Book & Product Reviews · Philosophy

The Alchemist – Book Review

I decided to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho because of so many recommendations I encountered in my reading and possibly from something I saw on YouTube. As with the majority of my reviews I am not going to spoil the book for you by giving you a blow by blow commentary, but focus more on what I perceive as the reasons you should consider reading it.

Book Quality

Before I provide a brief summary of the book I wanted to discuss the physical aspects of the hard cover version I read. Overall the book is very high quality from the cover, quality of the pages, and type. The size of the book is just right 8 1/2 inches high and about 6 inches wide. As mentioned the type quality is pretty good and probably about 11 pitch making the 176 pages easy to read. This version of the book by Paulo Coelho  (Author), was published by HarperCollins translated by Alan R. Clarke, can be found at Amazon costing a bit more than $22 USD and strangely enough the same book in paperback was $27 USD. The author Paulo Coelho has written many books; more about him in the section About the Author below. Buy the hardcover version, the Alan R. Clarke translation; you won’t regret it.

Summary

To start out with The Alchemist was written as a fictional story first, more specifically it is the story of a shepherd boy named Santiago that is on a journey to follow his dreams. His adventures take him far from his home where he meets a number of very interesting characters, and during his travels he experiences a number of personal revelations. While this is a good story, the book has several themes, which are intended to be teaching moments. Some of those key themes include:

  • Our propensity to give up on dreams and call it fate
  • When you want something bad enough the universe conspires to help you achieve it (Law of Attraction)
  • Faith and the importance of religion
  • The importance of pursuing your dreams
  • Omens as a guide on your journey through life
  • How following your dreams is about what you become
  • Life, conflict, and death

This book is only 176 pages long, so something you could read in a day or two. There are some interesting, almost mystical characters that the boy encounters during his adventure. At the end of the book there is an Epilogue and a brief section about our author.

Recommendation

I really enjoyed reading this book and think it lives up to the hype that I had heard about it. I feel that it belongs on this blog site as it is inspirational, has some fairly profound messages, and is fun read. The author paints a picture of this fantastical journey for our hero Santiago. It is really a story about personal growth and the attainment of your dreams.

As often happens to us from time to time we need some inspiration to to either begin or continue following our dreams, The Alchemist can provide that to you. I read the book over a couple of days and couldn’t put it down. In addition to enjoying a good story, I also found inspiration in the numerous not so subtle messages conveyed by the author.

As I mentioned in my opening paragraph I am hesitant to go into the plot, explaining this story in a lot of detail as especially in this case of this book, it would ruin it for you. Reading is about discovery and this story flows and builds upon itself, and if you know all the characters and how it turns out, well then you just won’t enjoy it as much. With that said, if you need a little kick in the ass to start following your dreams, then I would highly recommend The Alchemist.

Note: If you enjoy The Alchemist and I think you will, there is a companion book called Warrior of the Light that I have yet to read, but it is next up for me from the Paulo Coelho library. Here is a little overview from a page on Amazon:

Warrior of the Light is a timeless and inspirational companion to The Alchemist—an international bestseller that has beguiled millions of readers around the world. Every short passage invites us to live out our dreams, to embrace the uncertainty of life, and to rise to our own unique destiny. In his inimitable style, Paulo Coelho helps bring out the Warrior of the Light within each of us. He shows readers how to embark upon the way of the Warrior: the one who appreciates the miracle of being alive, the one who accepts failure, and the one whose quest leads to fulfillment and joy.

Namaste

About the Author

Paulo Coelho de Souza born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002. His novel The Alchemist became an international best-seller and he has published 28 more books since then.

Biography

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and attended a Jesuit school. At 17, Coelho’s parents committed him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho later remarked that “It wasn’t that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn’t know what to do… They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me.” At his parents’ wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started using drugs in the 1960s.

Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs. He is often accused that these songs were rip-offs of foreign songs not well known in Brazil at the time. In 1974, by his account, he was arrested for “subversive” activities and tortured by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.

Coelho married artist Christina Oiticica in 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year in Rio de Janeiro and the other half in a country house in the Pyrenees Mountains of France, but now the couple reside permanently in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1986 Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage. In an interview, Coelho stated “[In 1986], I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water – to use the metaphor in The Alchemist, I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.” Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

The Pilgrim – Story of Paulo Coelho is the international title for the biographical film Não Pare na Pista, a co-production between Brazil’s Drama Films and the Spanish Babel Films, in which the younger and older Coelho are played by two different actors. One of the producers, Iôna de Macêdo, told Screen International: “The film tells the story of a man who has a dream. It’s a little like Alice in Wonderland – he’s someone who is too big for his house.” The film, shot in Portuguese, had its premiere in Brazilian theaters in 2014 and was internationally distributed in 2015.

Read more about the author and a complete list of his books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho

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Book & Product Reviews · Philosophy

Marcus Aurelius MEDITATIONS

I am writing this review of the book Marcus Aurelius MEDITATIONS translated and with an introduction by Gregory Hays. There are a number of translations of Meditations, but this is the one that Ryan Holiday recommended and is considered by many to be the best. I would recommend getting the hard cover version of the book, available at Amazon for around $11. I’ve listened to the audio version, but for me the written version is superior, making it easier to focus and really absorb the information. The hardcover version has very clear type, not too small and easy to read. The book overall is very high quality.

My copy of Meditations with a few bookmarks, well more than a few.

Summary

In this translation of Meditations the introduction is about 50 pages, not a trivial amount of reading. I would recommend reading the introduction at least once, as it contains a lot of historical information about the times and about the author Marcus Aurelius. The introduction also helps you understand the origin of this book.

A little background on Marcus Aurelius:

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.”

“Marcus Aurelius was born during the reign of Hadrian to the emperor’s nephew, the praetor Marcus Annius Verus, and the heiress Domitia Calvilla. His father died when he was three, and his mother and grandfather raised him. After Hadrian’s adoptive son, Aelius Caesar, died in 138, the emperor adopted Marcus’s uncle Antoninus Pius as his new heir. In turn, Antoninus adopted Marcus and Lucius, the son of Aelius. Hadrian died that year, and Antoninus became emperor. Now heir to the throne, Marcus studied Greek and Latin under tutors such as Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. He married Antoninus’s daughter Faustina in 145.”

Written during his rule as Emperor of Rome, Meditations was never intended to be a book, let alone read by anyone else. It is the intimate thoughts captured on paper by Marcus Aurelius. Written as a personal journal so that Marcus could capture his thoughts and the challenges he faced during his rule as an Emperor, the writing is often short notations organized as books and versus. Here is an example:

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. But death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all  these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful-and hence neither good nor bad.” Marcus Aurelius Meditations 2:11

If you omit the introduction there are only 191 pages in this translation of Meditations, making this a book you could read in a day or two. In all there are twelve books, that could be thought of as chapters in Meditations. When I first obtained this book, I would read one chapter a day, but later on during subsequent readings I might read a page or two in the morning. I’ve read the book 5 times now, and intend to keep reading it into the foreseeable future. My copy of Meditations sits right next to the Tao Te Ching, which is another one of my favorite books. I would often read a couple versus from each of these books in the morning.

Recommendation

There are no words to describe what an incredible book that Meditations is. Meditations reveals what a great ruler Marcus Aurelius was and if you know anything about some of the others that ruled the Roman Empire, then you will understand what a rare person he was. Marcus Aurelius is regarded as one of the great stoics including Seneca, Epictetus, Zeno Of Citium, Chrysippus, and Diogenes of Babylon. Marcus was a philosopher Emperor, not a likely profession from which one of the greatest stoics of all time would be born.

Having read hundreds of books in the last 20 years, I rate Marcus Aurelius Meditations as one of the top 5 books I have ever read. This is the kind of book you should read in small increments on a daily basis if possible. The stoic philosophy that screams out from every page will change your life. I’m sure if Marcus Aurelius knew that millions of copies of his journal were read by so many people he would turn over in his grave. It is our good fortune that it survived and we have the good the opportunity to be enriched by it.

What can reading Meditations do for you?

Well throughout history being a human being has been a struggle. There has been plenty of pain, suffering, and death that we all face. The Stoics viewed virtue as the primary goal in life, expressed as wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. Meditations will address all of these virtues and help you cope with your own challenges. What more can you ask from a book?

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

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Book & Product Reviews

In the Buddha’s Words

Summary

This review of “In the Buddha’s Words” will undoubtedly be a bit longer than many of my other posts. If you haven’t guessed by now I am more than a little interested in Buddhism, which you can find out more about on my other blog thestoicbuddhist. I have the soft cover version of the book, which is 485 pages. The books has high quality print and the font is not too small, making it very readable. The book starts out with a forward by the Dalai Lama, then a preface, list of abbreviations, key to pronunciation in Pali, and a detailed list of the contents of the book. This is a scholarly explanation and exploration of discourses in the Pali Canon. The book is divided into 10 sections and each section includes a somewhat lengthy introduction that helps provide a better understanding of the the text in the Pali Canon.

The Pali Canon represents the words of the Buddha, more specifically his teachings, which his followers had committed to memory and recited to each other. Within the Pali Canon texts know as the Nikayas are the earliest cohesive collection of the Buddha’s teaching in his own words. The preface goes into a lot of great detail about how the Pali Cannon is organized and a good bit of history. Bikkhu Bodhi hand selected the texts for this book and has ordered the chapters in a way that build upon each other. To give you an idea of the concepts that are included in the book here are the 10 sections:

  1. The Human Condition
  2. The Bringer of Light
  3. Approaching the Dhamma
  4. The Happiness Visible In This Present Life
  5. The Way To A Fortunate Rebirth
  6. Deepening One’s Perspective On The World
  7. The Path To Liberation
  8. Mastering The Mind
  9. Shinning The Light Of Wisdon
  10. The Planes Of Realization

Of course I could not help myself from bookmarking and highlighting some of the Buddha’s teachings, such as in Chapter 3 Approaching The Dhamma on page 88:

“These three things, monks, are conducted in secret, not openly. What three? Affairs with women, the mantras of the brahmins, and wrong view. But these three things, monks, shine openly, not in secret. What three? The moon, the sun, and the Dhamma and Discipline proclaimed by the Tathagata.”

Without going into all the details the Buddha speaks of the Five Precepts in Chapter 5, The Way To A Fortunate Rebirth, page 173. Note: I am using the location in the book and not in the Pali Canon.

“There are further, monks, these five gifts pristine, of long standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated and never before adulterated, that are not being adulterated and that will not be adulterated, not despised by wise ascetics and brahmins. What are these five gifts?”

“Here, monks, a noble disciple gives up the destruction of life and abstains from it.”

“Further monks, a noble disciple gives up the taking of what is not given, and abstains from it.”

“Further monks, a noble disciple gives up sexual misconduct and abstains from it.”

“Further monks, a noble disciple gives up false speech and abstains from it.”

“Further monks, a noble disciple gives up wines, liquors, and intoxicants, the basis for negligence, and abstains from them.”

There are many of the Buddha’s teachings to numerous to mention contained in this book, along with The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold path as you would expect. In explaining the difference between the Tathagata (Buddha) and a monk liberated by wisdom, the Buddha said:

“The Tathagata, monks, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, is the originator of the path unarisen before, the producer of the path unproduced before, the declarer of the path undeclared before. He is the knower of the path, the discoverer of the path, the one skilled in the path. And his disciples now dwell following that path and become possessed of it afterward.”

Recommendation

I really enjoyed reading this book and the author Bhikkhu Bodhi does a great job of setting up sections of the book mentioned above. His introductions are quite lengthy and I sometimes found myself skipping some of this text in a hurry to read what the Buddha had to say. If someone was new to Buddhism, I would not recommend this book as there are many other books that are easier to read that would prepare someone for what is basically excerpts from the Pali Canon. For the novice of Buddhism, you will not be introduced to the history of Buddhism or various flavors of Buddhism, but if you already have a good grasp of the religion then I would recommend this book to you. On reading the text presented from the Pali Cannon, you will find that the Buddha’s teaching contained a lot of repetition that can sometimes be painful to read, but this is easily overcome as you can skip ahead to the next paragraph.

Overall this is a great presentation of selected texts from the Pali Canon organized in a logical fashion. It is obvious that the author has an in-depth knowledge of the books (Nikayas) that make up the Pali Canon. For me this was an opportunity to read what the Buddha said, not some modern day interpretation of what the Buddha said. If you are a student of Buddhism, I would classify this as a must read. This is a book that you can read over and over again, providing new insights with each reading.

Namaste

Check out my companion blog The Stoic Buddhist for more on Buddhism, Philosophy, and Stoicism.

Book & Product Reviews · Philosophy

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck

Overview

Well here we go again, another book making use of the word Fuck. You might remember another book review I did on Unfu*ck Yourself by Gary John Bishop. This book The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson was a book I read partially a couple years ago. More recently I ran into a review of this book on YouTube by the author and decided to give it another try. It turns out this book is pretty good and kind of got me out of a funk I was feeling.

Don’t let the title fool you, it’s not about meandering your way through life and not giving a shit about anything, far from it. One of the key messages is stop giving a fuck about everything. When you give a fuck about all the little things in life, you lose focus on what is really important. The author encourages you to seek out your values and ruthlessly give a fuck about them, but stop giving a fuck about all the other bullshit that is occurring around you. In the span of a few sentences I have said the “F” word way too many times. Let’s take this in another direction and substitute care for fuck.

These values may relate to some aspect of your work, spending more time with your family, a hobby your are passionate about, or anything you consider important, with the caveat that it cannot be everything. That’s the problem if you care about everything you drive yourself and everyone around you crazy.

Another key concept in the book is this idea that we are all pursuing happiness often via pleasurable or hedonistic experiences. You know spending time on vacation, drinking, smoking pot, chasing men or women, or buying shit. All of these things seem fine for a while, but ultimately leave us feeling somewhat empty and consequently we really aren’t all that happy. The author contends it is the challenges in life that present us with problems to solve that truly makes us happy. It’s not that happiness is bad, but the fact that we value it so much and we orient our lives to try to achieve some constant state of happiness that is the issue. Maybe it’s really those times where you achieved something like getting that job you wanted, pursuing a degree, starting that business that took 2 years to become profitable, or any other goal you had set that aligned with your values that really brought you a sense of satisfaction. It was the struggle, overcoming the problems, and this is where you look back and say this thing I achieved brought me happiness.

There are some other interesting topics explored in this book that reinforces the two concepts we just explored, like you are always making choices, suffering is underrated, failing is good, your not really that special, and we all die in the end. Listen, I don’t want to spoil things for you by reviewing every chapter, so I’m going to leave the rest for you to discover.

Recommendation

If you can get by the first couple chapters of using the “F” word in mega doses then I would recommend you read this book. I have the hardcover version and the type is decent size and the book itself is of high quality. Mark Manson interjects a fair amount of humor in his writing, so not only are you learning, also but being entertained at the same time. Here’s the thing he is brutally honest about the fact that we seem to be seeking a life of bliss, when in reality life has way more suffering and overcoming obstacles in store for all of us. This is not a self help book to help you make more money or reach Nirvana, but instead kind of a kick in the ass to help you set your priorities and determine what the hell is important to you. Once you have done this you can truly not give a fuck about some of those things that annoying the hell out of you on a day to day basis.

If you have read this book, I would love to hear your take on it, so just drop me a comment.

Namaste

Audio Books · Book & Product Reviews · Philosophy

Tao Te Ching

I have a couple different versions of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, one is the print copy translated by Jonathan Star “The New Translation From Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition” and I also have a wonderful Audible version “Tao Te Ching” read and translated by Stephen Mitchell. Both of these versions are excellent translations and worthy of a read or listen. It is believed that Lao Tzu, who was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer was the author of the Tao Te Ching written around 500 B.C. The story is that he was leaving his province in China on a horse when he was asked by the towns people to write down his wisdom before embarking on this trip. He spent the next couple days writing the Tao Te Ching consisting of 81 verses or chapters.

Summary

Now that you have a bit of history I will make an attempt to summarize this book. Let me first start with I have read hundreds of books and this little book some 102 pages is in my top 5. In fact, I read a couple verses from it every morning. The soft cover version costs a whopping 10 USD. While I enjoy the Audible version, I recommend getting the written version, which you could read cover to cover in a couple hours of less. The key to understanding the Tao Te Ching is to try to grasp the concept of the Tao. You might think of Tao as the path or the way. The Tao can also be thought of as the underlying life force or for me the nature of things. This little book addresses how you should live in accordance with the Tao, and the philosophy conveyed is not confined to individuals, but to the greater society and government as a whole. The Tao Te Ching had such an impact on the world that it spawned a whole movement called Taoism, that still exists today. You would be hard pressed when reading this book to find any verse that is not profound, this is the true genius of this work. I think to make my point I will share Verse 1 from the Jonathan Star translation:

Verse 1

A way that can be walked in not The Way
A name that can be named is not The Name

Tao is both Named and Nameless
As Nameless, it is the origin of all things
As Named, it is the mother of all things

A mind free of thought, merged within itself, beholds the essence of Tao
A mind filled with thought, identified with its own perceptions, beholds the mere forms of the world

Tao and this world seem different but in truth they are the same
The only difference is in what we call them

There are many themes in the Tao Te Ching that will remind you of the teachings of the Buddha such as less is more, living in accordance with nature, and that much of our suffering is self imposed from an attachment to desire. If you are already a fan of Stoicism or Buddhism this book will resonate with you.

Conclusion

As you may have noticed already, I am a big fan of the Tao Te Ching. There is absolutely nothing that I don’t love about this book, except to wish it was longer. This is the kind of book that could change your life if you let it permeate your consciousness. It is a recipe for living and for society, that has withstood the test of time and will live on long after we have left this world.

Book & Product Reviews · Philosophy

Heavy Duty II: Mind And Body

Summary

As someone who has lifted weights for years, I thought it might be a good time to review a book on the subject. This review is on the book “Heavy Duty II: Mind And Body” by Mike Mentzer. I recently re-read this book looking for some inspiration and possibly to change the way I was training as my results were less than outstanding. This book is as much a philosophical experience as it is a book on exercise science. Mike Mentzer goes into a lot of detail dispelling the myths that the bodybuilding community has been pushing such as the number of sets and training frequency needed to build muscle. He often refers to the work of philosophers and authors particularly Ayn Rand. The first couple of chapters are really about philosophy where discussions of the scientific approach to exercise and life make up the majority of those chapters. Mentzer focuses on man’s rational mind and the need to prove out what works by using a scientific approach.

Mike Mentzer’s approach, in a nutshell, is that most of us are overtraining and not giving our bodies enough time to adapt to the stress and grow. He goes into great detail based on his experience with people that he has trained why we need to regulate the frequency of training. The other primary theme is that we are doing too many exercises and too many sets. Mike advocates we do one or two warmup sets and then a set to failure. The premise here is that the set to failure insures that you have created the exact amount of stress to stimulate growth, no more or no less. To illustrate these concepts the following is an example of a routine from the book:

  • Monday – Chest & Back
  • Friday – Legs
  • Tuesday – Delts & Arms
  • Saturday – Legs (again)

Notice there are 3 days of not training between a scheduled workout and then an additional 1/2 day off on each of the training days. So let’s say you train at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, then have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday off, and train again on Friday at 4:00 p.m. you have 4 days between training sessions or 4 x 24 = 96 hours. This is your target no less than 96 hours between brief but intense training to failure sessions. Each session will only include 3 – 5 exercises with 1 set to failure on each exercise.

What I really liked:

This book will challenge what you have always been told, mostly around how many sets you need to stimulate growth and probably your premise that if I only train every 4 or 5 days that I will lose muscle (detrain). If you read the book carefully Mike Mentzer provides evidence from hundreds of his clients that will help you feel more comfortable giving it a try. I know I was initially skeptical, but over the course of a couple months, I quit worrying about it and found I was getting better results, working out of shorter periods of time, and working out less frequently. So a big bonus here is you might actually get to the point where you are only working out with weights once a week and you spend the rest of the time recovering, growing, and have time for other things.

What was challenging:

The first two or three chapters are very much a journey into Objectivism and rational thinking. It turns out Mike Mentzer was not just some crazy steroid taking bodybuilder, but he was actually a pretty well-read philosophical thinker. I am a great lover of Ayn Rand and her philosophy, but even I found the first few chapters a challenge to read, but hang in there it all comes together by chapter 4. The chapters focused on science and philosophy actually help you begin to challenge what you believed about bodybuilding and ultimately you will apply a more scientific approach to your training.

Recommendation:

I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone whos training has hit a plateau. It is likely you are either overtraining or maybe just going through the motions and not training as intensely as possible. Instead of just advocating 3 to 5 sets and countless exercises, the author makes the case for using a scientific approach to your training an approach based on data and inspection versus just following the herd. Once you get past the first couple chapters it becomes a pretty easy read; the paperback version I have is only 163 pages so this is something you could read in a day or two.

Enjoy!

 

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About the Author

Mike Mentzer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Mike Mentzer
Bodybuilder
Mike Mentzer.jpg

Historical photo of Mike Mentzer
Personal info
Born November 15, 1951[1]
Ephrata, Pennsylvania, US[2]
Died June 10, 2001 (aged 49)[3]
Rolling Hills, California, US[3]
Professional career
Pro-debut
Best win
Predecessor Robby Robinson
Successor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mike Mentzer (November 15, 1951 – June 10, 2001) was an American IFBB professional bodybuilder, businessman and author.[1][3]

Early life and education[edit]

Mike Mentzer was born on November 15, 1951 in Ephrata, Pennsylvania and grew up there. In grammar school and Ephrata High School, he received “all A’s”, He credits his 12th grade teacher, Elizabeth Schaub, for his love “of language, thought, and writing.” In 1975, he started attending the University of Maryland as a pre-med student where his hours away from the gym were spent in the study of “genetics, physical chemistry, and organic chemistry.” After three years he left the university. He said his ultimate goal during that period was to become a psychiatrist.[1][5]

Bodybuilding career[edit]

Amateur[edit]

Mentzer started bodybuilding when he was 12 years of age at a body weight of 95 lb (43 kg) after seeing the men on the covers of several muscle magazines. His father had bought him set of weights and an instruction booklet. The booklet suggested that he train no more than three days a week, so Mike did just that. By age 15, his body weight had reached 165 lb (75 kg), at which Mike could bench press 370 lb (170 kg). Mike’s goal at the time was to look like his bodybuilding hero, Bill Pearl. After graduating high school, Mentzer served four years in the United States Air Force. It was during this time he started working out over three hours a day, six days a week.[1]

Mentzer started competing in local physique contests when he was 18 years old and attended his first contest in 1969. In 1971, Mentzer entered and won the Mr. Lancaster contest. In 1971 he suffered his worst defeat, placing 10th at the AAU Mr. America, which was won by Casey Viator. Mentzer considered his presence at this contest important later on, as he met Viator, who gave Mentzer the contact information for his trainer Arthur Jones. Due to a severe shoulder injury, he was forced to quit training from 1971 to 1974. In early 1975, however, he resumed training and returned to competition in 1975 at the Mr. America contest, placing third behind Robby Robinson and Roger Callard. Mentzer went on to win that competition the next year, in 1976. He won the 1977 North America championships in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and competed a week later at the 1977 Mr. Universe in Nîmes, France, placing second to Kal Szkalak. In 1978, Mentzer won the Mr. Universe in AcapulcoMexico with the first and only perfect 300 score. He became a professional bodybuilder after that 1978 Universe win.[1][2]

Professional[edit]

In late 1979, Mentzer won the heavyweight class of the Mr. Olympia, again with a perfect 300 score, but he lost in the overall to Frank Zane who was awarded the title for a third time that year. In the 1980 Mr. Olympia he placed fourth (in a tie with Boyer Coe) behind Arnold SchwarzeneggerChris Dickerson and Frank Zane.[6]

Retirement[edit]

He retired from competitive bodybuilding after that show at the age of 29. He maintained that the contest was rigged until the day he died. While he never said he thought that he should have won, he maintained that Arnold should not have, though he eventually got on good terms with Schwarzenegger.[6][1]

Legacy[edit]

In 2002, Mentzer was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame.[2]

Bodybuilding philosophy[edit]

Mentzer was an Objectivist and insisted that philosophy and bodybuilding are one and the same. He said “Man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of mind and body.” Thus, his books contain as much philosophy as they do bodybuilding information.[1]

Mentzer took the bodybuilding concepts developed by Arthur Jones and attempted to perfect them. Through years of study, observation, knowledge of stress physiology, the most up-to-date scientific information available, and careful use of his reasoning abilities, Mentzer devised and successfully implemented his own theory of bodybuilding. Mentzer’s theories are intended to help a drug-free person achieve his or her full genetic potential within the shortest amount of time.[7]

High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way was Mentzer’s final work. In it, he detailed the principles of high intensity weight training. Weight training, he insisted, had to be brief, infrequent, and intense, to attain the best results in the shortest amount of time. Heavy Duty II also espouses critical thinking. In this book, Mentzer shows why people need to use their reasoning ability to live happy, mature, adult lives, and he shows readers how to go about doing so. Bodybuilding was endorsed as only one potential component of an individual’s existence, encouraging many other worthwhile pursuits throughout his books.[8]

Diet and nutrition[edit]

Diet has always been as important, if not more, as weight-training for bodybuilders. However, in his book Heavy Duty Nutrition, Mentzer demonstrated that nutrition for athletes did not need to be nearly as extreme as the bodybuilding industry would lead one to believe. His recommended diets were well balanced, and he espoused eating from all four food groups, totaling four servings each of high-quality grains and fruits, and two each of dairy and protein daily, all year-round.[9]

Mentzer believed that carbohydrates should make up the bulk of the caloric intake, 50–60%, rather than protein as others preferred. Mentzer’s reasoning was simple: to build 10 pounds of muscle in a year, a total of 6000 extra calories needed to be ingested throughout the year, because one pound of muscle contains 600 calories. That averages 16 extra calories per day, and only four of them needed to be from protein—because muscle is 22% protein, about one quarter.[9]

Mentzer’s heavy-duty training system[edit]

While Mike Mentzer served in the US Air Force, he worked 12-hour shifts, and then followed that up with ‘marathon workouts’ as was the accepted standard in those days. In his first bodybuilding contest, he met the winner, Casey Viator. Mentzer learned that Viator trained in very high intensity (heavy weights for as many repetitions as possible, to total muscle fatigue), for very brief (20–45 minutes per session) and infrequent training sessions. Mentzer also learned that Viator almost exclusively worked out with the relatively new Nautilus machines, created and marketed by Arthur Jones in DeLand, Florida. Mentzer and Jones soon met and became friends.[10]

Jones pioneered the principles of high-intensity training in the late 1960s. He emphasized the need to maintain perfectly strict form, move the weights in a slow and controlled manner, work the muscles to complete failure (positive and negative), and avoid overtraining. Casey Viator saw fantastic results training under the direction of Jones, and Mentzer became very interested in this training philosophy.[10] Eventually, however, Mentzer concluded that even Jones was not completely applying his own principles, so Mentzer began investigating a more full application of them. He began training clients in a near-experimental manner, evaluating the perfect number of repetitions, exercises, and days of rest to achieve maximum benefits.[7]

For more than ten years, Mentzer’s Heavy Duty program involved 7–9 sets per workout on a three-day-per-week schedule.[7] With the advent of “modern bodybuilding” (where bodybuilders became more massive than ever before) by the early 1990s, he ultimately modified that routine until there were fewer working sets and more days of rest. His first breakthrough became known as the ‘Ideal (Principled) Routine’, which was a fantastic step in minimal training. Outlined in High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, fewer than five working sets were performed each session, and rest was emphasized, calling for 4–7 days of recovery before the next workout.[8] According to Mentzer, biologists and physiologists since the nineteenth century have known that hypertrophy is directly related to intensity, not duration, of effort (Mentzer 2003;39). Most bodybuilding and weightlifting authorities do not take into account the severe nature of the stress imposed by heavy, strenuous resistance exercise carried to the point of positive muscular failure.[7]

Mentzer’s training courses (books and audio tapes), sold through bodybuilding magazines, were extremely popular, beginning after Mentzer won the 1978 IFBB Mr. Universe contest. This contest gathered a lot of attention, because at it he became the first bodybuilder ever to receive a perfect 300 score from the judges. Some time later, Mentzer attracted more attention when he introduced Dorian Yates to high-intensity training, and put him through his first series of workouts in the early ’90s.[7] Yates went on to win the Mr. Olympia six consecutive times, from 1992 to 1997.

Contest history[edit]

  • 1971 Mr. Lancaster – 1st
  • 1971 AAU Mr. America – 10th
  • 1971 AAU Teen Mr America – 2nd
  • 1975 IFBB Mr. America – 3rd (Medium)
  • 1975 ABBA Mr. USA – 2nd (Medium)
  • 1976 IFBB Mr. America – 1st (Overall)
  • 1976 IFBB Mr. America – 1st (Medium)
  • 1976 IFBB Mr. Universe – 2nd (MW)
  • 1977 IFBB North American Championships – 1st (Overall)
  • 1977 IFBB North American Championships – 1st (MW)
  • 1977 IFBB Mr. Universe – 2nd (HW)
  • 1978 IFBB USA vs the World – 1st (HW)
  • 1978 IFBB World Amateur Championships – 1st (HW)
  • 1979 IFBB Canada Pro Cup – 2nd
  • 1979 IFBB Florida Pro Invitational – 1st
  • 1979 IFBB Night of Champions – 3rd
  • 1979 IFBB Mr. Olympia – 1st (HW)
  • 1979 IFBB Pittsburgh Pro Invitational – 2nd
  • 1979 IFBB Southern Pro Cup – 1st
  • 1980 IFBB Mr. Olympia – 5th

Personal life[edit]

Atheism[edit]

Mentzer was an atheist,[11] and stated in the last interview before his death that he did not believe in God, heaven, hell, or any kind of afterlife.[12]

Objectivism[edit]

While in school, Mentzer’s father motivated his academic performance by providing him with various kinds of inducements, from a baseball glove to hard cash. Years later, Mike said that his father “unwittingly … was inculcating in me an appreciation of capitalism.”[1]

According to David M. Sears, a friend of Mentzer and an editor and publisher of his Muscles in Minutes book, he stated that:[1]

As you know, Mike was a voracious reader of philosophy in college-so that would put him at, say 18 years old, in 1970. He read the more traditional philosophers then, and “probably” didn’t fully embrace Ayn Rand until the mid- or later 1980s (since none of his writings mentioned her until at least the mid-80s if not later). In my opinion, Mike’s ideas on bodybuilding were “allowed” to emerge because of his Objectivism. His approach to critical thought, analytical thinking, and knowing there is one truth, all allowed him to buck conventional thought and push onward with his own mental effort.

— David M. Sears[1]

Regarding what he learned from Ayn Rand, Mentzer said in an interview:[1]

Learning logic and acquiring the ability to think critically is not easy, though not impossibly difficult. I learned how to do these things by reading and “digesting” the works of novelist/philosopher, Ayn Rand. To get started on the proper, methodical path read her books of explicit philosophic essays Philosophy: Who Needs It— especially the Introduction and the first two chapters – and The Romantic Manifesto – especially the second chapter, “Philosophy and Sense of Life.” After reading and re-reading the first couple of chapters from each of those books, put them aside for a while and read her two epochally great novels–The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, in that respective order. Just as is true with any other context of knowledge, philosophy must be studied in a logically structured order …

— Mike Mentzer[1]

In his last interview before his death, Mentzer said he was delighted to get so many phone clients and close personal bodybuilding friends, such as Markus Reinhardt, who had been influenced by him to become Objectivists. He described Objectivism as the best philosophy ever devised. He also criticized the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which he described as an “evil philosophy,” because according to him Kant set out to destroy man’s mind by undercutting his confidence in reason. He also criticized the teaching of Kantianism in schools and universities and said it’s very difficult for an Objectivist philosopher with a PhD to get a job in any of the universities.[12]

Final years and death[edit]

In the late ’80s, Mentzer returned to training bodybuilders and writing for Iron Man magazine and spent much of the 1990s regaining his stature in the bodybuilding industry. Mike had met Dorian Yates in the 1980s and made an impression on Dorian’s bodybuilding career. Years later when Yates won Joe Weider’s “Mr. Olympia”, he credited Mike’s “Heavy Duty” principles for his training. Mike, his brother Ray, and Dorian formed a clothing company called “MYM” for Mentzer Yates Mentzer, also known as “Heavy Duty Inc”, in 1994. MYM was based on the success of Don Smith’s “CrazeeWear” bodybuilding apparel. The three principals wanted to capitalize on the physically fit lifestyle, which today has gone mainstream. With the blessing and promotion of Joe Weider, the trio manufactured and distributed their own line of cut-and-sew sportswear.[1]

Mentzer died on June 10, 2001 in Rolling Hills, California. He was found dead in his apartment, due to heart complications, by his younger brother and fellow bodybuilder Ray Mentzer. Two days later, Ray died from complications from his long battle with Berger’s disease.[3]

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Book Review – Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life

I encourage you to check out this book review and other posts by Joshua Best.

JOSH KNOWS BEST

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life by Massimo Pigliucci

Science provides us with a perspective on the world, not with a God’s-eye view of things. It gives us an irreducibly human, and therefore to some extent subjective—yet certainly not arbitrary—view of the universe.

Massimo Pigliucci

I enjoyed Pigliucci’s piece on “how science and philosophy lead us to a more meaningful life” as a welcome counterattack against the rampant abuse of the psychology of positive thinking we find in the self-help books and guides of today.

If you approach the text with an open mind, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the new perspective you can gain from his secular, science-based and arguably atheistic interpretation on the meaning of life. You may not agree with Massimo, but that’s okay. What he offers you is an acceptable…

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Audio Books · Book & Product Reviews

The Three Pillars of Zen – Philip Kapleau

The Three Pillars of Zen

Summary

It is a real joy to review the Three Pillars of Zen by Roshi Philip Kapleau. I have listened to this book on Audible several times and read a paperback version. The book is fairly long with the paperback being 441 pages and the audio version 14 hours and 27 minutes. The book covers in detail the practice of Zazen or what some might call meditation in great detail. While I am equating Zazen to meditation the author makes a distinction that Zazen is not traditional meditation. Roshi Philip Kaplan spent over 14 years in Japan studying Zen from the masters, most notably Yasutani Roshi. There is also a historical account of the great Dogen along with sources of information presented from both the Rinzai and Soto Zen disciplines perspectives. Much of this book is about the Yasautani Roshi’s encounters with Western students documented in painstaking detail by Roshi Philip Kapleau.

This book is not for the faint of heart as it seeks to express how Zen was practiced in the monasteries of Japan, going into details about the day to day life of a Roshi and Monks. Roshi Kaplan delves deep into the history of Zen and the goal of Zen Buddhism, which is Satori or enlightenment.

What I liked about this book

The incredible level of detail that went into capturing the sessions between students and Yasutani Roshi is truly astounding as it has never been done before. These interactions show the true value of a student having a Roshi and the wisdom of Yasutani Roshi. This elevates this book beyond that of just a lecture or philosophical discussion from an expert in Zen Buddhism to the exposure of true learning. Another thing that I really liked was the Afterword about how Zen has spread to the West, in particular, the United States and how it is practiced differently due to the differences in culture between East and West.

What was challenging about this book

There are a lot of dialogs here between the students and Yasutani Roshi, and it can be a chore to read, although it lends itself quite well to an audiobook format. The instruction on Zazen, that addresses so many aspects and even includes questions from students is a bit long-winded. It must be understood that Zen practitioners practice a form of meditation that is extremely exacting and it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I wouldn’t say that would stop anyone from appreciating it.

Recommendation:

If you have an interest in Zen Buddhism I highly recommend this book. While there have been many books written about Zen, this has to be in the top 5 and presents the most detailed accounts of Zen practice that I have ever read. Even if your interest isn’t exclusively in Zen Buddhism, but just in Buddhism, in general, I would read this book as there is so much that you can take away from it to enhance your own practice. I will give you an example, while I do not like some aspects of how Zazen is practiced, namely with eyes open (blurred or unfocused) and looking forward on the floor about 3 feet away. On the other hand, I heartedly agreed that the path to enlightenment is through practice, not theory, and this assertion was stressed throughout this wonderful book.

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About the Author

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kapleau

Philip Kapleau (August 20, 1912 – May 6, 2004) was a teacher of Zen Buddhism in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition, a blending of Japanese Sōtō and Rinzai schools.

He trained initially with Soen Nakagawa, then rigorously with Daiun Harada at the temple Hosshin-ji. Later he became a disciple of Hakuun Yasutani, a dharma heir of Harada. After 13 years’ training, Kapleau was ordained by Yasutani in 1965 and given permission to teach. Kapleau ended his relationship with Yasutani formally in 1967 over disagreements about teaching and other personal issues. According to James Ishmael Ford, “Kapleau had completed about half of the Harada-Yasutani kōan curriculum, the koans in the Gateless Gate and the Blue Cliff Record,” and was entitled to teach, but did not receive dharma transmission. According to Andrew Rawlinson, “Kapleau has created his own Zen lineage.”

During a book tour in 1965 he was invited to teach meditation at a gathering in Rochester, New York[citation needed]. In 1966 he left Japan to create the Rochester Zen Center.

For almost 40 years, Kapleau taught at the Center and in many other settings around the world, and provided his own dharma transmission to several disciples. He also introduced many modifications to the Japanese Zen tradition, such as chanting the Heart Sutra in the local language, English in the U.S., or Polish at the Center he founded in Katowice. He often emphasized that Zen Buddhism adapted so readily to new cultures because it was not dependent upon a dogmatic external form. At the same time he recognized that it was not always easy to discern the form from the essence, and one had to be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

He suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for several years. While his physical mobility was reduced, he enjoyed lively and trenchant interactions with a steady stream of visitors throughout his life. On May 6, 2004, he died peacefully in the backyard of the Rochester Zen Center, surrounded by many of his closest disciples and friends.

Kapleau transcribed other Zen teachers’ talks, interviewed lay students and monks, and recorded the practical details of Zen Buddhist practice. His book, The Three Pillars of Zen, published in 1965, has been translated into 12 languages, and is still in print. It was one of the first English-language books to present Zen Buddhism not as philosophy, but as a pragmatic and salutary way of training and living. Michael Alan Singer, New York Times bestselling author and former CEO of WebMD, identified that the Three Pillars of Zen was the source which embarked him on his spiritual journey.

Kapleau was an articulate and passionate writer. His emphasis in writing and teaching was that insight and enlightenment are available to anyone, not just austere and isolated Zen monks. Also well known for his views on vegetarianism, peace and compassion, he remains widely read, and is a notable influence on Zen Buddhism as it is practiced in the West. Today, his dharma heirs and former students teach at Zen centers around the world.

Book & Product Reviews · Self Help

Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Quit Smoking

Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking

Summary

If you are a smoker, you might have entertained quitting, and you may be aware of the book that Allen Carr wrote called Easy Way To Stop Smoking. Now if you are not a smoker, but know someone who would benefit from quitting, then read on. I just finished the Kindle version of the book, but have also read the paperback version which is a little over 200 pages long. The premise of the book is that we continue to smoke because we don’t really understand why and that we perceive we are getting some positive benefit from smoking. He talks about the Little Monster and the Big Monster a lot in this book. The Little Monster being the addiction to nicotine and the Big Monster being our psychological dependence on smoking, with the Little Monster being a mere 1% of the problem, and the Big Monster being 99% of the problem. Now given that I’ve read this book three times, I might be a bit slow on the uptake, but you know they say three times is a charm. He goes on to cite all the people that he has helped quit smoking, some of them celebrities.

The author also makes a great point that using nicotine replacement therapy as it is called, is flat out bullshit. Why would you want to continue to feed the Little and Big Monsters and keep yourself a prisoner to the physical and psychological addiction by putting nicotine in your body, then as the levels drop having to do it over and over. Having experience doing this myself, I can tell you it is a losing proposition that just perpetuates the addiction.

He encourages you to keep smoking while you are reading the book, which I found be a reasonable, if a not so subtle way for you to analyze why you’re are smoking and if you are really getting any pleasure out of it. His own realization came after decades of smoking two packs a day. He finally realized why he was smoking and understood the fact that he received not a single benefit from it, and just stopped cold turkey. He went on to share this realization with other people, writing this book and opening Allen Carr
Quit Smoking Centers all over the world.

What I liked about this book

This book helps you understand that fear is keeping  you hostage to this addiction. You think if I quit I will suffer, when the truth is the nicotine addiction is really fairly mild to overcome. The suffering is mostly the psychological relationship you have developed over the years with smoking. He rightly points out that there are no positive attributes to smoking and the mild relief you get when you light up is just satisfying the addiction. He goes to great pains in the book to repeatedly enforce his ideas about the physical and psychological addiction and how to rephrase them. One of the core themes is that you don’t need willpower to quit, because by the end of this book you realize that willpower would only be necessary if you felt you were giving up something that was beneficial to you in some way.

What I disliked about this book

The book is very repetitive and probably could have been half the length without all the repetition, but realize much of this repetition is a form of brainwashing to get you to rethink what smoking really is. The idea that you keep smoking while reading the book until you get to what he calls your last cigarette is somewhat dis-concerning, but there is also a purpose for this, which is to make you analyze what is going on as you continue to smoke.

Recommendation

If you or someone you know is addicted to smoking or vaping then this book is for you. This book re-frames the whole way you think about smoking or vaping. That is the key to the success of this approach; so instead of thinking quitting is too hard, you understand it is not that hard and there is great hope in knowing you are giving up nothing, well at least nothing but a dirty, addictive, and health destroying habit. I highly recommend this book, but with the caveat that you not skip chapters and be in too big a hurry. Let the information sink in and re-frame your thoughts. Good luck!

Namaste

 

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Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking

 

About the Author

Allen Carr (2 September 1934 – 29 November 2006) was a British author of books about stopping smoking and other psychological dependencies including alcohol addiction. He stopped smoking after 30 years as a hundred-a-day chain smoker.[2]

London-born Carr started smoking while doing National Service aged 18. He qualified as an accountant in 1958. Carr finally stopped smoking on 15 July 1983, aged 48, after a visit to a hypnotherapist. However, it wasn’t the hypnotherapy itself that enabled him to stop – “I succeeded in spite of and not because of that visit” and “I lit up the moment I left the clinic and made my way home…”. There were two key pieces of information that enabled Allen to stop later that day. First, the hypnotherapist told him smoking was “just nicotine addiction”, which Allen had never perceived before that moment, i.e. that he was an addict. Second, his son John lent him a medical handbook which explained that the physical withdrawal from nicotine is just like an “empty, insecure feeling”.[3] He claims that these two realisations crystallised in his mind just how easy it was to stop and so then enabled him to follow an overwhelming desire to explain his method to as many smokers as possible.[4]

Carr teaches that smokers do not receive a boost from smoking a cigarette, and that smoking only relieves the withdrawal symptoms from the previous cigarette, which in turn creates more withdrawal symptoms once it is finished. In this way the drug addiction perpetuates itself. He asserted that the “relief” smokers feel on lighting a cigarette, the feeling of being “back to normal”, is the feeling experienced by non-smokers all the time. So that smokers, when they light a cigarette are really trying to achieve a state that non-smokers enjoy their whole lives. He further asserted that withdrawal symptoms are actually created by doubt and fear in the mind of the ex-smoker, and therefore that stopping smoking is not as traumatic as is commonly assumed, if that doubt and fear can be removed.

At Allen Carr Clinics during stop-smoking sessions, smokers are allowed to continue smoking while their doubts and fears are removed, with the aim of encouraging and developing the mindset of a non-smoker before the final cigarette is extinguished. A further reason for allowing smokers to smoke while undergoing counselling is Carr’s belief that it is more difficult to convince a smoker to stop until they understand the mechanism of “the nicotine trap”. This is because their attention is diminished while they continue to believe it is traumatic and extremely difficult to quit and continue to maintain the belief that they are dependent on nicotine.

Another assertion unique to Carr’s method is that willpower is not required to stop smoking.

His contention was that fear of “giving up” is what causes the majority of smokers to continue smoking, thereby necessitating the smoker’s perpetuation of the illusion of genuine enjoyment as a moral justification of the inherent absurdity of smoking in the face of overwhelming medical and scientific evidence of its dangers. Instead, he encourages smokers to think of the act of quitting, not as giving up, but as “escaping”.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Carr

 

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Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking

Book & Product Reviews · Self Help

Designing Your Work Life

Designing Your Work Life

Summary

The book Designing Your Work Life was written by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Prior to reading this book the authors had written Designing Your Life, which I read, and it peaked my interest in reading this book. I have the hard cover version of the book and it is a great example of what a high quality book should look like. The print quality and font size are excellent.  Most of us struggle with our work from time to time, and our first instinct is to bail, you know get me the hell out of here. The authors provide some techniques on how you can salvage your current job by re-framing how you look at your work, and maybe more important empowering you to make changes to your job to make it more enjoyable. I’m actually looking at a list I created from the book called the Hydra Overwhelm List and Solutions, where I looked at things that were bothering me and sucking all the fun out of my job. In this list you write down the job activity that you have issues with, a possible solution, and whether you will eliminate that activity or change it. Mind you this is only one of the many tools and techniques they offer up that help you turn misery into something approaching joy at work.

In the event that you just can’t redesign your job, or you are in a situation where you work for a complete asshole, they also offer some excellent advise on how to quit the right way, and how to move on and find a new job. They even offer up some very good advice for those of us who might be interested in being self employed. The hardcover version of the book is 292 pages, so it’s not a terribly long read and each chapter is of reasonable length.

 

What I liked about this book

If you like aspects of your job, but hate or dislike some of the things you do, then this book may provide ways that you can not only salvage your current job, but redesign it into something you really enjoy. That alone is motivation to read this book if you are struggling on a day to day basis and losing sleep over your work. The authors come from a design background, so as in their previous book they utilize design practices to approach problems. One example of a design principle they use has to do with challenging your belief and then re-framing it. For instance you might re-frame like this:

Dysfunctional Belief: It’s not working for me here.

Re-frame as: You can make it work (almost) anywhere.

 

What did I dislike about this book

Seriously there is not a lot to dislike about the book. While the technique of re-framing will help you see things in a different light, there are times when that just won’t help you in a truly miserable situation. Your employer may vehemently resist your attempts to change your job to better fit your interests. Even with that said the authors understand that there are situations where invoking the exit strategy is the best thing for your piece of mind. The chapter on Being Your Own Boss is only 23 pages long, and while it has some useful information you will need to read and learn a lot of other things that are not covered in that chapter.

 

Recommendation

I highly recommend this book to those of you who struggle with various aspects of your work. I was able through my Hydra Overwhelm List, and some re-framing techniques to address most of the things that were causing the most pain, and ultimately find greater job satisfaction. I also found the authors advice on preparing to leave an employer and find a new job very valuable. One of the hopeful things that I got out of this book was that you have more control than you think, and some of the things you felt you had no control over were simply not true. On the other hand if you love your job, you may find the book offers little, but from the statistics I have read the majority of people are unengaged or actively disengaged at work. Here are some stats from a Gallop poll:

If your workforce is typical, about one-third of your employees are actively engaged, according to a recent Gallup poll. The poll found that nearly half, or 49 percent, are disengaged while 18 percent are actively disengaged. (Mar 17, 2016)

 

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Designing Your Work Life

About the Authors

Bill Burnett
Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, Adjunct Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford

After years of drawing cars and airplanes under his Grandmother’s sewing machine, Bill Burnett went off to the University and discovered, much to his surprise, that there were people in the world who did this kind of thing everyday (without the sewing machine) and they were called designers. Thirty years, five companies, and a couple of thousand students later Bill is still drawing and building things, teaching others how to do the same, and quietly enjoying the fact that no one has discovered that he is having too much fun.

Bill Burnett is the Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford. He directs the undergraduate and graduate program in design at Stanford, both interdepartmental programs between the Mechanical Engineering department and the Art department. He got his BS and MS in Product Design at Stanford and has worked professionally on a wide variety of projects ranging from award-winning Apple PowerBooks to the original Hasbro Star Wars action figures. He holds a number of mechanical and design patents, and design awards for a variety of products including the first “slate” computer. In addition to his duties at Stanford, he is a on the Board of VOZ (pronounced “VAWS – it means voice in Spanish) a social responsible high fashion startup and advises several Internet start-up companies.

Dave Evans
Lecturer, Product Design Program at Stanford, Management Consultant, and co-founder of Electronic Arts

From saving the seals to solving the energy crisis, from imagining the first computer mice to redefining software — Dave’s been on a mission, including helping others to find theirs. Starting at Stanford with dreams of following Jacques Cousteau as a marine biologist, Dave realized (a bit late) that he was lousy at it and shifted to mechanical engineering with an eye on the energy problem. After four years in alternative energy, it was clear that this idea’s time hadn’t come yet. So while en route to biomedical engineering, Dave accepted an invitation to work for Apple, where he led product marketing for the mouse team and introduced laser printing to the masses. When Dave’s boss at Apple left to start Electronic Arts, Dave joined as the company’s first VP of Talent, dedicated to making “software worthy of the minds that use it.”

Having participated in forming the corporate cultures at Apple and EA, Dave decided his best work was in helping organizations build creative environments where people could do great work and love doing it. So he went out on his own; working with start-up teams, corporate executives, non-profit leaders, and countless young adults. They were all asking the same question. “What should I do with my life?” Helping people get traction on that question finally took Dave to Cal and Stanford and continues to be his life’s work.

Dave holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a graduate diploma in Contemplative Spirituality from San Francisco Theological Seminary.