Sean

This is a great advance in personal communications.

Reviewed: 01-28-25

Lots of very practical advice given here, with exercises that the author makes you do before going on.

And doing those short exercises is very revealing.

In addition, the author has additional content (PDF and even a free downloadable app that listens and transcribes your practice) that allows you to see very quickly the specific improvements you can make to reduce the use of filler words.

It’s amazing how these exercises improve your speech so quickly.

Very strong content here on vastly improving your communications/delivery.

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2 people found this helpful

Disappointing. No lessons here.

Reviewed: 10-31-24

Packaged, self-centered, dumb. Uninteresting. Not insightful. Not relatable. A waste of time. I resent myself for finishing this book.

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This is a con job

Reviewed: 10-21-24

What a bunch of shameless drivel. Worst book ever!

There is such a thing as the power of positive thinking. But this book doesn’t help you on that. This is just meaningless pablum. Oversold, overhyped, a waste of time.

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Entertaining, engaging, and accessible overview of the incredible human immune system.

Reviewed: 03-28-24

This is, by far, the most accessible/understandable book on the human immune system I have ever read. It also keeps in perspective everything from the size of viruses and various cells and microbes to the enormous complexity of the roles of the various layers of the adaptive and innate immune system elements… and piecing it all together, layer by layer, into the beautifully magnificent piece of art that it is.

A 12 on the scale of 10.

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A mostly positive review of an often repulsive leader

Reviewed: 01-06-24

Walter Isaacson surprised me with a punches-pulled view of Elon Musk… yes, he painted the picture of a man-child, and yes, he showed Elon’s completely abominable interpersonal flaws and lack of what appears throughout the book to be a humane level of compassion or decency.

But on top of this, while laying some light on the continuously repeated cases of impetuous depravity in his personal life, he didn’t really dissect the hypocrisies of Musk: claiming to be saving the human race without ever appearing to care about human beings; claiming to be against government waste while being a primary beneficiary of massive government subsidies to boost electric vehicle sales and space exploration.

Having read Isaacson’s much harsher and infinitely less forgiving review of (in my opinion) the less flawed but similarly impactful Steve Jobs, I wonder why Isaacson could be more judgmental against Jobs than he was against Musk? Simply because Musk isn’t dead yet?

Nonetheless it is a five star book because it did show the warts, even though it didn’t opine on them or even explore them in a consequential manner.

In addition, the book does show flashes of Musk’s relentless brilliance and some of his methods for engineering process that I think are worth the price of admission.

I walk away from the book wishing Elon could stop trying to destroy the society (through X, mostly, so far), he has otherwise benefited so much from. But X has contributed as much to his own self-destruction as it has in contributing to the putrid-ification of on-line discourse and our global self-destruction of human decency.

May we find our way out of this mess. It will take a different kind of genius than Musk to do it.

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Really solid and yes, inspiring.

Reviewed: 11-04-23

Simple lessons, well told.

Anything new here? Actually yes. Authenticity in someone who was a politician and who offers up hope for the proper way for us all to strive to be better human beings. Loved it.

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One of the best books I’ve ever absorbed.

Reviewed: 11-18-20

The writing is poetic. The stories are profound. The author’s insights are affecting. There is revelation and transformation in these chapters.

Read it and weep.

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Spectacular masterwork on gut/brain interactions and what to do about it

Reviewed: 08-20-19

This is a fantastic recounting of what is increasingly becoming crystal clear: the gut biome is central to mental health and physical wellbeing, in remarkable and unexpectedly diverse ways.

The author also brings on-target practical advice together in an actionable way.

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Good overall advice for life, not deeply specific to telomeres

Reviewed: 07-22-18

There is a lot of good and broad advice about how telomeres affect health, and how everything from childhood adversity to social cohesion to wealth disparities between a society’s rich and poor lead to bad outcomes, and telomeres both confirm that these stressors leave a lasting impact, and contribute towards bad health outcomes (cancer, senescence (cellular aging)).

If you are looking for deep and specific technical insights you will find them here, although not at any length. The book mostly covers ways to live your life in a healthier way, Ie, how to interact with your children to reduce stress, the importance of means such as better diets and meditations, good interpersonal communication and genuine societal interactions, important things to consider for pregnant mothers, etc. This is primarily a book on general health and psychosocial practices as seen through the lens of telomeres.

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7 people found this helpful

Fantastic book about an area scientists are just beginning to explore

Reviewed: 02-28-17

Microbes are amazing, and the groundbreaking work that is being done in this area is enthusiastically and hilariously relayed, in an extraordinarily approachable way that makes it enjoyable to listen to.

Practical but very well grounded in science fact, this is a helpful and great overview of the many surprising ways our gut and our brains and body interact.

Worth listening to more than once. Really well done.

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