mental Health

Health

Grief & Loss Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Resilience Inspiring Marriage Mental Health Health

Critic reviews

Option B is the single wisest book about grief I have ever found ... I have tried to think of anyone who would not find Option B invaluable at some point in their life, and I can’t. (Decca Aitkenhead)

Remarkable, generous, honest, [and] almost unbearably poignant … This is a book that will be quietly passed from hand to hand, and it will surely offer great comfort to its intended readers.

It's a humbling - and tearjerking - story of humanity. (Marisa Bate)

I recommend this inspiring book to everyone around the world. None of us can escape sadness, loss, or life’s disappointments, so the best option is to find our Option B.

Sheryl writes about her own heartbreaking experience with a rare honesty. Then she and Adam translate her personal story into a powerful, practical guide for anyone trying to build resilience in their own lives, communities, and companies. It’s hard enough to resonate with readers. It’s even harder to help take concrete steps towards a better future. Option B does both.

Thoughtful, insightful, and compelling. Both individually and collectively, we all need to understand the power of rehabilitation, recovery, and redemption if we are to overcome adversity. This incredible book doesn’t avoid the loss and tragedy we all sometimes encounter, but it is animated by a resolve that is both inspiring and instructive.

Option B is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking. Here are stories of sometimes unimaginable pain and loss, but also of how human beings nonetheless have the capacity to endure and even thrive. This book is not just an absorbing read. It also provides lessons that everyone needs to learn.

Illuminating, original, and deeply inspiring, Option B is one part riveting memoir, one part heal-your-heart boot camp, one part stories of others who learned to thrive in the face of profound loss: a practical, vital contribution to the literature on loss and resilience.

As someone who has spent the last 25 years immersed in the field of grief and bereavement I didn’t think I’d learn very much from Option B, but I did. It gave me useful ideas, ways of thinking and small steps that help rebuild a life after the death of someone we love. Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant have succeeded in combining useful information with heartfelt stories, which is illuminating and helpful. It is a book I highly recommend.

Illuminating, original, and deeply inspiring, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s Option B is one part riveting memoir, one part heal-your-heart boot camp. Sandberg writes movingly about her husband’s death and her journey forward afterwards. Sandberg and Grant also share stories of others who have suffered and learned to thrive in the face of profound loss. Option B is a practical, vital contribution to the literature on loss and resilience.

Most relevant

This book is excellent. I had doubts, as part of me wondered how much this was related to Lean In, or if this was cashing in. I need not have worried.

It encourages resilience, openness, honesty, and empathy. It covers grief, trauma, and healing. It offers hope for those who might need it. It allows those who don't don't what to say or do some insight into where they can help. It resonated strongly with me over how one feels after sudden trauma (not just death), and how people then interact with you.

I urge everyone to read this to be braver about dealing with, and speaking of, death. Something we are very bad at in the western world. I also encourage people to read this if they want to improve their empathetic interactions with people who have lost loved ones, been diagnosed with serious illness, had major accidents, etc.

I also think this should be required reading for managers, given the support people need (or more likely should be given) in the workplace. And how those you do support repay their reduced hours or apparent loss of productivity though stepping up because you help them to do so. Or, as in my case, leave a role where there clearly was no understanding and long term support.

I've rarely (in my adult life when time has become more pressed) finished a book as quickly while not on vacation.