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

~ (Author) "Many years ago, maybe 20 years ago, I found an unusual hand-sewn manual from Florence, Italy..." (more)
Key Phrases: Silent Unity, World War

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Vitale, "the Buddha of the Internet," compiles a trove of life lessons from "internet celebrities," motivational speakers, writers and entertainment industry folks in this little book that offers a mishmash of oft-heard self-help homilies. Bits of wisdom and anecdotes are bundled into chapters with titles like, "Your Feelings Are Your Hidden Thoughts" or "How to Know What You Want." Each chapter is punctuated by subheads that address the finer points, including "Naps Are Good," which advises: "When the world seems bleak, when you feel out of sorts, when your body feels tired and you mind seems wild, sometimes all you need is a good nap." Vitale frequently mentions his previous books (The Attractor Factor; The E-Code), and includes short essays from other enterprising authors or "internet marketers" that are virtually indistinguishable from each other's (and Vitale's) in style, content and form. Worth noting is the journey the book takes from the simple advice at the beginning to the hints on manipulating people-"People Will Tend To Say Yes If You Start Them Saying Yes" and "People Will Pay Any Amount of Money to Have Their Inner States Changed"-that creep into the end of the book. Searchers intent on finding instructions on living a fulfilling life should seek a less scattershot book, but readers looking for the odd pick-me-up will find them in large supply here.
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Product Description

Bestselling author and marketing guru Joe Vitale offers insights and life lessons for achieving success

In the simple, straightforward tone of an instructional manual, this little book offers big wisdom and little-known secrets for living a better life. Packed with life lessons most people will wish they'd learned earlier, Life's Missing Instruction Manual uses humor and anecdote to present practical steps readers can use to take control of their lives, overcome any obstacle, and find fulfillment. Each simple lesson is explained and brought into focus with real-life examples and includes practical steps on putting those lessons to work every day. Full of uncommon wisdom and lighthearted humor, this book will help readers develop confidence, create a plan for success, get ahead at work, build rapport with others, develop time-management skills, and find wealth and happiness.

Readers will learn how to live life to the fullest when they discover how to:
* Take chances that lead to success
* Get through the tough times
* Be themselves and like it
* Find their purpose
* Work as a team
* Create their own blueprint for success
* Believe in themselves
* Lead a good and moral life
* Accept their mistakes and move on
* Define success for themselves

Joe Vitale (Wimberley, TX) is President of Hypnotic Marketing, Inc., and author of The Attractor Factor (0-471-70604-3) and The E-Code (0-471-71855-6). He has been called "the Buddha of the Internet" for his combination of spirituality and marketing acumen. His professional clients include the Red Cross, PBS, Hermann Children's Hospital, and many other small and large international businesses.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (February 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471768499
• ISBN-13: 978-0471768494
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #76,853 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 10% Gold and 90% Infomercials, March 27, 2007

By	A. Bengzon "goldenarm" (Jersey City, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

64 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage, April 6, 2007

By	TD (Boston) - See all my reviews

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.

110 of 137 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to write a best-seller: the missing instruction manual, March 9, 2006

By	Steve Salerno "author of SHAM: How the Self-H... (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.