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I bought this on a whim, usually using audible for business or sports downloads. However, I found it fascinating. Sometimes I suspect it is a bit sanitised and thoughts are stated with the benefit of hindsight, but I found it thoroughly fascinating. I suprised myself that after a while I was more interested in Emilio's sections but all was totally absorbing.

If I had to be critical then I would say that I was slightly disappointed that there was not anything about Martin Sheen's time fiming The West Wing. But the book is about the relationship between father and son so maybe nothing interesting was happening at this time!

I would probaby give this book a 4.5 stars but as that is not an option I'd rather round up than down. In my opinion this audible book is well worth a listen.

Like all these type of books (see any of the 'One minute manager' series) they are easy books to get through and useful for a bit of a pick up! So I'll put my hands up and say I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this as an audiobook.

But as to how effective the 5 'laws' espoused would be in reality I am not so convinced! Basically I think you could sum up the book by saying be a good person, look for ways to help others and be willing to accept and recognise others' help when offerred. And if you can do all that everything will work out wonderfully well.

It all works out nicely in the story of course. I'm not so convinced there are really any lessons to be learned here but of course looking for way to help others when you have the opportunity isn't a bad idea.

So I would say buy the book / audiobook, read / listen, enjoy, be a little inspired perhaps, but don't expect any true enlightenment. Life just isn't so simple. Of course maybe I'm just not enlightened enough!! :)

This is a very good book particularly useful for UK professionals. Full of good advice and sensible strategies. Nothing ground breaking but well thought out and presented. And for those of us in professions a useful reminder of the things we know we should be doing for developing business!

There are some useful insights in this book and definitely you can gain something. But I just feel everything is too simplistic. Fixed mindset = bad; Growth mindset = good. In principle this is ok but people are so much more complex than this. Carol Dweck does allude at one point that people can have different mindsets in differing areas but I think that we can all oscillate between both mindsets depending upon how we feel recent experiences and a multitude of other influences. Although I do believe that aiming for a growth mindset is better.

She also uses examples of the two mindsets from business and sport. People who were very successful and then fell from grace all of course suffered from a fixed mindset according to Dweck. Now some of those people are still wealthier than most will ever achieve! I also wonder if this was being written now whether Tiger Woods would have been the paragon of a growth mindset that Dweck states (the book being written before his fall from grace). I suspect he would now be assigned the bad fixed mindset somehow. John McEnroe who I think you'd have to admit was pretty successful by pretty much any standards is pilloried for his fixed mindset.

As I said there are nuggets of wisdom here. But I found with so many of the examples used that Dweck has just used hindsight to determine if someone had the 'good' growth mindset or bad fixed mindset that I found myself wanting to argue with the recording.

Of course I also suspect that the mere fact that I disagree with Dweck in anything would, in her opinion, label me as suffering from the fixed minsdset! Overall you might learn something here but I doubt it is going to change your life.