Time Machines Work: Using the pain from your past as rocket fuel for your future

by Frank Tate

Time Machines Work is based on true stories and allegories from one boy’s journey through the California foster care system and into becoming the dad he didn’t get to have. Frank invites you to hop into his Time Machine, visit his painful past, and see how he used those experiences as rocket fuel for his future. Frank then invites you to hop in your own proverbial Time Machine and do the same for your story. Do you fear your story doesn’t matter? Have you become so busy “surviving life” that you have lost track of the things that make your heart sing? Do you believe that you won’t find, or don’t deserve to find, success, joy, community or purpose? Do you question if you have what it takes to be a great parent? If any of those are part of your current story, Time Machines Work will prove a paradigm-shifting read… one that just might provide the hope you’re seeking for your journey. Regardless of your past story, there is great hope for you (and your kids) because Time Machines Work... if we let them.

293 pages, Paperback

Published November 16, 2020

Reviews

[Christiaan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Highly Recommend this book for anyone who wishes to write a better story for themselves or for those you are mentoring, raising or influencing! Saying that this book is an easy read belies that fact that it’s one of the most profound books I have read on the subject in years! Frank starts the book remembering (traveling back to his childhood using his imaginary Time Machine) some pivotal moments in his life (very reminiscent of the Core Memories that play an important role in Pixar’s Inside Out), some of these moments are super positive, many are heartbreakingly devastating. I love the descriptors Frank uses to label the ways he uses these various past memories for future good. Don’t miss the chapters on Databased Praise and Edit vs. Author… these chapters alone are worth the price of the book! The latter part of the book is a description on how Frank (and how we) used all these experiences for good instead of letting them just take us down a passive path to whatever future might come.
I found the self-reflective questions and places to jot answers extremely helpful to distill each chapter’s main thoughts, but as an enneagram 7, I do not like to take long, hard looks at myself or my pain. I will do that next time I read this helpful book.
The book is very funny and heartwarming, as well as unbelievably sad at times. At times it was hard to believe that Frank was able to leave all his childhood trauma to build such an incredibly rich and fun life for himself. I think that reading this book will help any reader to use the simple but profound principles in the book to celebrate who you are instead of mourn who you are not and write that better story!!