This is a very neat book, and I’m extremely grateful that it didn’t exist 10 years ago when I decided to start a side hustle.

Why? With the help of Use Your Job to Quit Your Job, I would have probably succeeded with some IT-related enterprise, because I had worked in IT back then. However, I SO much prefer being a writer and business coach 😛

As Jake Lang, the author of the book, said:

The process outlined in this chapter is nearly foolproof; it has worked for me and my eight businesses, and it has worked for thousands of other entrepreneurs who have gone through the process(…)”

He meant in that fragment the process of estimating a baseline market size, but it applies to the whole Jake’s framework. It works. It bears the proof of practice – it worked for thousands. It is nearly foolproof.
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Jacob Coldwell is quickly becoming my new favorite author. I was delighted with his book, Listen Simply. I was even more impacted by Before You Begin.

The only CON I found in this book (and Listen Simply shares this affliction) is the speaker’s framework it sticks to:

Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you’ve told them.”

I don’t mind summarizing the message in points. In fact, it helps me to retain whatever I read and learned. However, I passionately dislike (bordering hate) a preamble to the message: “In this book or chapter, I’ll tell you…” Sheesh, just tell me the message! Don’t waste my time! And don’t spoil the fun!

Each and every one of those introductions fell flat on me, and the message itself was delivered in so much more an impactful and better way. Eliminating those sections would’ve shortened the book by about 20% and made the reading experience 100% better for me.
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I really liked this small book. It has the best qualities of a self-published book – personal stories and relatable experiences, plus no beating around the bush or beating the dead horse. I read the whole book in about an hour and can move forward with my life.

However, it wasn’t perfect, so – as usual – I will start with some

CONS

1. Editing.

I found a few typos in the book, and English is not even my first language. Also, I can sense one type of editing (developmental? line-editing? I always confuse them) is done poorly or completely missing – the one, which removes redundancies and excessive language ornamentals. I mean, how many times can you read about how many shirts Marc has and how many he got rid of?

The answer, when it comes to “The Happy Minimalist” is “too many.” :/
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I’ll start this review from a story from my coaching training. One fellow was repeatedly frustrated by the simplicity of the whole coaching process. He said multiple times: “If people just kept talking with each other, this whole ‘coaching thing’ would have been unnecessary!”

He was almost right. If people kept talking with each other – and listened simply – coaches would have become unemployed. Just keeping the communication lines open is not enough. True listening must happen as well.

Most people have never truly been heard.”

I would add: in this time and age. I’m old enough to remember the world without the Internet and smartphones. Then, we had the time, and willingness, to just be with each other and talk. Listen, discuss, ponder, reflect.

And what’s the point of talking, if you aren’t heard?! Then, it’s just a useless effort.
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Scaling Your Business with MOD Virtual Professionals is a nice short book. Yes, it is also an infomercial, but it is a valuable book in itself. You don’t need to hire MyOutDesk to get the value of the content. The Sticky Challenge itself is easily worth the price of the book.

However, because it was written with pitching the business for MOD in mind, it has a couple of major …

CONS

1. Appealing to Everybody.

In the effort of gaining as big of a market share as possible, the author committed the main marketing sin and didn’t properly narrow down for whom this book is the best option. Small business owners is really an extremely broad category.

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Normally, I wouldn’t even have opened such a book. When it comes to spiritual advice, I go to the books written by saints themselves.

But I ended up on a vacation without any other reading material to practice speed reading, so I read 7 Attitudes of the Helping Heart. And I was impressed.

I hadn’t had big expectations when starting this book, so it was easy to exceed them, and the author did exactly that. I cannot even name a single CON of 7 Attitudes of the Helping Heart because I didn’t read it with a critical mindset at all.

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Book Cover Design by Booksmith Designs

I loved everything about this small book (164 pages): zero beating around the bush, sound business and craft advice, excellent mindset insights, and the price, of course. Catch the Unicorn is permanently free on Kindle.

As the author of 19 nonfiction books, I am in a good position to verify most of the book’s content just with my experience. And I tell you, the content is aligned with my experience in at least 95%. The rest? Well, the subtitle says “for fiction,” so maybe slightly different rules apply in that realm.

Let’s go over all the PROS:

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The Decision-Making Blueprint is a shockingly good masterpiece. I loved both the idea and execution. The book consists of bite-sized chapters, which provide a short but insightful description of a single concept related to better decision-making.

I found only a single CON of this book, and it is related to my own personal philosophy.

Some slippery slopes are real, but often they’re not.”

The above quote applies to one of the mental models (Slippery Slope) described in the book:

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Book by Chip & Dan Heath

The Power of Moments is an amazing book. I read 50 to 100 books a year, and this title firmly belongs to the top 1%.

Anybody in any kind of a leadership position should read this book: church leaders, supervisors, managers, top executives, educators, moms and dads. Every single one can benefit from the knowledge hidden inside The Power of Moments, and from its various applications.

It will be especially beneficial for business people and those in positions up in the corporate ladder. If they utilize some of the common sense tactics The Power of Moments talks about, they can literally add 20% to their bottom line overnight. No exaggeration.
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For me, The Wealth of Connections was preaching to the converted. Every morning, I read a fragment of a book titled “Big Potential” by Shawn Achor. Shawn argues, exactly like Vincent Pugliese, that collaboration is so much better than trying to make it on your own. In fact, Shawn calls working alone Small Potential. In contrast, collaboration and working with others is the Big Potential.

So, I didn’t need convicting. Maybe that’s why the only CON I want to mention is that The Wealth of Connections didn’t wow me. In fact, it was unusually hard for me to read it through. And I have no idea why. When I reviewed my highlights, they were almost evenly distributed throughout the whole book. The passages I highlighted were powerful and impactful. Yet, the overall reading experience wasn’t.

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