An engaging, paradigm-shifting look at the science of decision-making.
McQueen presents a series of strategies for shifting positions and adopting new ways of thinking in this nonfiction guide.
“Our perceptions of value may be unconscious,” writes the author, a corporate conference circuit veteran, “but they are extraordinarily powerful.” Once we have an established notion of something, he observes, we tend to color subsequent impressions with that idea, and changing this perspective can be seemingly impossible. McQueen has spent two decades researching trends and technology, and he’s consistently returned to the same question: What stops people from changing, even when they know they should? In these pages, he examines the many ways in which people develop preferences and make decisions. In his view, these processes are governed by the “Instinctive Mind,” which is intuitive and emotional, and the “Inquiring Mind,” which is logical and evaluative. The Instinctive Mind, he writes, is fond of labels and can be untrustworthy, but he stresses that it’s nevertheless sometimes better at making decisions. The key to clear decision-making, the author asserts, is to strike an effective balance between these two minds, and the best strategy for changing fixed positions—your own or somebody else’s—is to figure out which of these is ascendant, and how it can be influenced. McQueen references a satisfying variety of sources to buttress his points, although, like many of those sources, he often lapses into vague, motivational bumper-sticker platitudes, exemplified by this quote from self-help icon Wayne Dyer: “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” The author’s saving grace is his forthright tone; he’s always a clear-eyed, bracing guide to changing old thinking habits. His sharp insights are compelling: “It’s important to clarify that delusion is not a function of ignorance—the undiscerning are not necessarily unintelligent.” Even set-in-their-ways readers will find much of this material invigorating.
An engaging, paradigm-shifting look at the science of decision-making.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781637557396
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
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