Customer Reviews

Get Out of Your Own Way: The 5 Keys to Surpassing Everyone's Expectations

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is a very powerful primer on how your brain works to support you . . . or not when left to run patterns it has already learned.

I enjoyed the very clear description of how your brain works and is organized and the layman terms and examples that make this material easily understood and interesting to the average reader.

Don't be fooled by some of the reviews, this book will transform you if you read it, think about it, and do the exercises. This is a book about thinking and doing . . . and about getting massive results by controlling brain.

I strongly recommned this book for anyone who has consumed dozens of self help books and is still looking for more and I recommend it even more wholeheartedly for those people just beginning the searh. This book is an opportunity to condition and train yourself appropriately the first time.

You'll love this book, I know I did.

Dave Lakhani
Author - Persuasion The Art of Getting What You Want and The Power of an Hour: Business and Life Mastery In One Hour A Week

I have a template of my reading goals...(1) Does it catch my eye? (2) Did someone recommend it directly to me? (3) Has absolutely nothing to do with me.

This book caught my eye and I have never heard of Robert Cooper. At first, I got scared because there were a lot of big words, "brain" talk, research numbers and quotes, and I thought, "...oops." But then I stuck with it and ended up with literally 10 pages in a word document of notes, (I write big) to apply to me, and friends of mine. This book is not only for workplace ideas, but personal life change as well. I honestly couldn't wait to share this with someone else. My advice is get a highlighter and go to town.

This is cutting edge cognitive research, presented in an easily assimilable form, to allow you to reach your full potential. Cooper espouses the advantages of spending a mere 15 minutes per day building your 5-10 year future, and thus, giving yourself the perspective to glide easily through your quotidian problems. Reading this book, and applying it, will yield demonstrable results, even if you only pick up on a few of Cooper's many recommendations. For my money, this is an improvement on "The Other 90%"
His elucidation of the brain's (the primitive brain's) tendency to flee the unknown, or challenge, was most helpful: I am now in University, and complements some of the ideas in "The Kaizen Way," Cooper's book being more substantive, however. You will not be disappointed.

The real contribution here is in viewing the brain's functioning in a balanced way. Cooper goes beyond the normal self-help cheerleading, the kind that suggests that all we need to do is "tap in" to our infinite cerebral potential. He helps us to understand that primitive tendencies, many of which have been evolutionarily adaptive, are now obstacles to achievement. The brain is in some ways so happy to have arrived at Point A that it is too comfortable to risk the journey to Point B. This more sophisticated understanding of mental functioning, informed by new brain mapping/scanning technology, can help those who embrace the idea that NOW IS NO TIME TO STOP EVOLVING.

If I could give this book ten stars, I would. It has been instrumental in creating some breakthroughs in my life, and I am not even finished reading it. I bought this book because I was going through a slump that had me running around in circles, and getting nowhere fast. Now, I am back on track and making rapid progress.

I have difficulty understanding how anyone could call this "fluff". It is substantial, practical information, and it can put you on a path of outstanding achievement, if you allow it to.

What I liked most about this book was the ease in which I could read through this book and all of the concrete examples of how to get out of my way. Of course, there is not an easy way to make this happen nor does the author intend to make this easy for us, rather he intends to make us aware of ourselvs, our habits, and what holds us back so that we can apply ourselves in new undiscovered ways.

Great book.

This is a relatively long self help book with 295 content pages packed in 5 keys/parts (direction, focus, capacity, energy and impact) and 20 chapters. Despite its length, I really find its many ideas, quotations and stories interesting and helpful. A highly enjoyable and inspirational read. In short, recommended!

Below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference:-

To climb more, carry less.
To hear more, talk less.
To succeed more, assume less.
To invent more, resist less.
To excel more, compete less. Pg 80

The brain is lightning quick at jumping to assumptions, and is often wrong. So the ability to observe your own natural reactions and rise above them - to follow your own natural flow of focus and then guide it in new ways - is one of the key things that separates the best from all the rest in any field or endeavor. Pg 105

And proud their ancient-wired brains, much like ours today, must have been - never realizing that the harder they (Easter Islanders hauling on ropes to drag hundred ton statues out of quarries and then all across the island on sledges made from logs. As the trees disappeared, so did the rest of the island's vegetation and animal life, until there was nothing left to support the inhabitants) tried, the longer they worked, the more numbly they sacrificed, the faster the future for themselves and their children was vanishing. Pg 225

I read The Other 90% by Dr. Cooper and found it a much easier read. I also think it provides a good background for this book.

This book has some good ideas and great examples but I find my self easily bogged down in the language and references to other works, journals, etc.

Plus if you've read Psychocybernetics, you'll see many similarities...just more up to date research and case studies.

In short, I still recommend the book but don't expect it to be a single sitting read.

The quotes on the back cover, from the likes of Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard (The One Minute Manager), make for a good sales pitch. Sadly, the 5 keys given in the book appear to be a rehashing of things already said many times before (and much more concisely). I agree with an earlier review - "very fluffy". Look at this one in the bookstore before buying if you can. One of the few books that I could not complete.

Re-packaged, trite, typical self-helpy platitudes ("dream big"! "take risks!" etc.) with little-to-no practical advice. Only unique thing here is that he throws some vague neuro-science "facts" behind it -- but it's too vague and not well-explained enough to be taken seriously. Instead of living up to its potential and being a serious book about neuro/psychology, it's more like: "Your brain is hard-wired to do X, Y, and Z...now, dream big! Your brain also does A, B, and C. Take risks!".

Filled with lots of cliched stories (along the lines of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" -- sappy inspirational tales of overcoming the odds), and OVERLY filled with quotes (which makes it read like a college kid's research paper...so many footnotes!) that add little value. Seriously, do you really need to string together quotes from Sloan, Elie Wiesel, William Blake all within inches of each other...only to end up doling out some banal advice about the potential benefits of constructive criticism? Whoop-dee-doo. After that much build-up, at least give us something we haven't already heard a thousand times.

Only reason I'm not giving it only 1 star is that some of the brain-facts are mildly interesting in a "Huh, I didn't know that" kind of way...but learning those bits of neuro-trivia isn't worth the time, effort, nor price of the book.

This is the first time I've ever been so disappointed with a book that I've bothered to write a poor review on Amazon!

p.s. lots of his advice (e.g. set aside time to focus on one thing at a time) is given in the much more practical, dramatically less fluffy "Never Check E-mail in the Morning" -- almost identical take-aways, but there they are presented in a practical, easy to read way. That book won't give you fluff, but solid, applicable advice.