Customer Reviews

Life's Missing Instruction Manual : The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

If you can skip past the hundreds of advertisements for the self-help products being peddled by Joe's friends and colleagues, there is actually some very useful stuff in here. But the presentation of the material is very disjointed. This is really just a collection of infomercials. Not bad but there are many better books out there that are actually written by one person and flow coherently.

This book features numerous vignettes grouped into several themes:

* You: Congratulations on Your Life
* Internal Capabilities: Understanding Your Life's Potential
* External Connections: Caring for Others in Your Life
* Troubleshooting: Taking Care of Yourself
* Optimum Performance: Getting the Best Out of Your Life
* Specifications: What You Need to Know About Others
* Proper Usage: Defining Your Life's Purpose
* Assembly Required: Creating Your Future

You Create Your Future with a Pen (pp. 23-24)
I love this concept, because it involves imaging yourself at some future point in time and establishing goals for yourself under that pretext. We must visualize the future success and remained dedicated, for dedication means keeping a promise to oneself.

Indian Wisdom: Two Wolves (p. 91)
This is a concise and vivid example of controlling one's internal struggles. It reminds us that we are the ones who control the outcome by "feeding" the metaphorical wolf that represents one of two opposing forces.

People Only Act for Self-Serving Reasons, No Matter What They Say or What You Think (p. 112)
This insight is spot-on, and as Joe says, everyone still disagrees with this truism...but it is true. And it's not as if this is inherently a bad thing, but rather just the way we humans act. The sooner we accept this concept, the sooner we'll be able to interact with people more effectively.

It's hard to resist the notion that Vitale conceived his latest best-seller by applying the following formula: Take the marketing hook of a book that already published to wild success (You: The Owner's Manual), add some of the pointed religiosity of two other recent bestsellers (Your Best Life Now and The Purpose-Driven Life), throw in some generic cosmic blather (inspired, perhaps, by Sylvia Browne or Marianne Williamson) and VOILA!--another perfect entry in the burgeoning self-help sub-category of "holistic/successful/spiritually enriched living."

This approach is nothing new for Vitale, a master of so-called "stealth" or "viral" marketing who unashamedly admits to being president of a company called Hypnotic Marketing, Inc. His previous best-seller, The Attraction Factor (which owns the distinction of once having knocked a Harry Potter book out of Amazon's No. 1 slot) echoed several other books and/or programs that involved such concepts as "laws of attraction" or "rules of attraction." Here, Vitale proposes to offer "big wisdom and little-known secrets for living a better life." I'll give him this: The book is clever in some spots and pretty funny in others--but its ability to help you "overcome any obstacle" and "find fulfillment...wealth and happiness," as his publicity material promises, is highly debatable. Like so many of the gurus in this self-help category, Vitale subscribes to the Promise Readers Everything--Even Things That Clash--And Hope They Don't Notice school of motivational enlightenment. Examples: He vows to teach readers, simultaneously, how to "create their own blueprint for success" and to "work as a team." Granted, those two goals are not, strictly speaking, incompatible. But the degree of finesse required to embrace and, especially, implement both goals is not something you could hope to find in a book like Vitale's. Similarly, he says, readers will learn to "be themselves and like it" as well as "lead a good and moral life"--but for that matter, and for good measure, let's throw in two other objectives: "take chances that lead to success" and "accept their mistakes and move on." I defy anyone short of Socrates or Kant to resolve ALL FOUR of those stated benefits into the same action plan without endlessly qualifying, parsing language, or backtracking on something you said earlier.

I've said it a hundred times and I say it again here: If you're just looking for a quick jolt of formless inspiration that fades as fast as the winter sun, then what the heck, order the book. But if you actually expect life-transforming wisdom--come on, now. You know better than that already, don't you? The person most likely to profit off this "guidebook" is Vitale himself.

A gentle reading book that refreshes the ideas of elder wisdoms that we should apply in our daily living. I like the fact the ideas are presented in short sections, making it the perfect travel or bed-stand book. You can read a few pages at a time and not loose context of a story line.

It reads fast and left me wanting more, so I turned back to page one and started over. Each read shows shows me something different that I can connect to at that very moment.

C.Joss said in a review: "This book is a disjointed collection of contributions from Joe's friends and colleagues, padded with Joe's own contributions. It's not the manual that it purports to be. There's is no common thread running through the book, no process to be implemented."

The same can be said of every "book" ever written by "Dr." Joe Vitale. They are all the same. No one cranks out more assembly line "books" than Joe, but then when your friends contribute 80% of the content every time, it's easy to see why Joe is so productive.

There are plenty of authors who write their own books and actually take enough pride in their work to try to come up with something original. Go read them instead.

Joe Vitale is an obvious sales-person. That he sells in the cathegory of "Making other people feel good" does not take away from that fact. He is a salesman. I feel I wasted my time and money on this trite, regurgiated collection of articles and wise-guy essays.

Book is mostly written by others, not Dr. Joe Vitale. While many of the little stories are good, I find it a disappointing book on the whole.

If only I had this book as an adolescent, my life would be so much smoother. Recommended to all who choose a better lot in life for themselves.

In 1996, I wrote a book called Love Takes Time and in it I mentioned the fact
that we should all be born with "Instruction Manuals". Well, Joe Vitale must
have read my book OR somewhere out there the Universe responded to my query
through Joe. What he includes covers most of what we all encounter during our
lifetimes. It is sage advice. You will enjoy this most informative book which
as an added feature, provides contact info for even more help. It's a wise
purchase.

Again, in his simple words, the author had reaffirmed much life wisdoms and truths in the instruction manual. It was an entertaining read and much of the content offered have been helpful and useful for me.

I found it to be fair for the author to include the contributions from other people in the book as they do help to offer a well-rounded view/perspective on life; rather than just a book based on a personal opinion from one person.