The author's TED talk is one of the most-viewed ever; and it's really quite good. In fact, it's so good that you don't need to read this book! He takes a very, very simple concept and expands, and expands, and repeats, and seemingly never edits, and then repeats, and expands, and -- well, you get the idea. The whole thing could've been done in 50 pages or less.
Example: Yes, there's a difference between WHAT one does in business and WHY one does it. And sometimes they diverge. He calls this the "Split" and has a graphic and whole chapter on it. Really?? Not needed.
Example: He mines the stories of Apple, Wal-Mart, Costco, Starbucks, Martin Luther King Jr, and a few others - over & over & over & over & over again. He makes elementary and generalized statements, such as saying that NONE of the 250,000 people who came to hear Dr. King in Washington came for him; no sir, they came for themselves because their "why" connected with his "why." Uh, no; many came for him and his message or to simply support civil rights.
Example: He constantly repeats the words WHY and WHAT in CAPS ALL THE TIME so you'd get the message. And then again....and again.....
Example: Yes, the Apple Computer story is inspiring. But among all that WHY stuff is also the story of a dreamer with incredibly bad people skills. To simply elevate the Apple story - and retell it umpteen times - is to vastly oversimplify what made them great back then and now, and why they succeeded in spite of the way Jobs treated his employees.
It's almost as if the author had about 10 stories in his pocket and decided to use nothing else at all. He created the entire "start with WHY" mantra out of the 10 stories and never went beyond them to augment, embellish, or create more learnings.
So save the money, see the TED talk, and take what he says there to heart. WHY is the basis for being motivated. But there's a whole lot more to say, and sadly, he never gets to it.
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Portfolio; Reprint edition (27 December 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9781591846444
- ISBN-13: 978-1591846444
- ASIN: 1591846447
- Product Dimensions:: 13.4 x 1.6 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 200 g
- Customer reviews:
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: 690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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