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[My review of the WikiSummaries and Four Minute Books summaries]

Oh, boy! I'm really working hard for you guys now! This is my first lazy-ass review where I'm summarizing TWO different summaries of the same book! Maybe this will give me a better sense of the book and whether it's worth our time to read whole the book. (Basically, any books that earn five stars are on my shortlist of books I want to read for real. Three- and four-star books are also worth reading or skimming, depending on your interest.)

As A Man Thinketh was published in 1903. It's less than 50 pages long, so it's a short read. Notice I didn't say "easy read". I skimmed some of the pages in the actual book. The writing style is outdated and a bit clumsy.

Apparently this book was one of the ancestors of that whole "The Secret" and "The Law of Attraction" gibberish. From what I understand of that stuff, if you "manifest" (i.e. visualize) a pot of gold, then one day you'll be walking down the street and see the Lucky Charms leprechaun. You then "manifest" an image of you shanking his ass and grabbing his pot of gold. The next thing you know, you'll have a pot of gold and a bloody corpse to dispose of. That's exactly how it works. Trust me.

I didn't see any notions of "wish and you shall receive" in this book. (It's possible that that stuff is in the actual book, but you don't pay me, so I'm only reviewing the summary.) It does require good thoughts and behavior on your part, but there's no indication that you'll need to carry a small knife.

The basic idea behind this book is that your internal attitude about life colors how you interpret and react to the people and things around you. If you expect things to turn out badly, you might give up earlier than someone else, for example.

Your attitude and how you react to the people around you also affects how other people react to you. Life goes easier if you're easy to be around. If you're a sourpuss like me, you'll scare off people, opportunities, and leprechauns.

You can read the book yourself at WikiSource or Project Gutenberg: en.wikisource.org/wiki/As_a_Man_Thinketh www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4507

[My review of the 12min summary]

There's not a lot new in here, but the advice is solid. If you've read similar books, skip this one. Otherwise, this is as good of a marketing book as the others.

Suby claims his techniques work for any small business, whether you sell products or services.

Here is his whole plan:

PHASE NO. 1: Understand and identify your dream buyer

PHASE NO. 2: Create the perfect bait for your dream buyer 1. Create an attention-grabbing headline. 2. Make sure every point touches a burning issue. 3. Keep it simple.

PHASE NO. 3: Capture leads and get contact details 1. An opt-in headline. 2. A subheadline. 3. Ultra-compelling fascination bullets. 4. A compelling image. 5. A basic form.

PHASE NO. 4: The Godfather Strategy 1. Rationale. 2. Build value. 3. Pricing. 4. Payment options. 5. Premiums. 6. Power guarantee. 7. Scarcity.

PHASE NO. 5: Traffic

PHASE NO. 6: The Magic Lantern Technique

PHASE NO. 7: Sales conversion 1. Find your prospect's "why." 2. Discover where your prospects want to go. 3. Squeeze an admission. 4. Deliver the promised value. 5. Get the commitment. 6. Give the prescription. 7. Close the deal.

PHASE NO. 8: Automate and multiply 1. Make it personal. 2. Send your emails at a specific time. 3. Be very brief or very long——as well as intriguing. 4. Be visceral, not visual. 5. Make your emails about your readers. 6. Don't ask, tell.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) In a personal letter to his readers—which acts as the book's introduction—Sabri Suby promises that his book will deliver on every promise he makes in the advertising. Moreover, he claims that buying it may be the smartest decision one will ever make, provided that they are interested in building a million-dollar business.

As exaggerated as they might sound, both claims are actually true – but only if you haven't read similar selling how-to guides. Even then, "Sell Like Crazy" has some original insights and practical bits of advice that make it worth the money. In fact, if you can get used to Sabry's pumped-up style and him quickly jumping between concepts in a manner that might confuse a novice, pound- for-pound, "Sell Like Crazy" may be one of the best marketing manuals on the market.

[My review of the 12min summary]

[Note: Be sure to read the review of this book by ingrid@bookwyrm.social. She makes some excellent points. I probably missed those subtleties by only reading a summary.]

Good enumeration of the metastasizing cancer of social media. Most of this applies only to Big Social. Nevertheless, some of it also applies to the fediverse.

Lanier's ten arguments: 1. You are losing your free will 2. Quitting will help you resist the insanity of our times 3. You are turning into an asshole 4. Social media undermines truth 5. What you say becomes meaningless 6. You lose your capacity for empathy 7. You become unhappy 8. You lose your economic dignity 9. Social media destroys politics 10. Social media hates your soul

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) Social media and the companies behind them… have capitalized on the concept of spying on and manipulating people. Social media is created to be addictive, but being exposed to it too much means losing your empathy, your free will, your self-expression, and ultimately, your humanity.

To become a self-governed, creative, and independent human being again you will need to stay alert to the ways in which social media can trick you.

The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

[My review of the 12min summary]

This is yet another how-to-get-rich book. It offers some practical advice. I mostly agree with his approach. Its primary audience is people in their 20s and 30s, because they can get the most benefit from it. His basic idea is that you start a business in your 20s or 30s, then you'll be successful enough that you won't have to work nearly as hard after that. I'm giving it three stars because it is less applicable to me, and there are a lot of books like this.

DeMarco says that there are three roads to wealth: the sidewalk, the slow lane, and the fast lane.

The sidewalk is people who spend money as fast as they make it. They never get anywhere in life.

The slow lane is people who squirrel money away in their 401k and defer most fun until they're 65 and to old to enjoy the fun they can then afford.

The fast lane is people who start their own business. They work 80 hours a week for five years, then cut their hours back to 20 or 30, because their employees are now generating all of the wealth for them.

He says that the business you decide to start must follow his Five Fastlane Commandments: 1. Need (It must fulfill a market need) 2. Entry (If it has a high barrier of entry, you will have less competition.) 3. Control (You must have control over everything in your business.) 4. Scale (The business must have room to grow. That's how you leverage other people's labor and become the next capitalist oligarch.) 5. Time (You eventually need to be able to create processes that run on their own. That allows you to detach your time from the business. You can take frequent trips to Tahiti while your underpaid vassals toil away.)

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "Let's put it this way: 'The Millionaire Fastlane' isn't like most of the finance books you've read so far. And that's a good thing. Because even when the book relays some pretty common wealth strategies, it relays them in a new, memorable way. Moreover, it also shares some tips and tricks you've probably never happened upon before. Couple that with a pretty nice roadmap analogy, and you get one of the best books on acquiring wealth of the 21st century.

Be warned, though: if you're not ready for a few acronyms and a few more mathematical equations wrapped in an energy-bursting, Lamborghini-heavy, no- nonsense approach to becoming wealthy, then this may not be the book for you."

[My review of the 12min summary]

This book is supposed to be about both chess and computer intelligence. Instead, it's mostly about chess. It gets into the computational aspects of chess toward the end of the book.

I knew a lot of this information already. If I hadn't, I probably would have rated it four stars. If both of these subjects interest you but you don't know much about them, you would probably like it more than I did.

Kasparov tells us about the history of chess, chess and madness, and the history of chess machines (starting in 1770). He then tells the story of the modern chess supercomputers and their competitions against the world chess masters, including his defeat by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "Intelligent, absorbing and provocative, 'Deep Thinking' by Garry Kasparov is simultaneously a firsthand account of a watershed moment in the history of chess and artificial intelligence and an optimistic exploration of the future of human-machine interactions.

"To quote Kirkus Reviews, 'thoughtful reading for anyone interested in human and machine cognition and a must for chess fans.'"

[My review of the 12min summary]

This book was better than I expected. A solid four stars for content. Its target audience is somewhat narrow. If you want to make a smartphone app, this is worth the read. Otherwise, skip it.

I expected that the author would extol the virtues of monetizing your users' private data, but he doesn't address that here. He does talk about how important analytics are, so you do have to collect ("anonymized") usage data. That's the data that tells how the app is used. Your goal is to maximize usage. If your app is useful, it will become popular, and you will have money.

The idea of the freemium business model is that you release an app with basic functionality. This has to be sufficiently useful that normal users can use those features alone. You also have a buttload of additional features that would be useful to the more-than-casual users, which they would have to pay for.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "In order for your freemium product to take off, you will need to put a strong analytical framework in place. Create a product that appeals to a broad customer base, and track the retention, monetization, engagement, and virality of your product. The data you gather should be used to optimize your product along the way. If you do it right, you will quickly build a large customer base, of which around 5% will convert to regular, paying customers. The larger your customer base, the more money you will make."

[My review of the 12min summary]

Ugh. Another book about money. I tire of these. They're usually written by somebody who was born with advantage, succeeds, and then thinks that the road to financial independence is simple.

I don't know what advantages Grant Sabatier has had in life. Maybe a lot. Maybe none. So, then, is his book usable by the rest of us? Overall, it seems to be.

He seems to be mostly realistic about how to better yourself financially. I'm not sure how easy it is to follow all the way up the ladder that he talks about in this book.

He says there are seven stages of financial freedom: 1 Clarity 2 Self-sufficiency 3 Breathing room 4 Stability 5 Flexibility 6 Financial independence 7 Abundant wealth

He has a nice test that you should apply to anything you want to buy:

Eleven ways to think about money before you buy anything 1. How happy will this purchase make me? 2. How much money do I have to make to afford this? 3. How many hours of my life am I trading to afford this? 4. Can I afford it? 5. How do prices compare in terms of percentages? 6. Can I get it for less or trade for it? 7. How much am I spending on convenience? 8. How much would this cost me each year or for the rest of my life? 9. What is the per-use cost of this item? 10. How much will this money be worth in the future? 11. How much time (freedom) is this buying me in the future?

I'm giving him four stars, because the advice is reasonable. I especially like his advice to think not about the pricetag on a potential purchase, but what it costs you in your labor and pre-tax dollars and what you could have made by investing that money.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) Becoming financially independent is a lot easier than you might think. Stop guilt-tripping yourself for overspending and start getting some clarity on your finances!

'Financial Freedom' is an international bestseller. Coryanne Hicks wrote about it for the U.S. News & World Report: 'Financial Freedom changed my life. Reading it showed me a new way of looking at money and work that's opened my eyes to how life ought to be lived. Grant's book will not only guide you to financial freedom, it'll teach you to stop being limited by conventions and what you think you can and cannot achieve.'"

[My review of the 12min summary]

This is yet another book purporting to tell us what amazing things we'll see in the future. I'm leery of these. They're usually written by self-proclaimed "futurists" who ultimately get many things wrong. What they get right is usually obvious or, worse yet, has ramifications far different than what they predicted.

Case in point: As far back as the 1960s, futurists told us of the wonders of the information age ahead. All of the world's knowledge would be accessible from home! None predicted that the internet would bring us Twitter, Facebook, the rise of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and the undermining of democracy.

These authors fall into this camp of "the future is going to be amazing!" I'm giving it four stars, because they seem to have a good understanding of the current state of technology. Most of what they propose is a realistic and plausible extension of that. I disagree with their optimistic timelines for some of this stuff. Laboratory-grown meat, for example, already exists, but it's nothing like its real counterpart. They think it will be perfected by 2030. I think it will take longer.

They make no in-depth predictions about the social, economic, or political ramifications of all of these changes. That's the real job of a "futurist". I've yet to see any of them step up to that challenge.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all inventions will be misused and the future will be a dystopia. We're a lot better off now in many ways than we were in the past. I'm just saying that the real value that a futurist could bring to the table is to give us a plausible prediction of how these future wonders will change society overall.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "Many inventions we believed to be science fiction are already here; artificial intelligence that looks, talks, and thinks like a human, flying cars, telepathy, and virtual realities. Through convergence, these innovations are only set to accelerate in the coming years. Luckily, they can also help solve humanity’s greatest problems, such as climate change, food waste, and other environmental challenges."

[My review of the 12min summary]

This is an overly simplistic prescription for overcoming depression.

Ravikant's whole premise is based on his unproven assertion that the reason you are depressed is because you don't love yourself! Shame on you!

There's no doubt that we all do things and even think things that are sometimes not in our best interest or sabotage our success. That's far from not loving ourselves.

Maybe Ravikant presents proof of his claim in the actual book and it's just not in the summary I read. Such is the hazard of reading summaries. However, you can still get a good feel for the merits of a book by reading a good summary. I could never read this many books otherwise. When I find a review that makes me think that the underlying book is excellent, then I will often seek out that book and read it. This is not one of those books.

The crux of his whole process is meditation. I'm not keen on this idea, but we now have mountains of data that says that meditation (a form of mindfulness) is hugely beneficial. It's right up there with exercise. This part of the book has merit, but you can get this advice in a zillion other places.

During your meditation, you should repeat to yourself: "I love myself." (This is in sharp contrast to how I do it. During my meditation, I repeat to myself: "Where's my cinnamon roll?")

Another thing he says in the book has merit, but it's overly simplistic and in many cases impractical in the short term. When you are facing people or problems that make you hate yourself, ask yourself one question: "If I loved myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this?"

Come to think of it, "overly simplistic and in many cases impractical" is a good overall summary of the book.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "If you need a one-sentence summary of Kamal Ravikant's self-published bestseller 'Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It,' just read the title. If, however, you need to learn how to love yourself — well, you can do a lot worse than read the book. It will only take you an hour of your time, but it may change your life permanently."

[My review of the 12min summary]

Paul Krugman is the Nobel Prize-winning economist, college professor, and New York Times columnist. This book is a collection of some of his published columns.

Krugman says that some of the Republican political views are zombies. They're ideas that have no evidence behind them. No matter how many times you try to kill them, they just keep shambling toward you.

The book talks about the lies about Social Security that the Republicans knowingly made in an effort to convince the public that Social Security was failing, so they could privatize it.

He also talks about economic inequality. Rather than confront the actual causes, Republicans blamed: • Highly educated workers • The decline of family values • Technological advancement In all three cases, Krugman shows why these are not true.

He also addresses climate change and the excuses the Republicans made for not addressing it.

Lest you think that he blames all of our ills on Republicans, fear not! He also shows how the pro-Trump/anti-Hillary media bias gave us Donald Trump.

He also talks about the authoritarian, conspiracy-driven Trump administration.

Overall, this book is a small island of clarity in the murky swamp of misinformation that we swim through daily.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "In 'Arguing with Zombies,' Krugman shows that the most effective weapons in the fight against zombie ideas are facts and common sense. David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winner, praised Krugman's bestseller saying: 'Years after appearing in the daily newspaper, Paul Krugman's columns resonate because he avoids the herd mentality of most journalism. Applying history, math, and humanity, he transforms our understanding of great issues and when writing on economics translates the dismal science into plain English.'

[My review of the 12min summary]

According to McKeown, we're spending most of our lives going in too many directions. We're unfocused. We're trying to do it all and end up doing very little. We're "busy but not productive".

McKeown advocates that we determine the few things that really matter and focus on those. That is what Essentialism is. Essentialism has three core expressions that reflect the three core realities.

The three expressions: 1. I choose to 2. Only a few things really matter 3. I can do anything but not everything

The three realities: 1. Individual choice 2. The prevalence of noise 3. The reality of trade-offs

Since McKeown loves things that come in threes, he has three steps for becoming an Essentialist: 1. Explore: discern the trivial many from the vital few 2. Eliminate: cut out the trivial many 3. Execute: do the vital few things effortlessly

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "In many ways, George McKeown's 'Essentialism' seems like Minimalism 2.0 in that it not only embraces the necessary and indispensable but it also refuses to be austere and unsmiling. In the words of LinkedIn's CEO Jeff Weiner, McKeown 'makes a compelling case for achieving more by doing less' and 'reminds us that clarity of focus and the ability to say "no" are both critical and undervalued in business today.'

"Much more importantly, 'Essentialism' also reminds us that these two skills are critical and undervalued in life today and that it's essential that you master them sooner——lest you want to risk wasting your life on other people's priorities."

[My review of the 12min summary]

There might be some good stuff in here. In principle, it sounds like it would work. The problem is that I have worked in many dysfunctional places. I can't imagine 99% of the managers there having even half of the skills or integrity to pull off what this book is advocating. Also, most employees have too much ego, insecurity, or incompetence to go along with this stuff.

My conclusion: Impractical and unworkable. A delusional fantasy.

For the record, these are the five dysfunctions. I can't say that I disagree with them: 1. Absence of trust 2. Fear of conflict 3. Lack of commitment 4. Avoidance of accountability 5. Inattention to results

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) [I disagree with this] "One of the most influential business fables ever written, 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team' is a succinct, simple, and smart book on teamwork and organizational culture that clearly communicates important lessons via an engaging story.

"Highly recommended for managers and leaders everywhere."