Audio Engineer

Great tips, horrible reading

Revisado: 01-02-25

I really liked the tips in this book. It was very insightful and challenged me to do better at a few moments. However, the author/narrator made me feel sad reading this book. She was monotonous, sounded negative, and overall didn’t leave me with a good feeling. With a new reading from someone more excited, this could be a fantastic book.

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Dating is not this nasty

Revisado: 11-20-24

I felt like the book was yet another "pickup artist" (PUA) manual. The focus seems to be on building a quantity of relationships, most with short-term or one-night-stand encounters in mind. It comes off as sleazy and ingenuine.

Some tips are good - how to build an effective online dating profile, how to ask for a date sooner rather than later, and how to plan the date at good spots around town. Those are practical tips to help men stand out in large userbase apps. You'd be surprised how many men don't follow these tips and end up counting themselves out before they even start. Also, the vocal performance is good, as is the audio quality.

After that, it transforms into a list of tips of manipulation, rather than establishing a base of respect, consent, and trust. There is also a lot of bragging about how he sleeps with "hot babes" and other hijinks of his. Not to mention, this book could have been maybe 60-120 minutes instead of 6 hours. I stopped listening about halfway through. Seems like I had already heard it all before. If you've read "The Game", you've also read this book, more or less.

This book actually inspired me to write my own book about dating with those things in mind, and to offer a counter to disrespectful books like these.

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Some great points about anxiety

Revisado: 11-20-24

This book features some great points about anxiety.

First I want to say his audiobook reading is fantastic. He is an engaging speaker and it feels more like a podcast than a script read with the emotion in his voice.

One takeaway is that anxiety is often activated as a result of behaviors that previously served as comforts, which reframes conversations about addictions. One example is if a person smokes a cigarette to relieve their anxiety, then the anxiety will come back with the next cigarette, regardless of the circumstances. Another was thinking of anxiety as "alarm bells" rather than an annoyance. We need anxiety to tell us what's wrong, rather than drown it out with substances or distractions.

The things I didn't like were calling all of his author friends "best-selling author" (how could that be true?), and Dr. John Delony has some possibly dubious accreditations (his Ph.D from Texas Tech is real, but is in counselor supervision in higher education, not in clinical psychology). He also discusses his faith at a few points in the book, which is a huge turnoff for me.

However, those don't necessarily negate the practical information being offered in this book. Take what you like, leave the rest. It's an engaging listen, no doubt. If you're looking for new takes on anxiety management, give it a shot!

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Decent book but left looking for something else

Revisado: 11-20-24

Kathy's detailed descriptions of her life seem relatable at times. Sometimes they border on trauma dumping and don't add useful information to the book. It then pivots to Marijuana Anonymous's 12 Steps, which immediately turned me off. The one thing I did like was the "12 questions" of MA. I highly related to those, as it was no longer fun to smoke, and felt more like a chore than enjoyable moments. However, the MA 12 steps are not going to be my path to sobriety due to religious trauma. Also, I found her voice to be rather deadpan. I'm glad I gave it a listen, and I know this was probably a deeply personal story to share and publish, but this book is not for me. Sorry!

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Great book for sobriety

Revisado: 11-16-24

This book has been an excellent resource for sobriety. 12-step meetings have always mashed that religious trauma button of mine, being they talk frequently about "god", and frequently meet in churches. This book does a great job of translating the god nonsense into practical steps to move towards sobriety. It makes a bit more sense now and I'm glad someone went through the work of explaining the 12 steps in practical terms to spread the message to non-religious people.

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Great blunt advice, but sometimes sexist

Revisado: 07-18-24

The performance of the book was excellent, so I'd like to start with that.

There was some great honest and bluntly stated advice in the book. It is firm on establishing values and enforcing boundaries to protect those values in meeting potential mates. It gives you tools so that you find a great relationship instead of settling into an unhappy one, which often ends in break-ups and divorce. It also talks about how men are financially more liable in divorces, and why it's a good idea to follow the book's advice to ensure men don't get wrapped up in losing our finances to bad relationships. I also liked the section about common signs of mental illness. As someone with one, it is great to make others aware of what lies underneath, whether your date is aware of their mental condition or not. Awareness reduces stigma, and simultaneously informs people to make more holistic decisions about dating someone with a mental illness (or avoid them completely).

I felt there were some hasty generalizations made about women though. Going back to the divorce chapter, it does not consider the emotional toll and vastly increased responsibility that comes with being a single mother post-divorce. I feel it characterizes women as greedy and looking for a payout from child support or splitting assets in divorce. I think most monogamous women want to be in a lifelong relationship full of love and support, and divorce is not a tactical weapon for them, unless they aren't mentally healthy to begin with. There was a section about feminists that was also eye-rolling. Please spare me the platitudes about "don't date women who hate men". They'll date who they find safe, including some men. Some of them aren't interested in men anyways. It also doesn't address the huge power imbalance between women and men when it comes to politics, the workplace, or in dating, among other situations, so I don't think it has any room to criticize feminism. It also characterizes relationships with women in general as a risk, rather than an opportunity. I hope other readers don't walk away from this book justifying their contempt for women.

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This book is gaslighting

Revisado: 03-20-24

The introduction starts out well enough, setting the stage for an introspective conversation. Towards the end of the introduction though, he says something to the effect of "You may have been abused by a spouse or a parent, but you abuse you the most." Wow that is horrible. This man has probably never gone through the pain of domestic violence and living in an abusive home, otherwise he would know never to say something like that to abuse victims.

The first chapter starts with a scripture reading from the book of John, which already made me roll my eyes, but it set up an analogy to how words are powerful. He rightfully calls out how Hitler used words to turn a well-educated population into a fear-driven machine of murder and genocide. Then he pivots to, "if you tell a man he has cancer, and he agrees, then he will have cancer within a year." I cannot even begin to describe how medically inaccurate that is.

I am no longer listening to this book after these statements.

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No substance

Revisado: 01-17-23

This book has no substance. It is a lot of "your brain only does what it is told" like your brain is a computer. In all of human psychological and philosophical knowledge, we have differentiated ourselves from both animals and machines, given the complexity of our ability to comprehend many things at once, and adapt to changing situations. That is not how computers work - that is how brains work.

This book also has a lot of "what if you talked to yourself better?" rhetorical questions but no real tips on how to do so. Sure, we can all use a little pep talk and positive affirmations every now and then, but this doesn't offer any substance beyond suggesting those things.

This book is more "liminal programming" - that is, listen to it in the background while working or driving, and eventually the message may stick. But even then, the message is mostly empty.

Shad is a great narrator, with a pleasant and clear voice. I just wish he had something better to say.

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No substance

Revisado: 01-17-23

This book has no substance. It is a lot of "your brain only does what it is told" like your brain is a computer. In all of human psychological and philosophical knowledge, we have differentiated ourselves from both animals and machines, given the complexity of our ability to comprehend many things at once, and adapt to changing situations. That is not how computers work - that is how brains work.

This book also has a lot of "what if you talked to yourself better?" rhetorical questions but no real tips on how to do so. Sure, we can all use a little pep talk and positive affirmations every now and then, but this doesn't offer any substance beyond suggesting those things.

This book is more "liminal programming" - that is, listen to it in the background while working or driving, and eventually the message may stick. But even then, the message is mostly empty.

Shad is a great narrator, with a pleasant and clear voice. I just wish he had something better to say.

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Excellent book, excellent reading

Revisado: 01-12-23

This is my favorite book of all time. It required me to self-examine my relationships and communication with others to become a more genuinely nice person. It helped me solve a lot of anger I felt in dealing with others, once I began to understand their points of view and why it is important to them.

The reader is fantastic. He helps bring this book to life in a very sophisticated and almost manner. He reminds me of the narrator in A Christmas Story. He’s like a kind grandfather reading to you before bed. This and Carnegie’s sequel were the only two books he ever voiced. Wild.

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