Look, I'm going to be upfront with you. When my wife Jenny suggested I listen to a book about how we plan our lives before we're born - including the hard stuff like addiction and losing loved ones - I almost laughed. This is not my usual territory. I'm a spreadsheets and strategy guy. But I'd just finished a brutal consulting engagement with a healthcare startup, and honestly? I was looking for something different. Something that didn't involve pivot tables.
So here I am, reviewing a metaphysical self-help book. My parents would be confused. I'm a little confused.
The Premise That Made Me Hit Pause
Robert Schwartz's central argument is wild: before you were born, your soul sat down and planned out the major challenges you'd face in this life. Cancer. Addiction. Losing a child. Disability. All of it - chosen by you, for spiritual growth.
I stopped my morning walk when I heard that. Just stood there on the sidewalk like an idiot.
Here's the thing. From a pure consulting mindset, this is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. You can't prove it. You can't disprove it. It's not a business case I could present to a board. But Schwartz doesn't really ask you to believe him. He presents case studies. People who worked with mediums to uncover their pre-birth plans. And whether you buy the metaphysics or not, the framework does something useful: it reframes suffering.
My parents didn't have a framework for their 14-hour days. They just survived. This book offers people a way to find meaning in the worst moments of their lives. That's not nothing.
Richard Banks Does the Heavy Lifting
The narrator, Richard Banks, has exactly the right energy for this material. Pleasant. Clear. Not preachy. This could've gone sideways fast - imagine someone reading this with dramatic spiritual music or an overly reverent tone. Banks keeps it grounded. He sounds like a thoughtful friend reading you something he found meaningful, not a guru trying to convert you.
At 11 hours, this is a long listen. I did it at 1.5x (yes, I slowed down from my usual 2.0x - the content actually required some processing time). Banks's pacing held up well even accelerated. No weird audio artifacts, clean production throughout.
Where the ROI Actually Lives
Bottom line: the value here isn't in proving whether pre-birth planning is real. It's in the psychological shift the framework creates.
If you're carrying guilt about a family member's addiction - this book says you didn't cause it, they chose the experience for their growth. If you're angry about an illness - maybe there's a purpose you can't see yet. Is this scientifically rigorous? No. Is it potentially healing for people drowning in 'why me?' Yes. It is.
(Jenny would say I'm being harsh. Jenny is right. I'm trying here.)
The case studies are the strongest sections. Real people working through real pain. A woman whose son was born with severe disabilities. Parents who lost children. Addicts in recovery. Schwartz interviews them, then brings in mediums to channel information about their pre-birth planning sessions. It sounds insane when I type it out. But the emotional authenticity of these stories - that part landed.
The weaker sections are when Schwartz gets too abstract. Some of the channeled information from the mediums feels repetitive. I zoned out a few times around hour seven. Skip to the case studies if you're losing patience.
Who Should Listen (And Who Should Close This Tab)
If you're going through something terrible and need a new lens to look at it through - this might help. If you're curious about spiritual frameworks but allergic to woo-woo nonsense - Banks's grounded narration makes this more accessible than most. Untethered Soul operates in similar territory, though Michael Singer's approach is more meditation-focused than metaphysical. If you're a hardcore skeptic who needs peer-reviewed studies - skip it. You'll just get annoyed.
The Spreadsheet Can't Capture This One
I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't know if I believe in pre-birth planning. But I finished the book. At 1.5x speed. And I thought about my parents differently afterward. About the dry cleaning business. About the choices that brought them here.
That's worth something. Even if I can't put it in a spreadsheet.
