Customer Reviews

The DNA of Success: Know What You Want to Get What You Want

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm really surprised by all the five star reviews because this book is pretty generic. Positive, up-beat, but definitely generic.

It's especially ironic that the author Jack Zufelt calls other self-help methods "a dash of psychobabble, a sprinkling of gobbledygook, and a heaping portion of positive thinking."

This same statement comes from a person who uses the word "DNA" to describe a heart-centered approach to life. His use of DNA doesn't even make sense because genetics and especially science is based on logic not intuition. However, if you actually read "DNA of Success" then you will see that his philosophy is based on Core Desires which can only come from the heart.

Also there is the success formula:

Success Attitude = (Core Desires + Direction) x Proper Action + Persistence

Wow! It's even mathematical. Graphing y = mx + b... that means that Core Desires + Direction would be the slope and Persistence would be the y intercept. Genius.

There is a heap of "psychobabble" to go around.

There are also anecdotes. Lots and lots of anecdotes. You can read quotes from Christopher Reeve, Oprah Winfrey, Mother Theresa etc. Inspirational, yes, but the sum is not greater than its parts.

Finally, there is the advice itself. I give this book 3 stars because it did help me to refocus on Core Desires. Actually, I only have one Core Desire, but I digress. A Core Desire is something we feel passionately about to a level of 100. You are supposed to keep asking yourself questions (drill down questions) until you get an answer about which you feel passionate. Then everything else falls into place. Supposedly.

He writes as if you have Core Desires for every aspect of your life including financial, spiritual, family etc. But in fact I have only one Core Desire. This issue of multiple Core Desires was never addressed in the book.

Also his analysis of Core Desires is inherently weak. He makes no distinction between goals and values. For example, a man who can't play football due to injury is told to focus on how making football would make him FEEL and then incorporate those feelings into other areas of his life. That's more of a value assessment. There is no linkage to a specific goal.

And the author does not believe in goal setting.

However, when he writes about Core Desires sometimes they are values, but more often they are goals like "learning to ski". How one makes the connection between a feeling and a specific action is never explained.

Then there are sections of generic advice. Like the importance of finding a mentor, checklists for parenting and the importance of dressing for success.

I just didn't think the advice was that insightful compared to other books. A book I enjoyed more was "Superself : Doubling Your Personal Effectiveness" by Charles J. Givens which incorporates values with goal setting.

I don't give it 5 stars, because despite the book has great concepts and ideas, the author affirms that all of the rest of self-help authors are wrong, and I don't agree. He says that goal setting, visualization, affirmations, are all garbage, the only important thing according to him is to find what we really want from the bottom of our hearts and that will be the fuel that will move us to action and accomplish our desires. The concept is very important and I agree on that part. I don't agree with the critics to other systems or authors, because for me in particular, visualization has been of great importance, artists and sport people know the great importance of visualizing before games or performances. Goal setting is super beneficial if you follow the rules stated by Brian Tracy or Anthony Robbins, I know that goal setting can be detrimental, but only if you violate the ruls of goal setting, like writing an impossible goal, e.g. you are 80 lb overweight and pretend to loose 70 for next week, or you plan to write a 90 pages screenplay make 4 revisions in 2 days and be ready to be submited to an agent.
Use the information on this book and complement it with other equally important ones.
This book should be the base for other books. This is the beginning. I think this book should not be exclusive to other books, but a complement.

The title is horribly misleading. With the word DNA in it, I expected something of substance, based on scientific facts and research. Instead, it was a bad self-improvent type of book.
The basic idea is simple and feels true - you can only succeed in something that you really want. But the idea is neither developed nor executed properly. The author did not build around it, he simply added quotes of famous thinkers and many "real-life" examples, and voila - almost 300 pages. And all the stories sound the same: John/Jane was very unhappy but then realized what he/she really wanted, achieved it and lived happily ever after.
To be honest, the author does attempt to present a method of discovering your core desires, but fails. The method consists of asking yourself these questions:
1. what is it that I want, but don't have?
2. if I had or did that, what would I gain with it and how would it feel?
Then you are supposed to rate each entry on your wish list on a scale of 100, based on how much you want it. The desires that you rated above 80 are the core ones. Duh!

Discovering what you really want goes hand in hand with getting to know yourself. As you get closer to who you really are, you learn to tell the difference between your true desires and ego-based and society-generated ones. It is a life long process and reading a book like this one doesn't make it happen any sooner.

I have read a lot of self help and motivational books over the last 15 years. I would have to say that Jack's book is one of the top 5 I have read. He is very clear and concise on what a person needs to do to cut through all the hype and accomplish one's "core desires". Jack does an excellent job explaining why people fail or succeed. He is very clear on explaining what a person needs to do to reap the rewards of success. I have put some of Jack's suggestions from his book to the test and have already started to see incredible, immediate success. This is a great book which I will gladly be recommending to all of my family, friends and business associates. This is a "must have" for anyone serious about getting what they want out of life and accomplishing what matters most to them. An excellent book that I whole heartedly recommend!

If you are one of the millions of people who have bought all of the self help books, tapes, set affirmations, swished yourself and anchored yourself, set goals untill you were blue in the face ad nauseum, went to this guys seminar and that guys seminar and nothing happened. Welcome to the club! How about trying something new and different.

Jack Zufelt covers some of the same things those other gurus do, but where they stop, Jack takes over. In this refreshing book by Zufelt, you will learn what the true cause of success is: The Conquering Force.

Mr. Zufelt has worked with many fortune 500 companies and is a master at bringing out the best in people. He can show how as well with this great book, The DNA of Success.

I want to write a review, because I am benefited by this, and want others also should be benefited.

I have asked myself for nearly 3 years that, something is missing in my life. I was searching searching... Bought many books, read materials in the web (got scolds from my wife that i am spending too much time on these things), as I regularly search, 5 days back, i searched in the web with the key word as 'Goal setting by writing', and i found this book.

Anyone, who truly wants to find the 'missing something', should read this book. I read this book, and found my 'core desire', and it is amazing to know that. This core desire is the 'missing something' in my life as of now, so now I am very happy as i found my life's purpose.

I realized that, working is not a problem for anyone. But knowing why is the real key. By knowing 'why i should work', I would work with real satisfaction.

This book will get the peak of the popularity very soon, i Bet!. Because this books tells you the actual thing. Read it you will feel it. That is all i can tell.

To be brutally honest, I didn't like this book. At the beginning, the book purports that one shouldn't follow the age-old "motivational tactics" such as positive affirmations, writing down your goals etc, but then as I read along, that is exactly what this book is doing as well. There really is not much differentiating this book from all the other "self help" books that i've read so far...except for the fact that it's not one of the better ones. The examples of "success" are not very compelling, and the one part of the book that I really wish Zufelt would have elaborated on was _very_ skimpy -- ie, the part where he defines how to figure out what it is that you want. I was expecting this book to help my along my journey to finding the inner truth -- deep into the caverns of my mind to find out exactly what it is that i'm looking for. But, admittedly, maybe a book cannot provide this for anyone. Perhaps a career or motivational counsellor would work better.

This book, in all honesty, could be condensed to about 30 pages, and would be just as impactful as it is in the 200 page version (or however many pages there are).

I learned about this book when Jack Zufelt was a guest on Gary Null's Natural Living radio show. Gary let him have the forum, and Jack started almost boasting about how his approach is the best, and nobody else's works long-term. While that IS true, to some extent, Gary Null took offense to Jack's obnoxious, arrogant tone, and threatened to kick him off his show. After a back and forth exchange, Gary cut the interview short, and sent Mr. Zufelt on his way.

Intregued, as to why the author could be so very arrogant about his approach, I ordered the book from Amazon. I HAD to know what made this guy such a believer in himself! Well, needless to say, the book didn't do much for me. The entire book is based off one simple belief, that could have been condensed into ONE chapter: You only find success and happiness when you're fulfilling your Core desires. Stray from it, and you will always be chasing dreams, successes, and happiness. Then he goes on, and on, and on needlessly for 150+ pages. Some of the exercises are good, some are not.

I'd be lying if I said this book is useless. There's some good material inside. Some that has shaped my current belief system. I was expecting more, however.

I read Jack Zufelt's `Chapter 1: Success Springs From Desire' that he posted on his website: http://www.dnaofsuccess.com/freechapter.html#toc. I also read about his philosophy on his website. I think he makes many valid points, and gives good examples of what he's saying regarding the importance of `Core Desires' and how we all have a `Conquering Force' within us that we can tap into, that will propel us to success. But I also think he may be erroneously discrediting certain methods (e.g., writing down goals, visualizing, affirming) possibly because his understanding and experience of these was/is less than accurate, and therefore less than satisfactory. For example, I believe, whether we use words or not, we are constantly affirming something. We go through our days, and in our minds, and with our feelings, we are constantly telling ourselves something, about ourselves and our relationship to circumstances and others. If these thoughts are negative, or not in our best interests, we can find constructive ideas to tell ourselves that can serve to change our perspective and therefore the actions we take; i.e., we can use affirmations to our benefit. Even with his example of Michael Jordan, I see that he fails to mention that Michael did indeed have a vision of what he wanted - to be as good a person and player as he possibly could be. So, in this sense, Michael was indeed visualizing. ~ In any case, I found the chapter a good read, if for nothing else than to have just one more example of how a person who came from dire circumstances and once thought he might just be a loser went on to achieve great success. His story is fascinating worth reading. (But when you read it, you might ask yourself how Jack might explain the `coincidence' of his boss having the exact opportunity that he needed to advance; the karate studio.) I wonder what Jack would say caused this opportunity, or would he say it was `merely luck' or a string of lucky coincidences?

This book helped me uncover "why" I wanted to be successful. All through my adult life I worked toward goals because it was what I always did. I was always in search of something better than what I had but there was always something lacking. It was this book that allowed me to look deep within myself to realize "why" I wanted to be successful and "why" I wanted to achieve higher. By finding my core desire in life, I am able to stay on track and keep my focus. I am creating my future. My reasons for wanting to achieve more in life is so clear to me now that I build my activities towards the pursuit of my goals and I am much more happier for it. I credit Jack Zufelt for helping me uncover my core desires in life. Thank you.