A thorough, inventive, and creatively executed life-improvement guide.
A manual offers a comprehensive system designed to modify behavior through better habits.
Performance psychology consultant Finn claims his “Habit Mechanic” tools “are tried and tested, and have already helped over 10,000 people” change their lives. This is very likely not hyperbole given the programmatic, science-based approach of the author’s methodology. The book details various tools and explains how to use them; it also includes frequent references to an accompanying website and app as part of the total package. The guide is divided into four “steps,” with the first two examining how individuals learn and then covering basic brain science. The third step explains the core tools and the fourth, optional one offers a new set of leadership tools, through which readers can help others develop better habits. With a new “core language,” numerous tools, 38 chapters, and over 540 pages, this book may appear intimidating at first glance. But readers need not be anxious; Finn does a fine job of providing uncomplicated definitions and clear descriptions. Chapters are short and divided into digestible chunks; examples are plentiful; and exercises are practical. Simple illustrations and diagrams enhance the text. Finn personalizes the content by relating portions of his own story when appropriate. While the first two parts of the manual go into a fair amount of detail about brain science, this information forms a strong, necessary foundation for the habit-based tools that follow. The volume’s most intriguing section, “Habit Mechanic Skills,” consumes 12 chapters and delivers a range of tools to develop better habits around will power, motivation, sleep, diet, exercise, stress management, productivity, and more. Each of the chapters describes one or more tools, shows illustrative examples, and includes exercises to complete. Many of the concepts are unique, such as Finn’s proprietary “Nine Action Factors” framework, which he discusses in detail. The author wisely relies on analogies throughout the book to simplify complex concepts, but the dizzying array of acronyms readers will encounter may at times seem exhausting. Still, as a soup-to-nuts, self-administered behavior modification system, the manual is marvelously constructed.
A thorough, inventive, and creatively executed life-improvement guide.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5445-2895-3
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Tougher Minds Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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