Korenski

If you like listening to Bob's Stories its for you

Revisado: 01-08-24

This book is not what I wanted it to be. I wanted a fascinating, helpful, self-help book that would help me learn how to get undistracted and give me practical data-driven tips, or even just steps from somebody's experience. What it actually is, is a modern Christian church sermon. What I mean by that is if you've ever been to a modern church, where the pastor tells you a lot of personal stories, makes a lot of jokes, and then in the end it's all to illustrate one simple, biblical principle. That's basically what this is. You'll hear a lot of Bob's personal stories which are really interesting and you will not be bored at first, but you will get very little information. In the end, every story just leads up to one or two sentences that are the most generic advice ever like "live your life for something meaningful" or "be willing to sacrifice for what really matters" things that you probably already know or heard about if you were the type of person who spends time listening to or reading self-help. The stories were interesting and it's inspiring that Bob lives such a cool life, but in the end, I actually was bored, because that's not what I wanted in a book. I wanted something where I could take away some practical steps, and there's no practical step to be gained from the advice, "make sure that you don't let distractions stop you from doing what matters." Its like yep, that's why I bought the book to learn how, but apparently you don't know how you do it so you can't actually teach it. This whole book felt like "thanks dad, great advice." Maybe helpful to basic basic beginners, time wasting for the rest of us.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Outdated and Really Basic, Wasted my Time , Good dad jokes though.

Revisado: 05-26-23

It’s amazing how much information can be in this book without me learning anything. Most of this book was irrelevant to me because it included extremely detailed steps of how to use garage band or specific things like the amount of bandwidth available for your podcast, that stuff went above my head and also is completely meaningless when you use an app like Spotify Podcasts/Anchor, or most podcast apps available today where you can make a podcast for free. But then oddly the stuff that was actually relevant to me was so basic it was so unhelpful. For example, there was a chapter about advertising your podcast and literally the only thing I learned in that chapter was that they suggest using Facebook. I could’ve guessed that without having to open this book. They spent the entire chapter just saying why you should use Facebook and then they told you where on Facebook to find a Facebook ad as if I don’t understand how to Google things. Either this book is written for 50 year old people who have never touched a computer in the last 10 years and suddenly want to create a podcast, or it was written 10 years ago for 40 year olds and they just slapped a 2021 copyright on it. There was actually an entire chapter talking about how you should Google yourself to find forums to talk about your podcast as if Reddit didn’t exist. I’ve never experienced a book that has so much information without giving you enough details to actually be useful while also simultaneously giving you too much details of things that are useless. The only good thing about this book was the authors dad jokes that he used in every chapter multiple times. This book did NOT age well.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Whatever happened to Audio quality?

Revisado: 01-29-22

As an audiobook narrator myself with a home studio I could make a better recording of this in one take with no editing than this supposedly “finished” product. I wonder if the poor narrator submitted unfinished audio and then the engineer just never showed up to work and for some reason someone thought it was ok to publish? This kind of lack of professionalism is really a turn off.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Junk Food for the Common Yoga Bitch's Soul

Revisado: 11-24-21

I really really wanted to like this book and be inspired by it, but it is honestly one of the worst self-help books I've ever tried to read or listen to. Its an "allegory" if you can call it that, along the lines of Pilgrim's Promise, except with zero symbolism as it spoon-feeds and then force feeds you endless "inspirational" cliques through 3 main characters who are as shallow as the advice in this book. Its 11 hours of boring "nugget of wisdom," ala your most vomit worthy Hallmark card, after another. I LOVE self-help. I read non-fiction primarily, but where I went wrong with this book, which I guess is why so many average Americans loved it, is that I have a brain. Sadly the American education system doesn't teach people to think for themselves so many people love having someone tell them a bunch of flowery sounding inspirational sentences such as random quotes you've heard a million times in 10,000 TED X talks such as the Daring Greatly poem or the Spartan mantras. A TED-X talk would be way better because the people who give them usually have to think of a coherent and helpful way to speak on a topic that would engage an audience. This book was written more to engage a 4 year old child. If you've read any self-help books at all you have heard everything he has to say here and in a more compelling and efficient manner. I hated this book so much that I felt more compelled to return it and write this long review.

The concepts are not necessarily bad here it's the way its written and presented and the way none of them are explained and supported with any sort of fact or further detail. Its like this writer skipped 5th grade where we were taught to give a stating face in the first sentence of the paragraph and then follow it up with at least 3 more sentences to support your statement. This writer writes like a 4th grader who just gives statement after statement with nothing, not even a fake anecdotal story to illustrate the points. Yes it all is a fake story, but its not really a story at all because a story has a plot and characters doing things. The plot of this book is two characters listening to an old man tell them many statements about what he thinks makes you successful. We are told he is rich because he wakes up at 5 am, but he himself does not even go into details about how or why.

Imagine the world's most cheesy children's show, but it's for Christians, and its teaching kids about how to be nice to your neighbor. Got an image in your head of how simple it would be and the level of quality that content would be? Ok it's as if the writer of that wrote this book, but instead of Christianity and God it's about how to wake up at 5 am. It feels like being read a children's story that was made to make you behave and mind your manners and lacked anything humans would actually find entertaining. It doesn't even have dinosaurs.

Also it really harks on waking up specifically at 5 am, even though no science backs this number and increasingly more studies are showing that someone's wake up time is highly dependent on their genetics and varies greatly from person to person.
Basically nothing this book said gave any solid backing to its points and since all the characters were fictional, even their personal anecdotal evidence was useless because it was made up! Also their anecdotal evidence was told to us in straightforward boring cheesy ways rather than through interesting stories like an acutal human giving a speech or just talking to a friend would do. In real life if a millionaire invited you to his island and then talked at you all day like in this book you would want to punch him in the face and tell him to leave you alone so you can go jet ski or he would have told you honestly hey you are going to a seminar. Actually this book kind of felt like I was at a seminar, but an unenjoyable one because it's not even live or inspiring.

Furthermore, the characters had no level of depth and the narration was un-engaging ( I do not mean the voice over artist, he did a great job reading), I mean the actual written narration was trite and simplistic.

The author could have saved us all 11 hours by just saying "Hey my name is Robin, I practiced waking up at 5 am and even though I have no scientific or compelling evidence to show why that would also work for you, I think it would because when I did it I felt better, had more energy and accomplished so many things that now I am a millionaire."

Never-mind the fact that he makes money off teaching people to wake up at 5 am. So I guess waking up at 5 am really did make him rich and you can be too if you can fool enough people into thinking you have some magical secret for success called waking up at 5 am and get them to buy a book about it. Kinda like a Pyramid scheme, but for self-help gurus.

In conclusion whether you think 5 am is a great time for waking or not, this book will not help you do it. It will take 5 hours of listening to a boring story before you even get to the so called magical plan this book recommends. Which let me save you some time... he wants you to wake up...at...5..am. There. Save your money and time because if you think he is going to give compelling and interesting facts or even just anecdotal evidence, he is not. If you think the story will be entertaining and what a fun way to learn while hearing a fictional story, it isn't. You will learn waaaay more about life from reading Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time. Any fantasy book really does a way better job of teaching about life without shoving it down your throats or boring you to tears or making you want to tear your eyes out if that obnoxious billionaire says "groovy dudes" one more time.


Epilogue:

Here's a quote from early on in the book so you can see the quality of the writing. Also I feel like this quote where a character is describing "life" could easily be applied to this book.

"It sucks. And a lot of people suck, too, man. I'm not anti-social. I'm just anti-moron. Too many dumb people around these days. Taking stupid fashion pictures of themselves with pouty lips in clothes they can't afford. Hanging out with people they don't even like."

I would add to the end of that quote "and reading poorly written self-help books that promise their life will magically be more meaningful if they just spend $16 buying this book, 11 hours listening to it and then wake up early every day at 5am to meditate and exercise." Life altering, man.

How about you just skip the book and try waking up at 5 am, exercising and meditating/journaling and see what happens. Because let's be honest you already know that these are things successful people in the world recommend. You don't need a boring allegorical story written for children, yet marketed to adults to tell you how. And if you are looking for it to motivate you? Well, it might motivate you to sleep in longer if the book you plan to read in the morning is this one. Better to use it to put you to sleep rather than inspire you to wake up.

P.S. I legit had more fun and was more entertained writing this reveiew than I ever was listening to that book. I never did finish the book, but I bet I can tell you how it ends. The artist and the entrepreneur end up leaving the island feeling so grateful for finding eachother and learning the mysterious secret of waking up at 5 am to do things like meditate and exercise. They are amazed that success is so simple and the odd fact that after living for over 35 years in the modern world they have never once been told that they should wake up earlier, nor had they even considered it. But now that they have applied this with the hard work of being forced to in order to have a free vacation they will now be so super super successful and happy in life. The best part is you can too, if you just wake up at 5 am. Wow! Who knew life was just so so so simple?

Wait didn't recent science prove that the success people who wake up early have is correlated, but not caused by waking up early? And is not it required that you don't just wake up early, but also learn to manage your time throughout the day, prioritize tasks, make good decisions, grow in knowledge and a bunch of other skills that are actually far more important than waking up early. So in the end what does the waking up at 5 am do? Well if you are someone genetically designed to function at 5 am, then you will have 3 extra hours before the work day to get things done. However, if you are a night owl and have more energy at night you would actually also have 3 more hours after the work day to get things done if you just stayed up 3 hours later and then slept in. But wait, no! Everyone is meant to wake up 5 am, just like how everyone is usually exactly the same in everything else in this world! Actually Robin Sheeple night owls are genetically more likely to be depressed and unproductive if they regularly wake up early and they can be extremely productive staying up a little later to work on important tasks...oops sorry for dropping that science. Google it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Very calming narration and fun character voices.

Revisado: 07-13-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

This story is short and sweet because it’s for kids. It’s written by a kid himself so that’s pretty cool. I’m not a kid, but I still thought it was cute. I especially really liked the narrator because her tone was so crisp and calming. I could listen to her voice all day. I hope I can find more books narrated by Corrine Byrd on audible soon!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great Strategy For Making Habits Effective

Revisado: 04-23-20

I loved mini habits, but this takes it to the next level. I heard about Stephen Guise from “How to be an Imperfectionist,” his book which blew my mind with his take on perfectionism. His books have helped me a lot!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Very Positive and a Good quick read

Revisado: 08-17-14

If you could sum up Become a Better You in three words, what would they be?

Positive Faith Stories

Any additional comments?

This book isn't very deep in the sense that the information is not revolutionary or complex , however it is very positive and helpful. If you want inspiration to be the best person you can be this is the book for you. I listened to it several times just whenever I wanted an attitude boost. Most of it is things you've heard before, but Joel is very inspirational and uses verses, stories, quotes and illustrations to get the point across. This really helps your mind get into a positive state and focussing on truth. I recommend the book for general motivation in life.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Most Creative Cinderella Story You'll Find

Revisado: 04-07-14

If you could sum up Cinder in three words, what would they be?

I love how this author took the classic Cinderella story and weaved all it's main elements into a futuristic multicultural coming of age tale. It changes the negative themes of the classic Cinderella, you know the idea that a girl is just waiting for a man to come save her or that girls are just dainty little princesses needing rescue. No this main character is a girl mechanic-cyborg. If that doesn't defy the traditional girly girl Cinderella I don't know what will. She's a strong heroine. The story keeps the theme of love and and Prince falling for a girl of low status, but this girl is no swooning, helpless damsel in distress. She has an instrumental part in her own rescinding thank you very much. A very good read or listen. The narrator does a variety of voices well enough to keep the script moving and entertaining. I can't wait to listen to the sequel.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Um obviously the main character because shes the center of the story.

What does Rebecca Soler bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great narration, but also its more convenient to listen while driving and working. I don't have time to read often, but I can listen to 4 or 5 books a week. Love auidobooks!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wanted to, but "ain't nobody got time for that" I think it only took me 2 1/2 days to finish though

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Not helpful for the dedicated Christian

Revisado: 11-06-13

What did you like best about Crazy Love? What did you like least?

This books does help you think about who God is at times and the author is very passionate , however it feels like he is yelling at you or guilt tripping you to be a better Christian. It sounds like a book for followers to have their faith challenged and grown, but it's really aimed at people who don't focus their life around God. So I don't know what would make them read this book.

This book is for you if you believe in God, but don't have a relationship with him and don't know why that's important . If you are dedicated to seeking Christ this book will make you doubt yourself and feel guilty, when really you are on the right track. His goal is really just to shock those who aren't living for Christ into seeing why they need him.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña