Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Of Mice and Men, June 1, 2005
This book is an analogy of mice vs. men (simple and complicated) in a maze, about how many things such as over-analyzing, stubbornness, and fear can over-complicate simple things, making anything, even life, unnecessarily unbearable.
It is intended to help readers get the most out of anything situation, stay content, and increase their confidence levels. Contrary to the title, the book is neither cliché nor "cheesy." Few if any things stay the same forever, and the book emphasizes the importance of accepting change, and even capitalizing on it. In context, it includes many inspirational quotes such as, "What would I do, if I wasn't afraid?"
`The Story' itself is very short and to the point, and includes a section where the storyteller and his classmates reflect on how `The Story' can be applied to their lives. This provides many examples on how the overall wisdom can easily be applied to many situations in everyday life, from personal relationships, to running businesses. Read this story with an open mind and it just may improve the quality of your daily life, whatever it entails.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Mock The Cheese, August 22, 2005
This book is a parable about life and change. Change can happen without our consent, and many people find it difficult to deal with. "Who Moved My Cheese" is the story of mice and little people that live in a maze searching for cheese. As you may have guessed, the maze is a metaphor for life, and the cheese is a metaphor for what we want to get out of life. This is a simple and fun book that can help stimulate the desire to go with the flow rather than fight the flow of life. This book has been mocked as being overly simplistic and insulting to intelligent adults. It's a parable..... it's supposed to be simple. And simple is usually what soaks into our subconscious mind with the least effort. I've seen books that were 500 pages long trying to get across the same point that this little gem does in 94 pages. This book is not promoting change for the sake of change, but let's face it.... change is constant, and we may as we deal with it the best we can.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who has ever been faced with change, whether in the workplace or in their personal relationships, and finds it difficult to go with flow.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Constant change is hete to stay, April 29, 2005
It is not `change' in itself that is a killer punch, but the way that we react to it. Central to this book is `the story' about the way four individuals (two mice named `Sniff' and `Scurry' and two mice-sized people, `Hem' and `Haw') were faced with change, and what effect it had, or more importantly was allowed to have.
Some years ago, there were definitely books on personal improvement, and others on business practice. However, less and less do we compartmentalise our lives, and it is more taken to be a whole. This volume is regularly given out to management groups at motivational meetings, and attendees are encouraged to embrace change. The simple story outlined as a teaching point is that it is possible to use change as an opportunity to advance; if individuals do not accept changes, then they will not survive. Even the very phrase `dodo' is used to describe those who cannot or will not adapt.
The book is very easy to read, and can be grasped by most everybody. I found that the `story' was too long, and repetitive. Once the point that it is possible to embrace or resist changes has been made, it does not need to be remade forward, backwards and sidewards. However, having worked in a firm where these ideas are part of the new corporate culture, and the book was prescribed reading for middle management, perhaps the central idea was not as new to me as it could be to some others.
The greater value for me was the application of the principles of embracing change, outside of `the story'. It is there that reality collides with ideas that look good on paper. If something does not migrate from the written page into life, it is of little importance.
Read this book, and you will find that as you change the way you think about `change', it will affect your life. Not just your working life, or your family life, but every area between and beyond these two nodal points.
Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)
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