Michael

Not life changing, but makes a lot of sense.

Reviewed: 06-03-2021

The best takeaway from this book for me was explaining how to compliment, reward or reprimand the actions of our children instead of the children themselves. This makes so much sense and explains a lot of what I'm seeing with my own children going through school with teachers and systems that don't build self esteem no matter how hard they try.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Tedious and a bit outdated

Reviewed: 06-03-2021

There were a few gems in this book, but overall they were few and far between and the information felt outdated in many ways.

If you consider the Amazon Echo as an IoT device, then this book may be for you. If you're a running hardware startup building LPWAN or wearable devices, you'll find most of the information is a little too general.

It took me a few sittings to get through the 5+ hrs.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Some good content but mostly boilerplate.

Reviewed: 23-09-2020

Painfully slow, much of the content is spent defining very basic terms which makes it difficult to stay engaged. There were some good high level insights that made the book a worthwhile read for me, but I spent most of the time diligently hanging in there hoping for some more useful information.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A good read

Reviewed: 17-09-2020

Overall I think this was a very practical and useful book. I with it had a few more examples on how to practise the contents but it gave a fairly straightforward framework that was easy to understand. The real-life examples throughout kept the subject matter interesting.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

I thought I would hate this book, but it's great!

Reviewed: 27-08-2020

For me, the name "barefoot investor" conjures up images of a long haired surfie, building a kombi-van-heavy portfolio to retire at age 18 chasing waves and living on Centrelink. Thankfully Scott is nothing like this, heck he lives on a farm and would likely die of a snake bite if he were to imitate his namesake.

Scotts narration was captivating and clear. His advice is mostly geared towards making the most of what you have, but it's a great blueprint for keeping your finances in check while you go about tackling your life's work - which is covered in countless other business books.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great story, mediocre narrator.

Reviewed: 13-08-2020

Try download a different copy of this audiobook. The narrator in this version is rather monotonous in delivery and doesn’t put in the effort to change her voice with the different characters which makes it hard to follow the dialogues.

I previously listened to another version where effort had been put into voices and sounds of ambiance which made the stories far more engaging. Look for that version.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A great read

Reviewed: 17-09-2019

The delivery of this book was the best of any audiobook I've read. They use different voices and background noises to bring you into the story.

The plot becomes a bit thin when the author tries to apply the underlying process of ongoing improvement to the main character's marital problems. I can see where the author was trying to show that these techniques could be used in all aspects of life, but in this example I think that offloading his parenting duties to his mother and winning an epic promotion at work probably had a lot more influence in saving his marriage than directly applying his mentor's techniques of process improvement.

I'm very glad to have read this book, it helped me understand the process of identifying what the goal is in any situation.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Long winded but essential nonetheless.

Reviewed: 17-09-2019

The core takeaway is that you need to reward people immediately based on the actions and behaviours you want them to perform. Promising a reward that is far off in the future (like a pay rise at the end of the financial year) and tying that reward to a KPI that is loosely defined or possibly unattainable does not bring out the best in people.

Linking performance to KPIs may be easy in a widget factory where you want people to churn out more widgets but it's difficult to apply in an IT environment where workers are carrying out long-tailed creative works. I wish some more advice advice or examples were given on how to enact the values of this book in these kinds of workplaces.

When I asked a co-worker he filled in a big blank for me. The easiest, cheapest and fastest reward is to simply tell someone immediately when they've done a good job. For us that means immediately as tasks are moved to "Done" or at the end of each sprint review.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

I write a lot of negative reviews. NOT THIS TIME!

Reviewed: 14-09-2016

I'm sick to death of self proclaimed business gurus attempting to crystallise their "expert" opinion of themselves, capping off their mediocre careers by writing a book. I find it an offensive waste of my time when they waffle on for 13 hours about their opinions without any real authority on their subject, but hey, if you're driving for hours on end you might as well listen to something semi-educational right?

This book is DIFFERENT. Oren Klaff has put together a fantastic book that will change the way you perceive social situations and help you pitch your ideas successfully. He narrates it himself and keeps you 100% captivated.

When you listen to this book you will:
1. Listen to it at regular 1x speed because Oren doesn't waffle or talk to you slowly like you're retarded. Oren respects your time.
2. Pause at times to take notes or contemplate some awesome new concept. You may even tell your spouse how interesting the book you're listening to is.
3. Listen to it over and over again, because there is so much useful information that it may take a while to put it all into practise.

There are tonnes of books with 5 star reviews on Audible that don't deserve them, this book stands out as one that really deserves a 5 star review and it completely worthy of your time.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

45 people found this helpful

Annoyingly slow and basic

Reviewed: 05-09-2016

I read this book on the advice that it would help me set up a social media strategy. It did cover a few social media platforms but omitted many of the newer big ones making me question the "new" in the title. Overall it didn't help me set up a strategy at all. I still don't know whether I should blog or tweet, put photos up on Pinterest or Facebook, what content should go on my website's news feed and can I cross post? Overall this book just offered a basic intro to some of the platforms and I'm no closer to having a solid social media strategy.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful