Month: August 2018

After trying for over a month to get through the “12 Rules for Life”, I needed a quick book to get me back on track. The book is a lot shorter, with only 274 pages, and I was extra interested because the author self-published the thing on CreateSpace (Through Amazon).

OK, I’ll give this crazy sucker a shot.

In summary form, I bought “Choose Yourself!” at like 2 AM on 7/11, and had the entire book read by 2 am on 7/12.

Now honestly, I don’t know if I would have had the same reading response had I not just tried to get through the other book. I’m going to be straight forward about a few things: It really wasn’t written that well, I disagree with a lot of James Altucher’s thoughts and beliefs, I think there were parts that were just simply wrong, and there’s a lot of reasons I could see someone saying it wasn’t so hot.. It also could be a bit crude at times and I generally only like “G” rated books, but I’d put this at PG-13.

But on the other hand it was real, refreshing, light hearted. This is the most “personal” writing style I’ve ever experienced. After just one book, I feel like me and the author are friends. I’d say hi to him on the street- I even thought about sending him an email, just because I feel like I know the guy (creepy eh?) Just that factor alone should intrigue some of you enough to read it. It made me think, question my own thoughts, and ultimately I believe it made my life a better place. Any book that improves my life has to get at least a few positive remarks, eh?

If you don’t know James Altucher, the author, he’s a little quirky. His voice is not like a voice you expect to hear reading a storing, and his style is lighthearted and fairly easy to read, although the editing leaves a tiny bit to be desired when a few sections stop you up. In general though its worth the time it takes to read it.

Like many books, James hits a few points that I believe many other experts are pointing out right now such as the idea that the middle class dream is kind of dead, and that if you want to be successful today you have to grab life by the horns and make something of it. I fully agree with this. He then really illustrates the argument that no one is in control of your future but YOU, and the biggest challenge you will face is exactly that- letting someone else control you. I think this is a big deal and something so many of us miss. We expect someone else to bring us happiness and success when the truth is, its in our control- only us. If we aren’t willing to take control of our own lives, then we have no chance of success. We can’t let ourselves be at the mercy of others.

The second thing he does is talks about the importance of the “daily practice”. Honestly the first time or two I read it I thought “oh sooo zen of you- hippie!”. Really, I rolled my eyes and thought of how painful this book was going to be. But by the end I wanted to pat him on the back and say “yes. Yes.”. In a way, this was the perfect book to correct for the “12 rules of life”, not just because he offers 4 rules for life instead, and 4 is easier than 12, but because I think he’s right about the 4 rules. I could mention those 4 “rules” or habits, but then I know what you’d do. 1/2 of you would say “duh” and brush the book off, and the other 4 would say “Hippie” and brush the book off, and I think only James himself can talk about those 4 areas in a way that makes you think “Yes. your right, and I’m going to do it”.

I think he’s right, I think my life is better after reading this book, I think it had an impact on me, and I think I’m going to recommend it as long as you can get past some of the shortcomings.

In this case, I actually urge you to read the paper version and not the audio book. The audiobook oddly doesn’t follow the written book precisely, and its almost more of an audio podcast ABOUT the book than it is the book in audio form.

So if this book is of interest to you, go ahead and check it out on Amazon. Its less than 10 bucks, so what do you have to lose?

Even I sometimes get compelled to try odd books that don’t fit into my normal listening choices, so when I came across “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos”, I thought this was an odd book worthy of my time.

I bought the book on April 17th, 2018 after falling on Amazon’s charts as #1 most read, with a high 4 1/2 stars with 3011 reviews. Sounds like a no brainer eh?

Many of you probably already figured out what I think of this book. You see, I’m the type of person that when I pick up a book, I can’t stop reading it. I often read a book in just a couple of days, eager to soak it all in… but despite the great reviews and the seemingly clear love for this book, its now near the end of July and I have only made it half through. I find myself forcing myself to work through it “just because” I bought it, and finally I came to the realization that if I have to poke and prod myself to read the book over the course of months, I should probably just shelve it and move on to something different.

Now I’m not fully critical.. The first day I was ready to hang up the book but I made myself go through it. Then I got to some of the later chapters… like about “Treating Yourself like someone you are responsible for” and “Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them” that were somewhat engaging, but then I’d move on to another section that was just bland as bland could be. I enjoy learning about apes or chimpanzees and psychological experiments. I don’t like excessive verbosity and simple concepts expressed as profundity. One of my favorite thoughts was the alpha-conversation, because while its not politically correct, it is something I think about frequently. Take your kids for example- in theory we want our kids to be loving and kind, but we subconsciously know that playing an alpha role will probably improve their lives significantly. So what is a parent to do? That thought process was the most valuable take away I had.

And this is what makes it challenging. I actually LIKE many of the arguments the author makes. I think he’s right at many times. I think his 12 rules are suitable. I think the take-away from the book is good.

But when its all said and done, I’d rather read it as a blog post. Or on quora. or in a summary form. There’s simply no value in reading 409 pages on it. The language is unnecessarily complex, and I get that some people love using every single term in the thesaurus, but in this case there’s no value in it. It felt kind of like when one of my students writes a paper and goes through the whole thing looking for every word they can find where they can right click and select “Thesaurus” to find a more complicated word to use just to make themselves sound smarter. In fact it reads somewhat elitist, like what I expect from those journals no one but other college professors actually read… And therefore I urge you to read it like us professors DO read those journals, focusing on the executive summary or abstract, and picking through the rest as you see fit.

But then again I’m the guy frustrated at the author who spends 20 pages describing the color of the coat a character is wearing. He’s wearing a coat- That is all that matters to me. I don’t care if its airy and grey like the tone of charcoal blowing in the wind.

I did like how the author mixes in the bible- while objectively not supporting it, and adolf hitler. These types of integrations give it some level of power, but there are so many conflicting statements and misrepresentations, I couldn’t tell you what is truth and what isn’t… which is probably part of the author’s intent. I can’t even tell you what this guy believes, and thats tough. I’d rather deal with someone I disagree with, than someone where I can’t figure out where they stand.

But I don’t have time for that. Give me fact, or give me opinion, but don’t give me arbitrary statements presented as fact. I don’t have time for that. Speaking of which, I’d recommend avoiding this book, but go ahead and read the 10 rules in summary form. Its probably worth half an hour of your thought. I can however assure you it is not worth 409 pages of thought. There’s too many other great things you could be doing instead.

So this one is “me vs the world”. Amazon reviews say this thing is amazing. Its a best seller right now, and many people seem to love it.

If I failed to talk you out of it, here’s where you can go to get it yourself!