When I put together my Friday YouTube videos, I’m often focussing on books in a particular category that I would recommend people read.
Books that don’t fit into a specific category, or those that I do not recommend, end up slipping through the cracks and never again see the light of day.
So, I created this small 6-part video series to give some air-time to the books I don’t talk about.
If you’ve not seen the previous parts you can check them out using the links below.
But with that out of the way, let’s crack on with Part 5 of the books which I don’t really talk about.
1 – “The Marshmallow Test” by Walter Mischel (Understanding self-control and how to master it)
This book is all about an experiment that was conducted several decades ago.
The experiment involved presenting a child with a marshmallow. The child was given the option to eat the marshmallow there and then, or alternatively, the child could wait while an adult left the room, leaving them alone. If the child waited and didn’t eat the marshmallow, they would be given two marshmallows when the adult returned.
The idea was to test the child’s ability to exercise self-control and delay gratification.
The children were then followed through their later life, and it was discovered that those children who had greater self-control turned out to be more successful, had happier marriages, and tended to be better all-round individuals.
The reason that I don’t talk about this book is because these experiments have allegedly now been debunked (although I’ve not read into this) and every time I do talk about this book, I get a sea of comments informing me that it is now false.
However, I do still think that there is value in the book and there are still lessons to be learned from it.
2 & 3 – “The Tipping Point” (How little things can make a big difference) & “Outliers” (The story of success) by Malcolm Gladwell
I’ve put these two books together because they’re both written by the same author, Malcolm Gladwell.
The Tipping Point is all about how things spread – that could be anything from viruses, to ideas, to fashion trends, to behavior and social norms.
The author analyses the magic moment when things ‘tip’ and start to snowball. The book explores what causes such epidemics.
In this book, Malcolm Gladwell looks at the lives of extraordinary people – those that have achieved so much more than everyone else – and he calls these people “Outliers”. He delves deep into their life story to try and understand what is it that made them so successful and what allowed them to reach such high levels in their field of expertise.
Overall, I like both of these books, and I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell as an author. The topics are well-researched, well-expressed, and written in an easy-to-understand style.
The reason that I don’t talk much about this author’s books is that they don’t contain a lot of actionable content, so you end up reading the book, putting it back on your shelf, and then going about your normal day-to-day-life without noticing that you’ve learned something new.
4 – “Life. Business. Just Got Easier” by Brad Burton
In a nutshell, this is a concise book of general life and business advice from the author, Brad Burton.
The reason I don’t talk about this book much is that I found it very forgettable and I don’t actually remember that much from it. This book really did slip to the back of the shelves!
5 – “Single-Minded” by Claude Littner (My life in business)
“Single-Minded” is the autobiography of Claude Littner.
I don’t mention this book because due to my YouTube analytics, most of the people who watch my videos are from the U.S. and India, and therefore, probably have no idea who Claude Littner is! (He’s a business celebrity here in the U.K.)
But this is a good book and I did enjoy reading the story of the author’s success in big business. Essentially, the author is best-known for being brought in to save floundering businesses and large corporations.
Your thoughts …
Have you read any of these books? If you have, please do share what you thought of them. As always, the above is simply my own personal opinion.
Also, if there are any books that I haven’t read and you think I should, then please let me know about them in the comments below.
Roseanna x
P.S. Here’s the next (and last) post in this series – Books I Don’t Talk About – PART 6
What is your reaction?
