A curious visitor

Only book smart, academic and useless

Revisado: 01-20-24

I expected usable, actionable info. Alas, this sounds like an aloof discussion of the subject from a desk-bound professor talking about what others said and what he had read in books... all theory, zero practical application value. When he described the 6th or so sterile and artificial lab experiment (none of which was useful if you are dealing with real life), spending way too much time detailing which professors of which university did the experiment, as examples of "influence", I could not continue listening. The exact reason I think the education system is going down the drain - full time professors lecturing about stuff they read in books written by other full time professors. It's not 1920 any more... we have the internet now, we don't need walking and talking encyclopedias to be informed about stuff we can read on our own. If you have nothing to add, not an original thought or any experience in practical application, you shouldn't be teaching. Don't waste your money/credits.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

It's not a new book, just an executive summary

Revisado: 12-25-23

I loved The War of Art so I bought this, expecting something new. Well, there is absolutely nothing new here... it's just the executive summary of the (great) book by the same author, The War of Art, it's just a shorter, shallower version of it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Best book I've ever read about nutrition

Revisado: 03-17-22

This book is based on research. A TON of research - decades worth of it. And teaches you not to jump on the lates diet fad based on a single isolated study (which most of them are). It shows you why you can't study nutrition by studying the effects of isolated ingredients, only as a complete system. And it makes easy to understand points and easy to follow recommendations about what is probably the most likely diet to result in better health on the long term.It is based on decades worth of studies from a person who devoted his entire life to that research and refused to toe the party line of "official science" (which changes a lot - margarine, anyone?) or accept industry-sponsored, confusing pseudo-research that isn't meant to help you preserve and improve your health but sell you more of certain types of foods. Real men eat steak, right? Milk for healthy bones? The food industry is the new tobacco industry with its own "Doctors smoke Camels" campaigns, so if you don't want to be fooled, stop listening to the nonsense and read this book for real science.

I changed my own diet immediately after reading the book and started noticing a difference in a matter of days. And despite sleeping less, I don't get tired. Of course there is the possible placebo effect and I am not making any claims, but the book convinced me that the plant based whole food diet it recommends (with nothing to sell you) is probably the healthiest alternative.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Scientific evangelism + a ton of confirmation bias

Revisado: 03-17-22

I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because there are some interesting stories in the book. But the author is a diehard advocate of scientific materialism, and seems to believe that silicone chips are the future of literally everything (including human consciousness) and gleefully dismisses even parts of his own stories that don't support that extreme bias.

An example: the chapter where he tries to make the point that spiritual near death experiences and the resulting changes in attitudes toward life are probably nothing else than brain hallucinations, oxygen deprivation and belong to the same category as epileptic seizures. He illustrates this with two stories, one of his own when he jumped out of a plane with a parachute and saw himself from an out of body perspective, and with the stories of two children who recognized and accurately described medical procedures performed on them and people they encountered while being clinically dead. The author's explanation: "save for the few inexplicable out of body experiences", all of these can be explained by simple biological brain functions, i.e. hallucination. Ahm, what...?

How hardcore a materialist does someone have to be to make such a statement while gleefully ignoring the fact that certain parts of these experiences are impossible to explain in any biological way? Of course he has an answer for that too: we don't yet understand how the neurons in the brain are causing you to see yourself from outside your body while you are clinically dead, but just give us some time, and we will find a biological explanation for that too - no doubt. There is not even a possibility in the author's mind that maybe microscopes and brain scanners won't ever find the "cause" of spiritual experiences in the brain because... it is possible that it ain't there. He liberally substitutes causation for correlation in different parts of the book, and apparently doesn't ever notice the irony of calling that "science".

I couldn't finish the book. It's basically scientific evangelism trying to convince you that science and technology is the answer to EVERYTHING and of course everything that doesn't yet fit in the neat boxes of scientific materialism is "just a matter of time and more research" until it will also surrender to laboratory instruments and finally gain a materialistic explanation.

The only thing I learned from this book is that scientific materialism is a religion, as dogmatic as any, which actually, and comically, is serious about believing it has all the answers and considers itself superior to all other beliefs.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Catchy title, disappointing content

Revisado: 06-11-19

I bought the book due to its title - I thought I was buying a book on how to intensify my focus to "black hole" levels, which would be a great skill for anyone engaged in creative work. Unfortunately, the book didn't have anything that would help me with that.

If you have already read a book on self help or popular psychology, you won't find much, if anything, new in this one.

It is a mix and match collection of popular motivational and goal setting approaches, borrowed from different sources. There was nothing original in this book that I haven't already read elsewhere or can't find on blogs or in free articles with a google search for any topic covered. I would rather call it an organized collection of clippings than an original book.

That said, if you have never read a book or know anything about setting goals, striving to achieve more, managing your life on a very basic level or staying motivated, then this book could serve as a primer.

This is not intended as criticism of the author, who obviously means well and wrote the book with a helpful intent. But based on the title, I expected something else than "goal setting and achievement for dummies" - namely, a book on how to stay focused (which I have a problem with at times). Unfortunately, the book offers very little advice on focus, and none of that was new to me or had anything to do with "intelligent people" (anyone can use the stuff in this book, but hopefully, most "intelligent people" who read regularly have already found out most of it for themselves.)

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great book - torture to listen to as an audiobook

Revisado: 05-21-19

This is a GREAT book. My 1 star review is not for the content, but for the audio book version. Making this book, which heavily relies on illustrations, formulas and equations, and actually refers to them every few minutes was a bad idea and a disservice to the content.

I had no idea what to expect from the book when I bought it. I was very pleasantly surprised by how good the book was, but given that I almost exclusively listen to audio books when driving, and looking at the illustrations while driving is not safe nor practical, it was a very frustrating experience. I will return this and buy the Kindle version instead.

Not all books were meant to be listened to and this is a perfect example of why not. By all means, buy this book and READ it - but go for the text version, not for the audio book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

I am not sure what this book is about...

Revisado: 11-26-18

After listening to it, I was left wondering: what was this book about? Marketing? Sales? Career advice? Motivational stuff?

It is an odd mix of anecdotes, motivational stories, some useful techniques and miscellaneous "stuff". It's more of a list of ideas without a structured approach.

It was odd that it has advice on how to find the best job and how to improve in your job. I doubt that that is useful advice for the target audience of the book. It has some sales tips that are hardly applicable to marketing, with examples on in-person sales. It has some marketing tips. But it has very little new stuff you can't find in mainstream marketing books. Some examples are from the author's own experiences, some are old stories from other books, textbook marketing tactics everyone with any interest in marketing has already heard.

Most of the book has little to do with marketing. So if you are looking for advice on how to market your business creatively, this book doesn't have that.

I got maybe one or two good ideas out of the book (so I wouldn't call it a waste of time). But one thing for sure: the title has little to do with the contents.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Not too deep...

Revisado: 09-14-18

The premise of the book is great - and I fully agree with it. However, the contents are mostly common sense and I personally didn't find anything I didn't already know and wanted to, in this book. I already shared the author's opinion that deep work is important and desirable before I read (listened to) the book. Unfortunately for me, he spends a huge chunk of the book selling the concept, supported by research evidence no one really needs (do we really need the details of dozens of scientific research projects to believe that we get more done when we direct our undivided attention to one focused, deep work?) then proceeds to give okay, but far from groundbreaking advice, such as controlling your schedule, making yourself less accessible to distraction, ignoring social media, etc. The added value in the book would make for a very meaty magazine article, but sadly, it makes a very content-light book that feels padded, with little substance and nothing ground breaking. I believe that my opinion has to do with the fact that the author is in academia, where an original thought, a completed research project, a dissertation, a well documented academic paper, a lecture, etc. is considered a tangible achievement in and of itself, while I'm a business owner i.e. I either get stuff done others are willing to pay for or I don't eat. And deep work has always helped me with that, so I didn't need to be sold on that. If you are a creative or business owner, you don't need or have time for 40 pages to make a simple point. You need the get-to-the-point summary and then you go deep and execute - or you'll be in deep something else.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 102 personas

Nothing new here

Revisado: 08-15-17

Imagine a watered down version of The Four Hour Workweek (which the author is referring to, so he obviously read it) - that's what's in this book. Absolutely nothing you won't find in The Four Hour Workweek, which is a much, much better book on the same subject, with a lot more meat. The only thing I don't understand is that having read that book, why would the author write this one? I guess it's just another passive income source for the author, for the reader, I don't see the point.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Nothing new here

Revisado: 12-02-15

The entirety of this book is regurgitated content you can read in any old motivational book. Unfortunately I can't say I learned a single thing from it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña