Description

A psychologist and best-selling author gives us a myth-busting response to the self-help movement, with tips and tricks to improve your life that come straight from the scientific community.Richard Wiseman has been troubled by the realization that the self-help industry often promotes exercises that destroy motivation, damage relationships, and reduce creativity: the opposite of everything it promises. Now, in 59 Seconds, he fights back, bringing together the diverse scientific advice that can help you change your life in under a minute, and guides you toward becoming more decisive, more imaginative, more engaged, and altogether more happy.From mood to memory, persuasion to procrastination, resilience to relationships, Wiseman outlines the research supporting the new science of “rapid change” and, with clarity and infectious enthusiasm, describes how these quirky, sometimes counterintuitive techniques can be effortlessly incorporated into your everyday life. Or, as he likes to say: “Think a little, change a lot.”————————————-Copied from the audio version product page, link: review (also available on the audio version product page):—————————–I read some of the chapters, I read some of his other books and I read some other psychology books from Cialdini and Segerstrom and I followed the positive psychology course of Tal-Ben Shahar (read my product of the month review on it).I downloaded a .epub version of this book on demonoid. Send me a PM if you want me to upload it.In any case, this is an excellent book. I read a few chapters that were of particular interest for me (attraction, motivation & persuasion) and I believe this is a really well summarized comprehensive guide with practical scientific tips. I recognized about 40 to 50 percent of the experiments that I have encountered in other books, which means that the other 50 percent were totally new. A number that I haven’t had for a while, normally I’m surprised if I read something that just 15% is new.He does give some criticism to the self-help industry, however, sometimes he gives credit to it as well (in the chapter “persuasion” he gives credit to Dale Carnegie). I think he’s spot on about the topics that he’s criticizing, however, people shouldn’t view his critique as an attack on the whole self-help industry, because it isn’t. He doesn’t explain the whole self-help industry according to my experience, and he said he has reservations about most techniques, not all of them.In other words: you shouldn’t get this book for his critique on the self-help, because it is incomplete to begin with. If you want it solely for this reason, then use a lot of common sense, because you’ll need it.Still, everything he says is backed up by scientific experiments and that to me, means a lot. PUA’s can talk a lot of bullshit, however, science is less able to do so (still able, but compared to ‘PUA research’ it is quite sound and waterproof of bullshit).In conclusion:Awesome book for scientific PUA’s rocking this shit.Not an awesome book for self-help vs science discussion.The advice given in it, is awesome, especially if you’re a newbie. Experienced PUA’s will find a lot of comparisson with some PUAmaterial (the MM definition of social proof for example, which isn’t the same as Cialdini’s definition). However, even experienced PUA’s who haven’t read a lot of psychology will find some interesting stuff in it, which they haven’t encountered before.—————————————