Eldaerenth reviewed The Flinch by Julien Smith
Review of 'The Flinch' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Got this for free on Amazon UK in 2011 and finally got around to reading it. It's short in book terms, but it's far longer than it should be and desperately needs a professional editor.
It soon struck me as something that Tony Robbins might have done years ago if he'd written for something like the Art Of Manliness blog, and with the same amount of repetition motivational speakers do to pad their time and drive their point home, stating the same idea in different ways over and over.
The idea being the "flinch" - or aversion reflex (or survival instinct, or whatever) - being the obstacle to being All You Can Be and the need for it to become a tool that you master rather than it mastering you. Not an unreasonable idea.
To give it a chance I read at least a quarter of the book before deciding whether to continue. My final straw was the "homework", the first of which was a challenge to douse yourself under a cold shower and the declaration that if you continued reading without doing it... that's the flinch.
This book would be useful to someone who feels all of their life is held back by fear, or is a stranger to making bold decisions or doing things outside of their comfort zone. Not for me. Or at best, not for me at this time.
The central theme being worthwhile, it's a motivational essay that needs to shed a few kilos.