While endings are a natural part of business and life, we often experience them with a sense of hesitation, sadness, resignation, or regret. But Henry Cloud sees endings differently. He argues that our personal and professional lives can only improve to the degree that we can see endings as a necessary and strategic step to something better. If we cannot see endings in a positive light and execute them well, he asserts, the "better" will never come either in business growth or our personal lives. In this book, Cloud demonstrates that, when executed well, "necessary endings" allow us to proactively correct the bad and the broken in our lives in order to make room for the professional and personal growth we seek. However, when endings are avoided or handled poorly -- as is too often the case -- good opportunities may be lost, and misery repeated. Cloud offers a mixture of advice and case studies to help readers: know when to have realistic hope and when to execute a necessary ending in a business, or with an individual; identify which employees, projects, activities, and relationships are worth nurturing and which are not; overcome people's resistance to change and create change that works; create urgency and an action plan for what's important; and stop wasting resources needed for the things that really matter.