WELFARE CHEESE to FINE CAVIAR: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing by Thomas Wideman, MBA, PMP – Self-Help Manual, Personal Transformation, Goal Setting

Thomas Wideman, the author of this dynamic self-help manual, Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing, rose from poverty and dismay to a life of security and personal achievement through techniques he shares with readers who can incorporate them into their own life plans.

Wideman came from an impoverished African American family wracked by confusion, chaos, and, at times, criminality. His mother had three sons by three fathers, and he would come to know his own father only peripherally, eventually learning that the man murdered people and subsequently died in prison. The boy grew up in tough neighborhoods and ate “welfare cheese” (a block of pre-sliced heavy American cheese that supposedly melted well). Every month, making ends meet became more and more difficult. In an early chapter of this finely woven chronology, we see him taking food from trains parked along the railroad tracks and running from the authorities. In this, as in each new chapter, he speaks of confronting severe issues and finding ways to resolve them. In the case of the theft and other childhood incidents of fighting, experiencing bullies, and battling racism, he speaks of making up his mind that “my circumstances need not be my limitation.”

A math whiz, Wideman found his strengths through schoolwork, striving for A’s instead of merely accepting B’s.

He excelled academically and attained many honors by the time he graduated from high school. After joining the military, Wideman realized that if the military machine could not break him, nothing could. He met and cautiously courted his sweetheart, and with her and their two sons, established a happy home life, a sensible financial plan, and new dreams for the future. He can afford to eat caviar now – though he doesn’t choose to.

Each section of his book comprises a personal recollection, frank and realistically drawn, followed by a “Reflection” to help the reader examine feelings and reactions related to their own, comparable experiences. Wideman helps his readers by following up with an “Application” section. Wisdom gleaned by experience seems to stick the best. Wideman ends with a section cleverly termed “Caviar Time,” in which readers talk to themselves in a mirror, giving creative, inspiring advice and encouragement based on the guidance contained in the segment. Wideman’s well-organized, intelligent parables cover a wide range of issues: family stresses, drug and alcohol abuse, racial divisiveness, financial planning, and complex situations faced in the workplace.

Wideman’s Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar offers hope and realistic, replicable strategies to anyone who, like himself at earlier phases of his life, faces what seems like insurmountable barriers. His general message focuses on positives: do your best, and keep meaningful goals for success always in sight. Highly recommended.

Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar won First Place in the 2021 Harvey Chute Book Awards.