Self-help

Non-fiction business/self-help/psychology books (a la Gladwell's Blink or Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People or Eric Travis' Wander Purposefully):

Please do not bristle at the mention of self-help. The title of the self-help genre may seem to contain the therapeutic implication that whoever reads the book needs to be helped. This is hopelessly incorrect. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best:

“No man can sincerely help another without helping himself.” 

These books rely largely upon a geometrical proof-based structure. The author introduces a subject, sequentially provides various supporting ideas/arguments/anecdotes that support each other, and eventually it all coheres to shape the author's big idea.

This type of book is extremely reliant on the listener's concentration. If the listener zones out for a minute, they could find themselves missing a key definition or example referred to the remainder of the book, thus repeatedly confusing the listener and lessening their experience.

These types of books are usually no nonsense, get-to-the-point, how-to books on how to change your life right now. They aren’t 30 hours long, they don't dance around with characters and cryptic metaphors, and they don't make you guess as to how to apply their lessons to your life.

They tell you outright what, why, when and how you should be living your life.

Upon inspection of the bestselling book shelves in 2019, the theme of this era is obvious. It is that of transcendence, how to live your best life, and how to make the most of your opportunities.

As of now, there are five reviews available in this tier: Outliers, How to Fly a Horse, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Modern Romance, and Crushing It.

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★★★★★
How to Win Friends and Influence People — Dale Carnegie
Being Wrong — Kathryn Schulz
Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell

★★★★
Start with Why — Simon Sinek
Blink — Malcolm Gladwell
The Lean Startup — Eric Ries
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson
A Walk in the Woods — Bill Bryson
The Art of War — Sun Tzu
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin — Benjamin Franklin
The Tipping Point — Malcolm Gladwell
Made to Stick — Dan and Chip Heath
Leaders Eat Last — Simon Sinek
Twelve Rules for Life — Jordan Peterson
Switch — Dan and Chip Heath
How to Fly a Horse — Kevin Ashton
The Happiness Project — Gretchen Rubin
The Promise of a Pencil — Adam Braun
Essentialism — Greg McKeown
The Black Swan — Nassib Taleb
The Happiness Advantage — Shawn Achor

★★★
Modern Romance — Aziz Ansari
To Sell is Human — Daniel Pink
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook — Gary Vaynerchuk
How to Write Non-Fiction — Joanna Penn
How to Write a Book that Doesn’t Suck — Michael Rogan
A Whole New Mind — Daniel Pink
Predictably Irrational — Dan Ariely
David and Goliath — Malcolm Gladwell

★★
The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz
Never Stop Learning — Bradley Staats

★
Crushing It — Gary Vaynerchuk

REVIEWS

REVIEW BY ERIC TRAVIS

PCT Location when listening: Northern California

“We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit, but there's nothing in any of the histories we've looked at so far that suggests things are that simple. These are stories instead about people that were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up.”

In journalism, to “bury the lead” is to introduce a seemingly irrelevant subject with no prior indication to the reader as to why this particular subject is important. You’ve buried the lead topic underneath introductory materials. In writing, it is almost universally recommended to unbury the lead— you are supposed to clue the reader in to why you are about to ramble on about a subject which would seem to have nothing to do with what you’ve already been talking about.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell has perfected the tricky art of burying the lead. It is his signature writing style, and he is especially adept at bringing his own words to life through narration. His voice sounds smart and thoughtful, so you begin to assume his ideas are as well. His chapters are anecdotes and his conclusions tie up the anecdotes with an underlying theme. Of the six Gladwell books I’ve listened to, he is not always so successful as he is in Outliers. Each anecdote is interesting in its own right and the final roundup is astoundingly profound.

Why this book received a 5 star rating:

Outliers receives 5 stars because it not only shifts your paradigm of successful people, but it also shifts your paradigm of unsuccessful people. After this book, you will question your idolization of successful people, and you will not so easily dismiss those who as of yet have been unsuccessful. Especially if you come from an opportunity-laden background, you will find motivation to work harder and learn faster than you ever have before. A book that changes your view of the world and motivates you to change your actions for the better is the definition of a purposeful book.

“Outliers are people who are not just people who want to work hard, but more importantly have been given the opportunity to work hard. You need an opportunity to work hard. If you want to be a great gymnast in the Olympics, all of the ambition and drive and discipline in the world will come for naught unless there is a gym within walking or driving distance of your house when you're six years old— staffed with someone who knows how to teach gymnastics.”

REVIEW BY ERIC TRAVIS

PCT Location when listening: Northern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

“The drawers of the world are full of things begun. Unfinished sketches, pieces of invention, incomplete product ideas, notebooks with half-formulated hypotheses, abandoned patents, partial manuscripts. Creation is more monotony than adventure. It is early mornings and late nights. Long hours doing work that will likely fail or be deleted or erased. A process without progress that must be repeated daily for years. Beginning is hard but continuing is harder.”

If you want to be creative, but are lacking the motivation to get started or to continue what you’ve already started, you need to listen to this audiobook. Chock full of Socratic wisdom (be confident but never certain), this book drives home a message of continuous learning and incremental improvement. What emerges is a roadmap to confidence that some will find life-changing and paradigm-shifting.

Why this book received a 4 star rating:

Sacrifices must be made to be creative. Sacrificing something requires courage. Courage is attained through encouragement. Perhaps no other book encouraged me in my creative pursuits more than How to Fly a Horse. Creativity is how you put a stamp on your existence, your community, and your legacy. In this way, I feel this book could hardly be any more purposeful. However, this book is most purposeful for those interested in being creative, and would be largely unimpressive for the many who do not have that desire. You can only stoke a fire that has already been ignited. Thus, the book is a bit esoteric and receives only 4 stars. For those yearning to break out into a creative pursuit, this audiobook is a rock-solid 5 stars. If I were to rank my favorite audiobooks of all time, this one would doubtless be in the top 10.

I will end this review with my favorite quote from the text. It has been inspiring for me, and should be for you too.

“What is diabolical is squandering your talents. We sell our soul when we waste our time. We drive neither ourselves nor our world forward if we choose idling over inventing.”

REVIEW BY MAX TRAVIS

We tend to think of our heroes as tragic figures: victims of injustice, sacrificing themselves for the greater good, crucified on crosses and all that. But is it true? Does being a good person doom one to heartbreak and material poverty? Not so, posits Dale Carnegie, and he has the anecdotal and scientific research from the top businesses and universities to prove it.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a strange book. You are reading it because of greedy selfish desires. Mr. Carnegie has wrote this book just for you—you ambitious upstart ready to take on the corporate world. And what advice does he have? Don’t criticize, show appreciation, learn everyone’s names, and all sorts of acts of basic kindness.

That’s strange. It’s the sort of advice a penniless saint would give: treat others as you would like to be treated. Is this true? Is that the way the world really works? Mr. Carnegie says as much, and he can prove it. He has the best connections after all. As the direct scion of one of the great American industrialists, he went to the best schools, he has worked at the top firms, and his book is arguably the most shameless catalogue of name-dropping in nonfiction. This man knows everybody who is anybody and they have all told him their secrets. Is it, Mr. Carnegie posits, such a coincidence that a man he knows personally, who has put in the enormous effort of remembering approximately 10,000 different names for all manners of business associates, from the top brass to the lowest menial worker, is also successful at business? Mr. Carnegie thinks not. Another example: An enormously successful President, Theodore Roosevelt, was also notable in knowing everyone’s name, White House gardeners and drivers included. They, and all these other successful men, took the time and effort to appreciate the people around them. Being a nice person, says Mr. Carnegie, makes people want to do business with you.

Charles Schwab, the first man in the world to receive a million dollar salary, told Andrew Carnegie the key to his success: He wasn’t the smartest man in the room, he certainly didn’t know more about steel than the other men in his steel company, and he wasn’t particularly good looking. No, Charles Schwab explains, he was being paid that amount of money because he excelled at “Dealing with People.”

Sometimes it seems that successfully “Dealing with People” is disconnected with a search for truth. In one example, a man was asked by his wife to truthfully tell her her top 10 faults so that she could work on improving herself. Instead of complying, he bought her 10 roses and told her she was perfect. I doubt that was true. Would it have made a better marriage? Probably.

It isn’t in this book but I heard once that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so good at listening to people that anyone exiting a meeting with him was convinced he had agreed with him, when, in actuality, he had made no definite promises whatsoever. He had only listened with appreciation. Where does excelling at “Dealing with People” turn into something sinister? If it is a benign manipulation (like faking appreciation or hiding bad opinions as a strategy to win friends and influence people) is it truly bad?

I once had a teacher in college. It was a Broadcasting class and he was explaining the techniques a good reporter should use during an interview. He listed all the facial tics one could use to make the interviewee feel like the reporter cared about what they were saying. If the reporter looked like he cared, the interviewee would be more open and give better answers. Then this teacher took a step back. I’ve told you how to make it seem like you care. But there is an even better way: Actually care. When you actually care, your face and body do all these things naturally. You don’t even have to think about it. This logical leap does not actually occur in Mr. Carnegie’s book. Perhaps he thought this is not what the hard-nosed ambitious men who read his book would be interested in hearing. That anecdotes from rich men and statistics from universities would be more persuasive. He may have also realized, from personal experience, many of the top brass at companies are sociopaths, and intuitively knew just how to persuade that type of person. A toast to Mr. Carnegie, who perhaps has done more than any other person to persuade sociopaths to be nicer people.

This book is narrated by Andrew MacMillan, a good choice in that he sounds like one would expect Dale Carnegie to sound: well-educated, rich, mature, and White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

ERIC’S TAKE

PCT Location when listening: San Gabriel Mountains

Why this book received a 5 star rating: Max did a great job with his review and I have little to add. I think about this book daily, and it influences my actions constantly. Thus, it is just about the most purposeful book you could listen to.

REVIEW BY MAX TRAVIS

Aziz Ansari and the Tyranny of Choice

A stand-up comedian on a stage is likely showing you a persona. This persona has the same name as the comedian, but is a louder, sharper, flashier version of the real person. Sometimes when you catch a highly polished stand-up comedian not engaged in their act, the result can be illuminating. A good example is Chris Rock, who generally yells his jokes at the audience, but in interviews is quiet and thoughtful. Aziz Ansari, the co-author of this book, presents himself on stage as a shallow in-the-know-it-all. He talks about swagger and house music and rappers.

There is much more to him than what is presented on stage. Modern Romance is not a humor, but a non-fiction book, analogous to something from Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Lewis. It was co-authorized by Eric Kleinenberg, a university professor and the main source of the research and findings. Aziz provides the anecdotal evidence which illustrates the hard science. He also tells jokes.

The book is an exploration on a new type of matchmaking. Back in the day, people found someone in their neighborhood that was sort of like them and they got married. Nowadays, we have algorithms that can potentially hook us up with anyone in a city of millions. This results in speed-dating, weird texting rules, ghosting, and all sorts of new, sometimes exasperating, emotional nonsense.

All of these topics may seem familiar to those who have watched Aziz Ansari’s Netflix television show Master of None. That is no mistake. The TV show mines the findings of the book. Its title, derived from the phrase “Jack of All Trades, Master of None” not-too-subtly references the largest idea in the book: The Tyranny of Choice. How do you pick one person out of a million possible options? Which NYC food truck has the best tacos? This is what we have to deal with now.

Aziz narrates his own book, which is a good idea because it was written in his voice. As the writer, he feels free to break from form and insert audiobook only jokes. Mainly he makes fun of you for not being able to see all the pictures and charts in the book. This is a very good listen. The material is fascinating, and Aziz is a very good narrator, as he should be in his line of work. I found particularly interesting the spectrum of cultural differences between Japan—sorely lacking in romance—and Buenos Aires, which apparently has way too much of it.

Aziz Ansari, of all people, endured some collateral damage from the #MeToo movement. Apparently, a woman decided to anonymously tell the world about her bad date with Ansari in lieu of expressing her feelings/reservations/anything in person on the date itself. This made me especially sad because Ansari repeatedly mentions in Modern Romance that he has recently become engaged. And not just engaged to any woman, but a chef. She sounded perfect for Aziz, and I was genuinely happy that this funny dude who loved food had found his other half. Unfortunately no, Aziz had further bad dates in front of him. I would be very interested in a #MeToo appendix update to this book.

ERIC’S TAKE

PCT Location when listening: Sonoran Desert

Why this book received a 3 star rating: I really enjoyed this book, but found it a tad obvious. Maybe because I am 8 years younger than Max, many of the issues brought up within the book are extremely familiar to me. The findings were thus relatively unsurprising. If this was strictly an audiobook-quality rating system, it would probably receive 4 stars because Aziz is a highly entertaining narrator. However, since these ratings reflect the purposefulness of a book (aka should you spend your precious time listening to it), it gets docked a star.

REVIEW BY ERIC TRAVIS

PCT Location when listening: Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains

I have a complicated relationship with Crushing It.

I’ve given it a one star rating, but it arguably has had the biggest measurable impact on my life thusfar than any book in the PCT 71.

I chose to listen to this book precisely because of its modern entrepreneurial subject (social media marketing), and because one of my MBA professors had recommended Vaynerchuk as an author. Up until this point in the trail, I had focused on classics and business leadership books almost exclusively. I decided I wanted to branch out into the late 2010’s era of literature. 

One half of the book turned out to be social media tips Vaynerchuk had already written about in Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook (a book I listened to a few weeks earlier) combined with a bunch of you-can-do-it pep talks. The other half consisted of fan-narrated testimonials about how good his first book, Crush It, was. I hadn't read Crush It. Groaning aloud, I realized I had purchased the sequel before reading the prequel. While listening to it, I thought it could barely even be classified as a sequel. It was more of a narcissistic self-pat-on-the-back. I thought the book sucked. It was a money grab if I'd ever seen one, and I had fallen for it. During a good book, I would use the Audible bookmark function to mark around 20-30 passages I thought were poignant, or useful, or may want to reread later. In Crushing It, I marked only four passages.  All four passages were in the same chapter near the middle of the book. If Crushing It were a physical book, I would have asked for a refund after the first 20 pages. But, since I was in the middle of nowhere, and I had no other first tier book to listen to, I had no choice but to keep listening. I’m reluctant to say I’m glad I did. 

Up until this point in the trail, I had been listening to entrepreneurial books geared towards starting my own business (Sinek's Start With Why, Ries' The Lean Startup, Pink's To Sell is Human, Heath's Made to Stick). However, because of a single chapter in Crushing It, I scrapped the amorphous business formulation plans I had made in favor of something else. Because of this chapter, I started to realize my business idea would make a better book than a business.  

The chapter was a testimonial from a guy named Patrick Flynn. Years ago, he had taken the LEED green building exam to get his Green Builder Certification (something I was very familiar with from my time in the construction industry). After creating a stellar study guide to help himself pass the LEED exam, Flynn decided to take Vaynerchuk's Crush It advice and monetize his study guide by compiling his notes into an ebook and selling it on his website for under 10 bucks a pop.  In the first month, he made a passive income of $8,000 selling his study guide online.

The business idea I strategized throughout my MBA and the first half of the trail was centered around visual absorbent learning. I wanted to create a company that would take a person's learning interests (see the visual absorbent learning section of this site), and create custom visual absorbent learning materials they could place in their, or their child's, white spaces. It was to be a poster-peddling company with a grand vision to help educate the world. I had never before considered absorbent learning as a book. When looking at my idea through that new lens, I began to realize the biggest obstacle for my yet-to-be-created company was convincing people to believe in visual absorbent learning (stuff that essentially looked like the posters in childhood classrooms). My biggest deterrent at the time, however, was my inkling if somebody took my words to heart, and really wanted to practice visual absorbent learning, they could do it themselves. This is what I had done in college with the world map and the presidents. I got information off the internet, and printed it out at the Gonzaga computer lab. People didn't need a company to do that for them. It's pretty easy. The company would struggle to make a profit when most of their time was spent trying to introduce a concept to people. Most people (myself included) have about a 5 second attention span when someone is trying to sell them something. Visual absorbent learning requires at least a few minutes to explain. 

What people really needed was the realization they should be absorbent learning. They needed a paradigm shift. A book could do that thoroughly, had a more straight-forward advertising strategy, and would be less financially risky than starting my own business. The only reason the idea of writing a book came to my mind was due to a single, unintendendly cathartic chapter in a terrible book.

Perhaps nothing in Crushing It bothered me more than the narcissism Vaynerchuk constantly implores his readers to engage in. This book is the opposite of Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I had very visceral responses while listening to this stuff, including actual cringes and SMH’ing. I may have even shaken my fist and cursed at the heavens once or twice. At one point he tells you to start a YouTube channel even if you have nothing remotely interesting to say. The more content you vomit out into the world, the more likely you will gather a following, and thus be more successful in your efforts to peddle various miscellany. Affectatious. SHALLOW. No wonder there is so much inane bullshit wasting everyone’s time in this world. That time could be spent doing something purposeful for yourself or for others. This is probably why Wander Purposefully received 6 responses (all negative and weeks after I submitted) out of 100ish attempts when I pitched literary agencies and publishers.

I’m sure I hated Crushing It even more because Vaynerchuk is right. Unfortunately, being loud oftentimes does translate to success. I get a pit in my stomach whenever I remind myself of this.  

To Vaynerchuk: you happen to be very good at talking and inspiring people. Everyone else, for the most part, is not. The noise you are telling people to create is ironically also serving to drown you out. The cacophony will soon be (or already is) so loud that nobody will be able to hear the people who actually have something substantial to say. 

Why this book received a 1 star rating: I genuinely think I had my epiphany in spite of what the author intended. Vaynerchuk wasn’t even narrating the ten minutes (out of 8 hours) I actually found purposeful. And I doubt he would have dreamt this tiny section would make such a big impact on anybody. The only reason it did for me is because I had extremely unique circumstances. I was three years into crafting a business plan, and was stuck hiking 2000+ miles in the wilderness, greedily consuming as many business audiobooks as I could afford. 

You don’t need to read Crushing It. Please pick something else on the list. Anything else.