Barking Up the Wrong Tree

White collar pop-science, in a bad way.

One of the few books I couldn't finish. It's that bad. Had to give up after 1 hour of listening. It's a non-stop flow of "research shows" completely unconnected and contradictory with each other. There are insane blanket statements that you think after the author said, some type of refinement or explanation would come out. But no... according to the author, "studies show people with ADD are more creative". It's not that sometimes under some situations some people might favorably exhibit certain creative behavior, or not - the book simply says "people with ADD are more creative".

I bet that's not what the actual research says. The research probably has all the caveats that such statement would require - but the author doesn't have time for subtleties. And that's not an isolated case, it's one right after the other, I think there were times that under 1 minute 3 different types of "research shows" were given, out of context, jumping from one line of thought to the other.

I tried to persevere. I rarely give up on finishing a book. But it keeps going. There's a mention about David Geffen suing Neil Young for not being himself. It says Geffen signed up Neil Young for his label and when the musician didn't produce music Geffen was expecting (in his usual style), Geffen sued Young. Then it goes to say how Young is an innovator, plays against the rule, not Coca-Cola consistency.

Fine! But what about David Geffen? He's exactly the sort of character the book spent minutes praising (Steve Jobs, Peter Drucker, etc) - David M.F. Geffen founded one of the most successful music labels of all time, then opened DreamWorks SKG (it's his G in the name!) with Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. He produced music albums, TV shows, movies, Broadway shows, and a lot more. He is worth EIGHT BILLION dollars! He's the epitome of what the book is talking about.

You might say that the story from Neil Young's perspective is one, but from Geffen is another. Exactly! The book picked one side and ran with it: What about one of the most successful entertainment moguls suing an artist? Is that common? Shouldn't THAT be considered an example of what the book talks about?

I pressed stop and removed the book from my audio player on this part: "Consider the people we're all envious of who can confidently pick something, say they're going to be awesome at it, and then calmly go and actually be awesome at it."

WTF? For real, how many people do we know that confidently become awesome at something they chose? Not only that, but calmly? Super easy. We all know them, right? They just chose something and become amazing it.

Calmly! The first story of the book is about an endurance cyclist that is nuts. He would stop his ride and fist fight mailboxes. Another story if about Gleen Gould and all the unusual (crazy? eccentric?) stuff he did. The book spends a lot of time establishing a narrative that obsession and not dampening your strengths is good for you, just to wreck with a statement like "they calmly go and become awesome".

Nothing on this book makes any sense.