Being You: How to Live Authentically: Unlocking the Power of the Freedom Code and Incorporating the Philosophy of Adaptive Freedom

by Gerard Doyle

"Being You is about reaching your highest potential through authentic living. It helps you to exercise your own choices and feel and act with confidence and effectiveness in every situation—to be free of fear and doubt, to have a life filled with meaning, success, and well-being.

This is the freedom to live according to your unique needs, personality, purpose, and values; to be accepted unconditionally for who and what you are; to feel all life’s pain as well as its joys; to live from the heart—trusting your inner nature and your experience of the world—and to accept responsibility for all your actions.

The philosophy of Adaptive Freedom, outlined in the book, shows that the ability to adapt and grow is the essence of personal freedom, which is the core of authenticity. You need to be adaptive to be free, and both make it easier to become truly authentic.

The power to change and realize the life of your highest imaginings lies in the Freedom Code—a set of seven practice pillars—offering a liberation path to self-fulfillment, a code to unlock the greatness that lies within. The seven pillars create new ways to guide you through knowledge to self-awareness and purposeful action. They offer a systematic and holistic framework to help you lead a meaningful, successful, happy, and authentic life. "

371 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Mr. Doyle was born of Irish parents and raised and educated in England. He has had an extensive career in British repertory theatre, appeared in the gritty musical “The Hired Man” in London’s West End and toured internationally with the English Shakespeare Company. He appeared in a number of British and American television series and on Broadway. Mr. Doyle lives with his wife and two children in Sag Harbor.

Mr. Doyle’s career in audio books began in 2000 when he was understudying a role on Broadway and his agent called to say that Recorded Books was looking for an Irish voice. Doyle agreed — though he didn’t know much about audio books.

“No matter,” he thought, “I can do that — I’m an Irishman.”

He won the AudioFile Earphones award for his reading of the wonderful Roddy Doyle book, “A Star Called Henry.” In 2008, Doyle was named a Best Voice in young adult fiction. He reads adult, young adult and children’s books as well as literary fiction, mysteries, humor, adventure and lots of fantasy.

Doyle has recorded all 14 of Adrian McKinty’s novels. Mr. McKinty, who lives in Australia, is known primarily as an Irish crime writer and has wonderful characters with strange voices. Doyle has researched various languages and dialects for the McKinty books, including Shelta, an obscure Irish language. When Doyle asked McKinty about the dialect, he responded that he had no idea, and Gerard eventually found an Irish professor who spoke it and worked on his narration via Skype.

Mr. Doyle is also known for Christopher Paolini’s “Inheritance Cycle” series, of which the first title was “Eragon.” In “Eragon,” a main character is a dragon — what does a dragon sound like? As more titles were added to the series, more dragons were added, needing new dragon voices. At some point, to be mischievous, the author starting giving Mr. Doyle clues in the books, by describing what the dragons’ voices sounded like.