Take a hint from "giving" Che Guevara!

This title is book-smart and sickeningly naive. Amidst interesting real-Life examples, the author felt behooved to use FIDEL CASTRO and CHE GUEVERA as positive examples of using smart hacks. Yeah, they did do wonders with that radio, but don't expect the author to acknowledge the fact that Castro, during his tenure, sent thousands of young men to fight wars off-shore while the rest of the population, in the words of Castro's own sister, lived on "a prison surrounded by water." The author goes so far as to praise this literal-definition dictator of being universally approved of according to Cuban polls (unlike the US, where a gaggle of politicians were deemed less popular than...canaries). The difference between the US and Cuba? US has freedom of speech and there aren't any lethal consequences from disliking the leadership. Cuba had more freedom of speech under Batista, a terrible fact to consider. This author is obviously smart, but out of all the examples he could have built up, he used two tyrants as an example of how to better one's life. Geez.

14 people found this helpful

Smartcuts Delivers The Goods!

What did you love best about Smartcuts?

Smartcuts was awesome because of how it brought the different principles together in an applicable format. Theory was backed up by how they were executed and studies that aligned.

What other book might you compare Smartcuts to and why?

If you combined the principles from Smartcuts, Lean Startup and Virtual Freedom you'd be one powerhouse player.

18 people found this helpful

Waste of time.

This book is such a disappointment and I still don't understand how it got so many good reviews. The book is filled with recycled anecdotes and stories from so many other startup and marketing books. Nothing new here, so don't waste your time and go straight to Malcom Gladwell or Seth Godin, because this is just a watered-down version of their books.

16 people found this helpful

Just ok

The book seemed to have a too many references to products, and websites. I also thoght that the book did not clearly define each "smarrcut" abd how it could be used in everyday life.

10 people found this helpful

Poor man's Malcolm Gladewell

While highly creative and well woven as a narrative this book felt overly qualitative, making broad, sweeping statements off of a handful of cherry picked examples. It's like mind candy but I'm not really sure whether I learned anything truly meaningful from it. The narration is highly polished but grates after a while.

4 people found this helpful

Great content, specially in audio format

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I was able to listen to this while doing other menial tasks, which made this a lot faster than sitting down to read. In terms of the content it's a great book to learn how others have learned to work smarter to get to their goals faster. Shane Snow's explanation of theories with every day examples of people who have succeeded with these techniques is super engaging and refreshing.

What did you like best about this story?

The examples brought it home for me. Specially when he concludes with Dwayne Edwards story.

Have you listened to any of Shane Snow and Erik Bergmann ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

3 people found this helpful

Well Crafted. A little slow.

Stick with this through the tangents. He did an exceptional job of building concepts on top of each other. Similar content to Bold by Peter Diamandis, which I got a little more out of.

2 people found this helpful

Kind of boring and repetitive

Is there anything you would change about this book?

To be truthful, I drifted off into thoughts many times while listening. I got bored. Perhaps abridging it would be better?

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Rewrite and edit to take out the repetitive parts and make it less boring in the reading.

Did Shane Snow and Erik Bergmann do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Meh

What did you take away from Smartcuts that you can apply to your work?

I'm not sure they delivered on the promises to show you how to hack into success faster. The Jimmy Fallon stuff was my favorite part of the book.

Any additional comments?

I'm sorry, because I really wanted to love it. :(

2 people found this helpful

Disappointed - This could have been so much more

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

If you have a fairly liberal mindset, you enjoy sexist language, and you just want your worldview reinforced, you'll enjoy this. If you are looking for insight, useful perspective, or specific ideas to help you improve in work and life then I'm afraid you'll find yourself disappointed. The stories are interesting but unrelated, and the author's explanation is over simplistic and lacks the research and logical rigor of other books I've read. If you just want an entertaining read about interesting true stories, you'll probably enjoy this.

Has Smartcuts turned you off from other books in this genre?

I will be more cautious in the future and probably read the Kindle sample before wasting another credit on a title that sounds interesting but is by an author I'm unfamiliar with or that wasn't strongly recommended by a trusted reader.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The performance was very competent but nothing out of the ordinary. It fit the book and never got on my nerves.

Any additional comments?

I read a lot of these types of books, and they are hit or miss. Some are excellent and I can't wait to recommend them to everyone else and put the things I've learned into practice. This wasn't one of those. It felt like someone had read the books I have read, loved them, and wanted to write one himself but lacked the insight to do so. It was entertaining, but not as educational as I've come to expect. And I was put off by the sexist language.

14 people found this helpful

Great stories, ideas--could change your life.

Great book on how to radically accelerate your life and your influence. It shows how things like mentoring and leveraging platforms and the ability to see "waves" coming can make the difference from incremental change to big leaps forward. He challenges us to reject the idea of slowly working our way up the ladder, spending years of paying dues before you can finally do something big or meaningful. He says that if you are willing to rethink some assumptions you can leap forward and instead of taking shortcuts for 10% improvements you can take what he calls smartcuts and get 10X improvement.

With gripping stories as examples and solid social science to back it up, this is one of the better books I've read. Highly recommend it.

4 people found this helpful