Tyler L

The toolkit I never knew that I needed

Reviewed: 02-07-25

tl;dr – Get this book if you want practical tools and compelling stories that cover how to direct your emotions for good.

I'm about 75% through the book and felt compelled to write this review. It dives deep into issues that plague society. You could read a book on happiness, stress management, or countless other subjects, but this one has quickly become a top 5 recommendation for me. As someone who experiences emotions quite intensely 😉, I know what it’s like to deal with big, scary, sad, lasting, and overwhelming feelings.

What I love most about this book—after reading over 50 self-help books—is that it actually provides tools to handle emotional challenges. The blend of storytelling, science, and personal insights makes it engaging. I won’t claim that every idea is flawless, but the strategies for managing emotions are truly game-changing.

I’m especially excited to apply techniques like distancing language (which I was familiar with for performance anxiety but never considered for all emotions), time shifting, music, attention shifting, and more in my daily life to combat anxiety, worry, and stress.

I also look forward to embracing my emotions more fully, allowing me to connect more deeply and empathetically by tapping into past experiences.

There are so many golden nuggets in this book that I had never encountered before, such as:

- You can't control when emotions start, but you can control their direction and intensity.
- Emotions act like glue, binding past experiences to present ones (or something like that! 😊).
- Reframing things you do have control over can actually be harmful in certain contexts.

I hope this book helps you on your journey, just as I hope it will for me and my family.

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4 people found this helpful

Frequent fast feedback leads to empowered people

Reviewed: 11-02-24

This book is a great reminder that fast feedback is crucial to learning quickly. The formula is a little more complex in the book but I really like it. if you are familiar with non violent communication it says how praise is manipulative. This book shows that if you are honest with your intentions you can still help praise and redirect people to success.

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The title underplay it's brilliance

Reviewed: 10-30-24

This book is incredibly well balanced on leadership and management. It is chock full of great info that would take you a ton of time to gather and boil down on your own. It covers conflict (non violent communication), motivation for yourself and your team, and so much more. Just bought a physical copy to reference.

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It Feels Like a Classic - Seven Habits Good

Reviewed: 11-02-23

This book feels like one of the top self development (of 50+) books I have read over the past 15 years. It seems to be near the same level of Seven Habits. I am only half way through the book so I might come back and update it if it gets worse.

I think this book is useful if:
You are a black and white thinker and get stuck in rigid forms of thought.
You were modeled poor thinking skills growing up (I'm looking at you logical fallacy land).
You are looking for a new framework to approach life with because your current one isn't serving you.

Some of the things you will learn are:
- The tendencys that make you react to situations illogically that protect your ego
- How to create a board of virtual mentors to help you guide your life and actions
- How to create rules that help eliminate decision fatigue
- Creating barriers that slow down bad decisions

I love how Shane levels with the reader and the writing style really talks to me. It doesn't feel like there is a ton of filler content that doesn't help get the points of the book across. This book is so good I want to buy a physical copy so I can mark it up and study it more.

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3 people found this helpful

I Thought I Already Knew Something About Learning

Reviewed: 09-08-19

TL;DR
This book isn't about using the Cornell notes method, deliberate practice, and how you can use mnemonics to remember anything (although it is covered a bit but not even encouraged), it goes so much deeper. Scott, the Author, lays out a framework and approaches to learning that you must customize for your chosen subject to master, your timeframe, and strengths. James Clears quote in the forward explains the soul of the book, "Passive learning creates knowledge, Active Practice creates skill."

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a real thing. That is what hit me when I listened to this book.

A little background for where I am coming from. I have taken the popular "Learning How To Learn" Coursera course, as well as taken a studying course from my college. I have a lot of books on thinking, the brain, and similar topics. I even listened to one of the premiere books on memory "Make It Stick".

None of those books prepared me for the wealth of knowledge within this book.

Maybe you are like me, and thought that spaced repetition was the end-all, be all to learning (in fact it is more for retention than learning itself). When you crack open this book, you soon find out there is a thing called Metalearning. I was like, I know what that is, that is learning about how to learn, right? Wrong! Metalearning is learning about how to best acquire a specific skill or knowledge in a specific domain. This concept blew my mind. I had insights like this happen over and over again when I was listening to this book. It hit me again when he talked about when and where you should use Ultralearning, and what the different learning approaches are. I felt infantile and like I had just stepped out of the darkness and into the light of my own lack of understanding, but it was too good to stop, I had to know more.

He goes on to lay out 9 principles that you can use as the foundation of an Ultralearning project, things such as directness (actually doing crap), drill (Attacking your weak points), retention, and intuition to name a few. Each one is explained very well and has concrete examples in the way of stories to help you understand the concept further.

Scott lays out that you don't need a huge 3 month swath of time to do an Ultralearning project, but you can tailor it to your needs and demands on your time. I really liked this part because it plays well with the balance of having a family, full time job, part time jobs, and hobbies. He also explains that you can use the techniques within the book during your normal learning routines, be they at work, or in school.

This is not the kind of book you read once and put down, it is the kind you come back to to reference techniques as you need to. I know I will be rereading sections of this book and taking notes now that I have listened to it.

Cons (Or What to Improve)
It would be nice to have a reference that would boil all of this information down in an easily consumable form. In fact, I plan on making one myself and will post the link here when it is done.
It would be nice to have coaching that would guide you through the process of becoming an Ultralearner, a good worksheet could also help with that.
The subtitle to this book is also a little bit of a misnomer because there wasn't enough application in the book to "Outsmarting Competition, or "Career" but I think it can help you do those things.

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205 people found this helpful

Good quick read

Reviewed: 08-06-19

A little bit of colorful language, but overall an inspiring book on how to put your heart into any artform and overcome "Resistance"

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1 person found this helpful

Good for Sports not for business

Reviewed: 07-15-19

I didn't find the rules to be useful to me. Maybe these work in cutthroat businesses but it really didn't ring well with the way I approach my career. The book also had way to much cussing for my taste and was on the cruder side. I think this book helps most with knowing how to approach sports, but the author didn't seem to adapt the principles to business at all. I wouldn't recommend this book for most readers of self-help.

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1 person found this helpful