Chris Meistre

I have the following books I want to get rid off, willing to consider any offers!

I heard about this book somewhere, I forget where, and since then I’ve been wanting to get it. But as life normally does, it took over my mind and I kept forgetting to get the book. Then finally I saw The 4-Hour Work Week at Exclusive Books, and decided to finally get it.

I think the cover says it all, “Escape the 9-5″. I started reading it the evening I got it, and it was one of those books you just can’t put down. I did put it down for about an hour before picking it up again!

Now, I don’t really like self help books, so I tend to steer clear of them, but this one is different. Everything just makes sense that he talks about. The book is broken down into 4 steps.

Definition – where he turns common sense upside down and makes you think differently about things in your life
Elimination – this is about becoming more efficient and effective in what you do and forgetting all about time management
Automation – talks about putting your income and cash flow on automation
Liberation – getting away from having to be in a certain place to function and earn income

At the end of each chapter you have questions that you need to answer, which on first glance is a lot more difficult that I thought it would be. Then there are the uncomfortable exercises that the book asks you to do, such as walking up to complete strangers and asking their phone numbers. This is used to help you break away from your normal comfort level and start thinking out of the box.

Another term used in the book is called Dreamlining, whereby you sit out on paper what you want to be, want to have and want to do within 6 months and within 12 months. You set goals that you might think are hard to achieve, but once you start looking at it on paper and putting in work all the other things he mentions you start seeing how much easier it really is.

The whole book is about the New Rich, people that life like millionaires, not people who ARE millionaires.

If you’ve ever sat in the office wondering, “Why am I here doing what I’m doing?”, or driving along a beautiful area saying, “I’d love to spend more time here without having to rush through”, get this book, it will change your life.

I say this is my new bible because after hearing about a lot of the things in the book for such a long time, something has finally clicked.

I saw this book, The Cult of the Amateur, while we were in a bookstore on Saturday.  I sometimes wonder to myself how I choose what books to read.  I sometimes hear of a good book and try and get hold of it, but normally they just sort of jump out at me while I walk past them in a bookstore.  That’s probably the reason I order so few books online.  And even though I can probably get most of the books I read as PDF files for free online, I must prefer laying down in bed or on the couch with a book in my hand.

I read the first 2 pages in the store, and decided to get the book.  There were mentions of Google, Youtube, Myspace and WikiPedia, which probably appealed to my inner-geek.  Last night I started reading the book, and couldn’t really put it down.  I’ve read about 3/4 of it.  It has to do with Web 2.0 and the way that anyone can become a journalist, product reviewer, movie reviewer, film maker, part of a band, or really just about anything online.  This is great, at least that is what I thought when I got into this online this a couple of years ago and have liked how it was evolving.

There are consequences to this though, something we might not all have thought of.  If anyone can put up ANYTHING online, who is to say what is the truth and what is not.  It really becomes a case of the truth being relative.  Not just that, but thousands of people are losing jobs because the more online media becomes popular, the less popular offline media like newspapers and magazines become.  Advertising is also taking a knock, which is resulting in poorer and poorer shows being seen on TV.  The book was printed before the recession hit the word, so I wonder how much worse it really is now?

Another interesting thing from the book is Wikipedia.  There are a few examples in the book about academics that tries to correct things on a Wikipedia page that is wrong, but their work is undone by someone that is a more established Wikipedia contributor.  So it’s not about the facts, but rather about what the majority of people believe to be correct.  Now I’ve always thought Wikipedia is a really cool thing, and I still do, but now I just think a bit more about it.  Their catch phrase is, “the free encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit”.  Who is to say that the people doing the editing are qualified to do so?

That is where the whole amateur thing comes in.  The amateurs believe that their word is noble because they don’t have the qualifications to talk about what they’re talking about, but they do have the passion.  And somehow that outweighs the fact that they might not be right.  I am also an amateur.

If you’re into Web 2.0 or you just love being on the Internet, I would really recommend this book.  Not to try and persuade you that the Internet is evil, but just so that you are aware and able to make informed decisions about what you believe on the Net.

The Cult of the Amateur