Customer Reviews

10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

How much you like this book will depend entirely on how much you enjoy case studies. Suzy Welch presents a very useful idea, and then fills a book with stories illustrating it.

The idea is this: before you make a decision, consider how it will affect you in ten minutes, ten months, and ten years. Shortly after I read this book, I was driving home from teaching class, debating with myself whether I should rush home to get back to work, or stop by the gym as planned for a 30-minute workout.

Using Welch's 10-10-10 idea, I realized that in ten minutes I might be feeling stressed about delaying work if I went to the gym. In ten months, though, I might see a difference in my health and energy level based on that decision -- but I probably wouldn't see a big difference in the success of my business if I went to the gym. In ten years? Regular exercise could make a huge difference in my health -- and I wouldn't want the level of intensity in my business that would have me unable to hit the gym regularly over the long term.

So I went to the gym.

Were you bored by that story? If so, then you're not going to get all the way through this book. However, if you like the idea and enjoy stories, you'll like it.

I love the idea.

I am a big fan of techniques for improving the manner in which we handle the multitude of emotions, decisions, and events that life presents us every day. And, I especially like techniques that are simple, easy to implement, and effective.

Author Suzie Welch's 10-10-10 construct is a brilliant technique for aiding our decision making. It is simple, easy to implement, and appears to have the potential to be very effective (I have just started using it; hence the "potential" label). It is has the potential to be as impactful as the Sedona Method which has helped so many people to quickly release negative emotions.

For me, the book itself was not as brilliant as the technique. For sure, I highly recommend the book because of the brilliance of the technique. But, alas the book itself seems to come up a little short from the standard I try to consistently apply to those I award five stars. I did not find the stories to be as powerful as the technique. I think this is a result of the relative newness of the technique and the fact the author does not yet have the depth and breadth of stories that I am confident that she will accumulate over time, as more and more people use 10-10-10.

Notwithstanding my four star rating for the book, I highly recommend it as an introduction to a handy life management tool. If one couples this book with one of the many excellent books on "choices" (Helmstetter's "Life Choices" is my all time favorite), one has a powerful construct that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our choices, and the quality of our choices is enhanced when we view our choices in the light of likely results on a short (10 minutes), medium (10 months) and long term (ten years) basis.

I was very excited to get this book based on radio reviews I had heard. I absolutely love Jack Welch and regard him to be a genius of business leadership. Knowing that his wife was involved in many of his books I thought it was time to finally take the plunge and get one of their books.

The book was very disappointing. I love the concept of 10/10/10 and feel it is a good idea. The development of it would have been more appropriate in a magazine article. It is not a "book-length" concept. The real world stories could all be summarized as wave the magic 10/10/10 wand and problem solved.

Before you buy it, read the intro on the Amazon site (I think there are about 5 pages). These 5 pages are VERY indicitive of the substance and detail of the entire book. Truly disappointing.

Let me save you the price of this book... in a nutshell, when you have to make a decision think about the impact - negative and positive - your decision will have on you/your family/your future/your whatever in the next 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years...

the rest of the book is just a constant reiteration of the paragraph above.


The author is well meaning, i am sure, but really, did it have to take this many pages and countless dead trees to say this?

hmmm... i wonder what the impact of me writing this will have in the next 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years?

You know those movies where they take a five minute Saturday Night Live sketch and expand it to 90 minutes? This book is kind of like that.

Okay, 10-10-10 is a pretty good idea. It's simple, straightforward, and can help people make decisions. Got that in the first couple of chapters.

The rest of the book? Example after example of people using 10-10-10. And not very amazingly, it did help everyone in every example to make a decision!

But I kept thinking, what happened after they made the decision? Ten minutes later, I'm sure they felt great. If someone is struggling with a problem, finally deciding on an approach to solving it is a huge relief. But what about 10 months later? What about 10 years later? Did these people feel as good about the decision? Did they actually make the right decision for themselves?

This is a pretty lightweight book. Life-transforming? Maybe for some people. Me, not so much.

A couple of days ago I received my copy, hot off the presses, of "10-10-10, 10 Minutes, 10 Months, 10 Years, A Life-Transforming Idea" and I encourage you to run out and purchase the book to learn how to apply the tool in your life and read the inspiring stories of how others have used it to live with greater satisfaction and authenticity. We all find ourselves at times immobilized in a decision process, uncertain about which way to proceed. The questions may run from the easy:
Should I hit the snooze button or get up and head to the gym? Eat the piece of chocolate cake or go for the yogurt parfait? Stop at the grocery store today or tomorrow? To the more challenging: Should I accept the job offered across the country? Should I start a family now? Do I stay in this relationship?

10-10-10 refers to a way of considering the consequences of a decision and projecting the outcome into the near and distant future. Such consideration provides one with an opportunity for perspective and, quite possibly, transformation. 10-10-10 is an easy to remember (and apply) life management tool that will help propel you out of murky indecision, toward clarity, personal fulfillment and living your life with authenticity.

I have used this process in both my personal and professional life. It has helped me in decision making as well as in communication with others. I have taught my clients the process in the course of helping them in their decision-making as well as in improving communicating with their coworkers and loved ones. This book joins other important books in my office which I suggest to my clients to offer up a new approach to a problem.

I must confess that, when I started reading this book, I thought it was going to be one of those half baked manuals, like the "Who moved my Cheese?" that pretend to tell middle management that their employees will be just as happy at work without raises or bonuses, so long as they get a piece of chocolate, a company mug, and a pat in the back.
Half way through the book, I changed my mind and concluded that it is actually useful. Not life changing useful, but helpful.
Have you ever had an argument with your significant other about something that he or she said, or did, and you both remember something totally different? Did you at the time wish for a third party to cast the deciding vote?
Well, it is the same when you try to ponder a decision, you often balance the short and long term consequences of either action; and then get stuck, mostly when one balances the other.
Well the 10-10-10 approach brings in a tiebreaker: The mid term consequences. It doesn't matter if you think 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years, or five of each. It presents a useful tool to deal with conflict and to try to let reason help you work your way through many of life's dilemmas.
Life changing it definitely is not, however it is worth reading, and may help keep you out of problems, in the distant, or middle future.

After hearing the author on TV I thought this book might be helpful/interesting. I didn't get much out of it at all. She repeats herself throughout the book. I kept reading thinking that she would say something meaningful........it didn't happen. What I got out of the book, which isn't rocket science is: don't make rash decisions; what a few minutes or days. Waste of money.

I'm known as being indecisive. I think, maybe. So when reading about '10-10-10'
I thought maybe a new me was about to be. I checked out the author. Ms. Welch has a Platinum resume`. She seems to be a very smart, sophisticated person. A gaggle of reviewers like this 10x3 how-to book. So I googled her. All indications showed her to be a whiz.

Reading the book, finally, totally deflated me. The book's heralded concept was 'way simple; so much so it was just a soapy rendition of common sense: Consider the consequences of your decision. Immediately, or 10 minutes in, then what would be the decision's response in 10 months, then finally in 10 years. That's it, folks, except for the teary set-ups meant to dramatize the before-and-after schtick.

Maybe her shining credentials of the Harvard Business School and Oprah guest spawned her format case studies. But the little sentimental depictions of domestic and personal problems followed by the 10x3 solutions (write down what can happen if...) was 'way thinner than superficial.

A line in the book irked me: "By bringing every option and its consequences to the surface and connecting actions to deeply held values, the process empowers us to override the counter- productive tendencies of our own minds." Yes, okay, maybe, but how?

If you want real input re decision making, just put 'Decision Making' into Amazon's search slot. As superficial as 10x3 was, the lineup of real, serious books will help you make an immediate and far-better decision than picking up this piece of fluff.

Sorry, Ms. Wetlaufer, this book isn't a 'Life-Transforming Idea' by any measure.

First, the positives: 10-10-10 can be a practical and concise method to facilitate decision-making. If you're a generally undisciplined and indecisive person, Suzy Welch's book could very well be a useful tool. Additionally, I commend the author for her frequent candor--although other readers may wonder with me whether she always gleaned the most profitable lessons from her mistakes.

Second, the obvious negatives: As other reviewers have mentioned, the book is long on anecdotes and fairly short on substance; five pages would have sufficed to explain and illustrate the 10-10-10 method. Many of the anecdotes may seem rather trite, the challenges rather obvious and common-place (i.e., other people have successfully solved these before...don't reinvent the wheel).

Third, there is a subtle and very disturbing flaw lurking behind the assumptions of this book and increasingly permeating the thought processes of our culture. Given her own considerable business acumen and the amount of print she devotes to discussing the importance of having a clear understanding of your own value system so as to best utilize the 10-10-10 method, Mrs. Welch ironically misses a far more substantial point: the legitimacy and quality of your values will determine the legitimacy and quality of your decisions. Given his value system, had Adolf Hitler applied the 10-10-10 system in considering the "Jewish Question", he would still logically have conceived and implemented the Holocaust.

Most of the truly contentious issues in our society arise because people use a similar short-term/long-term problem-solving process to formulate a policy or promote some social change that makes logical sense based upon their moral assumptions--assumptions which run counter to others' values. One astute reviewer (only one!) noted that Mrs. Welch's happiness in life appears to have resulted primarily from "brave" personal decisions that were self-centered and destructive to others around her. To the intelligent reader, the author's reference to her "Christian" values necessarily frames an awkward comparison between her confident 10-10-10-based actions and the actual ethics of that faith; one is left with the conclusion that Mrs. Welch has adopted a value system that doesn't get in her own way, and the religious label is merely a personally-tailored source of complacent self-justification.

By all means, check out the book at your local library and absorb the strengths of the 10-10-10 system (but remember the underlying need for legitimate moral underpinnings), and save your money for a more worth-while expense.