Professional & Technical Books - Page 2

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Amazon Marketplace: 140 new & used starting at $7.74

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Gastronomy -> History
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Nutrition -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Nutrition -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 466 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The True Cost of Eating Your Lunch 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Journalist Michael Pollan has written what appears on the surface to be a boring book. He decides to eat four meals and explore the history and consequences of each. He chooses an industrial agricultural meal (fast food), a large-scale organic meal, locally raised farm meal and finally he hunts and gathers his last meal.

By capturing the social, economic, and ecological as well as the moral, and ethical consequences of each meal, Pollan has written a modern day masterpiece on a task most people take for granted - eating their lunch. It's an intricately woven narrative with a massive amount of pain-staking research. But one thing "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is not is boring. Its captivating reading.

It should be required reading for anyone who as eaten a Big Mac or thinks that shopping at Whole Foods is going to save the planet. Every food item people purchase and consume is a political statement and has rippling effects on their health, the environment, and our society. Pollan has written a wake-up call to all of us.

And for those vegetarians out there? Pollan makes one of the best arguments I've ever read about why vegetarians are inherently hypocritical and why the vegetarian lifestyle may be more unnatural and nature defying than any other diet.

Here are some of the highlights from Pollan's fascinating book:

* Meat might not be that bad for people. The problem is the way we raise cattle. Cows evolved to eat grass. Their stomachs are complicated six chambered organs designed to break down and digest grasses. Industrial raised cattle are fed ground up corn, which is unhealthy for them. As a result, the cattle become ill and the corn has to be injected with antibiotics and other chemicals. It's the corn that marbles beef and causes it to be unhealthy. "In the same way ruminants are ill adapted to eating corn, humans in turn may be poorly adapted to eating ruminants that eat corn," according to Pollan.

* Cattle are fed corn for about 150 days before they are slaughtered. It's a good thing because it is unlikely that cattle could survive the chemical-laced corn diet for much longer than that. Even at 150 days, most of the cattle we eat are sick.

* Food companies have an enormous challenge in order to grow and meet Wall Street expectations. The biggest problem: "fixed stomach." People can only consume a limited amount of food each year - about 1,500 pounds. So food companies are forced to do one of two things: entice people to eat more or convince them to pay more for what they already eat. This has lead to the development of a new type of corn starch which has zero calories. In other words, the food companies are on the verge of developing food with no calories so you can eat as much as you like.

* A child in the U.S. born in 2000 has a one in three chance of being diabetic.

* Hunger is complicated in human beings due to our feast or famine digestive system. As a result of this evolutionary trait humans won't stop eating when they are full. In fact, when presented with an overabundance of food, human will eat up to 30 percent more. It's one of the reasons why "super-sizing" portions has worked so well at fast food chains.

* There is butane in chicken McNuggets. Why? Lighter fluid apparently adds freshness. The FDA allows 0.02 percent of the chemical TBHQ in food. That's kind of them because one gram of TBHQ causes: "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, and a sense of suffocation and collapses." Five grams of TBHQ kills human beings.

* People in the U.S. each more corn than any other food. Corn byproducts are in nearly everything we consume. A breakdown of corn in a typical McDonald's meal looks like this: Soda (100 percent corn), milk shake (78 percent), salad dressing (65 percent), chicken nuggets (56 percent), cheeseburger (52 percent), and French fries (23 percent).

* The organic food movement is starting to look a lot like big business. The grocery chain Whole Foods, for example, buys most of its food from two enormous organic food companies Earthbound Farms and Grimmway Farms - rarely buying food for local farms. For example, milk can be called organic and the only difference in treatment and conditions for the cows is that they are fed organic corn instead of regular corn. Cows, of course, don't naturally eat corn.

* Under pressure from big organic farms, the U.S. government allows synthetic additive including "guar and xanthan gum" and "carrageenan" to be called organic. That's why consumers can buy organic TV dinners, which, if you think about it, isn't really possible.

* Lots of organic farming operations uses fraudulent claims to entice people. A perfect example are chickens. Pollan visited a farm that claimed its birds were "range free." This conjures images of uncaged birds roaming grassy lots. He found these chickens in a shed crammed with 20,000 birds - fed, of course, organic corn. They got to call the birds range free because there was a door on the side of the shed that lead to a small fenced in yard. But the door is only unlocked after the chickens were five to six weeks old. They are slaughtered two weeks later.

* Mushrooms are not plants - they are fungi and actually closer related to animals than plants. There is a fungi in Michigan that takes up more than 40 acres and may be centuries old.

* Pollan takes on the vegetarian mentality. He says the concept of "mourning" the death of an animal is a new modern emotion - a departure from the way nature is. Death - animals killing other animals for food - is the way nature was designed. It's the grand design.

Read more "Literate Blather" at the Dark Party Review [...]

Editorial Review:

A New York Times bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us—whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed—he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Niall Ferguson

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Press HC, The Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $18.54

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic History
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> Social History
Subjects -> History -> World -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it’s the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it’s the chains of labor. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress. What’s more, he reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history.

Through Ferguson’s expert lens familiar historical landmarks appear in a new and sharper financial focus. Suddenly, the civilization of the Renaissance looks very different: a boom in the market for art and architecture made possible when Italian bankers adopted Arabic mathematics. The rise of the Dutch republic is reinterpreted as the triumph of the world’s first modern bond market over insolvent Habsburg absolutism. And the origins of the French Revolution are traced back to a stock market bubble caused by a convicted Scot murderer.

With the clarity and verve for which he is known, Ferguson elucidates key financial institutions and concepts by showing where they came from. What is money? What do banks do? What’s the difference between a stock and a bond? Why buy insurance or real estate? And what exactly does a hedge fund do?

This is history for the present. Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can’t provide adequate protection against catastrophe. He delves into the origins of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Perhaps most important, The Ascent of Money documents how a new financial revolution is propelling the world’s biggest countries, India and China, from poverty to wealth in the space of a single generation—an economic transformation unprecedented in human history.

Yet the central lesson of the financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts—sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers, sooner or later greed flips into fear. And that’s why, whether you’re scraping by or rolling in it, there’s never been a better time to understand the ascent of money.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell

Amazon Price: $8.99 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Back Bay Books Amazon Marketplace: 442 new & used starting at $3.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Advertising
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Marketing -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Social Psychology & Interactions

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 940 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Sticking Point 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Gladwell's book is an easy read, and presents a cogent view of how trends evolve and grow from inception to complete fruition.

However, I did find it a bit too simplistic in some aspects, and missing some of the other elements that surely affect whether an idea catches on or not. For example, the concept of "stickiness" surely has an equal and opposite concept I would call "repulsiveness" that can, (and I am sure actually does) stop some trends from evolving at all. And, there is no mention of the cultural awareness that surely tills the soil, making it ready for acceptance of the trend, and providing the roots from which it springs.

All that being said, the ideas and concepts presented in The Tipping Point provide a worthwhile addition to the understanding of those interested in marketing and sales, and is a book I would highly recommend.

Editorial Review:

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Trump University Commercial Real Estate 101: How Small Investors Can Get Started and Make It Big

David Lindahl, Trump University, Donald J. Trump

Amazon Price: $16.77 List Price: $27.95 By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $16.77

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Real Estate -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Real Estate -> General AAS
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

Editorial Review:

Commercial Real Estate Investing 1O1

Trump University books are practical, straightforward primers on the basics of doing business the Trump way--successfully. Each book is written by a leading expert in the field and includes an inspiring Foreword by Trump himself. Key ideas throughout are illustrated by real-life examples from Trump and other senior executives in the Trump organization. Perfect for anyone who wants to get ahead in business, with or without the MBA, these streetwise books provide real-world business advice based on the one thing readers can't get in any business school--experience.

In Trump University Commercial Real Estate Investing 101, you'll discover how to:
* Get started as a small investor
* Understand and read market cycles
* Attract deals and keep them coming
* Use three different techniques for property valuation
* Lock in your profit in the early stages of a deal
* Perform due diligence and uncover the truth behind every deal
* Take only smart risks and recognize bad deals before it's too late
* Tap into financing sources and structure your deals
* Develop a team that will keep your business going when it gets too big to handle alone
* Do simple, smart things to maximize profits when you sell

Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (Lynn Sonberg Books)

Peter D. Schiff, John Downes

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 60 new & used starting at $14.92

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Accounting -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Accounting -> General AAS
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Investing -> Introduction

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 259 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The economic tipping point for the United States is no longer theoretical. It is a reality today. The country has gone from the world's largest creditor to its greatest debtor; the value of the dollar is sinking; domestic manufacturing is winding down - and these trends don't seem to be slowing. Peter Schiff casts a sharp, clear-sighted eye on these factors and explains what the possible effects may be and how investors can protect themselves. For more than a decade, Schiff has not only observed the U.S. economy, but also helped his clients reposition their portfolios to reflect his outlook. What he sees is a nation facing an economic storm brought on by growing federal, personal, and corporate debt, too-little savings, a declining dollar, and lack of domestic manufacturing.
Crash-Proof is an informed and informative warning of a looming period marked by sizeable tax hikes, loss of retirement benefits, double digit inflation, even - as happened recently in Argentina - the possible collapse of the middle class. However, Schiff does have a survival plan that can provide the protection that readers will need in the coming years.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen R. Covey

List Price: $15.00 By: Free Press Amazon Marketplace: 2374 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> General AAS
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Job Hunting & Careers -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 811 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Exceptional Book 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

In browsing my book shelf I came upon and then found myself rereading this incredibly simple yet profound book. The principles and ideas Stephen writes about are truly ways to discover how to live your life as the person you want to be. I especially found the section where Stephen writes about how powerful unexamined attitudes and perceptions influence how I react toward situations and others. Once I started looking at my predetermined thoughts...those same situations became less mundane and irritating. My experiences became more authentic, meaningful and enjoyable instantaneously. Stephen writes of this as a "paradigm shift", where our attitudes and behaviors, left unexamined, shape how we feel and act in our life in mechanical patterns.

Two authors that have also inspired and ignited my passion for living a magnificent life are Ariel & Shya Kane. The Kanes works: "Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment", "Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: The 3 Simple Ideas That Will Instantaneously Transform Your Life", "How to Create a Magical Relationship" and their internet radio show "Being Here" on Voiceamerica.com are all indispensable sources I turn to in supporting my well-being in all areas of my life. I highly recommend the Kanes and Stephen Covey classic, timeless book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."

Editorial Review:

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity -- principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell

Amazon Price: $10.87 List Price: $15.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Back Bay Books Amazon Marketplace: 196 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Decision-Making & Problem Solving
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Cognitive
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Social Psychology & Interactions

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 969 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

pretty much goes nowhere 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I found this a tremendously interesting read: during two days or so it took me to read it, I really couldn't put it down. (A teacher, I put my students to work doing a bunch of soul-crushing busy work so I could finish reading it during classtime.)

It's full of great anecdotes, and Gladwell has a lucid and engaging style.

The problem is this: as far as what Gladwell's actually saying, his observations don't sum to much.

The basic thesis -- as I'm sure you know -- is that people in certain walks of life are frequently found to exhibit eerily reliable snap judgments, whereby they can arrive at the core of (what seem to us) monstrously complex problems in only a second or two.

Fair enough. The phenomenon certainly exists. Gladwell documents it well and you find yourself convinced that he's not making this up.

Alas. The book attempts to go further than that, and that's where it falls flat.

Gladwell never successfully articulates exactly how it is that his various "thin-slicers" actually work their magic. Further, he fails to give proper weight to the counter-evidence: loads of cases where snap judgments fail. Offhand, I would imagine that judging situations based on one's initial impression is, on average, a dumb way to go most of the time (even perilous in some contexts).

But so enthusiastic is Gladwell about the laundry-list of exceptions he has collected that it's almost to the point where he's implying that preternatural snap judgments are USUALLY reliable, rather than OCCASIONALLY reliable. Which is quite the daring claim.

Finally, Gladwell fails to provide any guidance on the question of how one could systematically learn to hone such a skill, assuming that it can even exist in one's discipline (I remain to be convinced that snap judgments have a role to play in all walks of life).

The end result of these shortcomings is that the only thing "Blink" does effectively is point out that the phenomenon exists. By itself this is not terribly useful.

Editorial Review:

In his #1 bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. In BLINK, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? That's the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in BLINK. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, examining case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the New Coke, Gladwell shows how the difference between good decision making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but rather with the few particular details on which we focus. BLINK displays all of the brilliance that has made Malcolm Gladwell's journalism so popular and his books such perennial bestsellers as it reveals how all of us can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Daniel H. Pink

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Riverhead Trade Amazon Marketplace: 94 new & used starting at $4.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Leadership
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 202 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A hole in the mind 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Pink starts with the inarguable premise that we live in a changing economy. The smokestack industries moved overseas long since, and white-collar jobs are fast following. Countries with low labor costs, compared to the West, have growing pools of highly skilled technical workers. As a result, things like programming, accounting, and circuit design have changed from specialty skills to commodity tasks, just as happened with material goods like toasters, toys, and sneakers. Pink declares that the new differentiators include aesthetics, design, and the human experience. His examples include car manufacture considered as an art form, holistic legal services, and the medical value of doctors' empathy.

Although I agree with many of Pink's points, the logical, left-brained underpinnings of his argument just aren't strong enough to support the weight of warm feelings piled onto them. For example, he notes that good product design has value to the product owner. Then, as a counter example, this book's front cover includes a die-cut that leaves little tongues of paper pointed out into the cut's opening. Those tongues catch on things, fray, and even tear into the cover around them. Mr. Pink: good design does not unintentionally self-destruct.

Elsewhere, Pink notes the established fact that mothers commonly carry infants in their left arms. Because of a crossover in neural wiring, Pink asserts that this puts the child in contact with the woman's right brain. Well, maybe. It also frees the mother's right hand to stir the pot or do other work at the same time as kid care. Even left-handed mothers often carry their children on the left side, possibly because the heart is on the left and its rhythm tends to soothe the child. But no, Pink has taken the right-brain bit between his teeth and runs with it. As a result, he gently sweeps aside little things like the basic fact that right/left brain duality has always been stronger in men than in women, and that Asian researcher sometimes have trouble reproducing the results at all. It might, in fact, just be an artifact of Western males.

I have an engineering degree, but art school training as well. At least one of the algorithms I developed was hard to describe, but physically obvious once my listener experienced it in her own hands - leaving her with the problem of explaining it to others. I understand the importance of the human terms in engineering equations. Unlike Pink, I also know that science and engineering are intuitive practices, and expressions of deep human feeling in themselves. I actually agree with Pink on many points. I just don't agree with his one-sided approach to two-sided problems, with his selectivity about facts friendly to his case, or with his weak logic in making the case that we need more than just logic.

-- wiredweird

Editorial Review:

The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment-and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Picador Amazon Marketplace: 78 new & used starting at $7.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic Conditions
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic History
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Free Enterprise

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 318 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Get this book now! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Klein uncovers Freidmanite economic policy and shows it as it is: a cold, callous model in which the rich get richer and the hell with everyone else. By the time we have followed the trail of destruction that the Chicago School has left in its wake, we come to expect the horrifying, yet natural progression of its policy, which is that of disaster capitalism. This book is an amazing eye opener.

Is the end of Shock & Awe coming? 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a well souced book about American style capitalism and how destructive to the world it has been, a horrific failure of tremendous scope--that is if the intention was to lift the people of the world up to a better quality of life. Klein lays the blame on Milton Friedman, a U. of Chicago economist. The author deliniates the strategy and the tactics through real world example after real world example. The question becomes: How was this possible? How can a few men, with very bad ideas, dominate the world to the accumulation of their personal wealth, at the expense of the great majority of people, under the guise of democracy? Answer: Through fear, lies, torture, state and intimate terrorism and; dare I say, greed, antisocial, and narcissistic behaviors. This happened not once--but time and time again, right on up through the disaster that is Iraq and the rebuilding of New Orleans. What is truly troubling is that this happened with the world watching and was, in fact, the policy of America. There are believers. And, if you are one of the beneficiaries of this policy then you probably don't care. Do you care now?

Editorial Review:

In this groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution, Naomi Klein challenges the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory. From Chile in 1973 to Iraq today, Klein shows how Friedman and his followers have repeatedly harnessed terrible shocks and violence to implement their radical policies. As John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books."

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

Geoff Colvin

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks By: Tantor Media Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $13.59

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Business Life -> General AAS
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Job Hunting & Careers -> Guides

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Do you believe you could be a World-Class Performer? 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Good news...Geoff Colvin provides evidence that great performance is not reserved for a pre-ordained few. Bad news...It is available to you and everyone...if you are willing to pay the price.

"What do you really believe? Do you believe you have a choice in the matter? Do you believe if you do the work, properly designed with intense focus for hours a day and years on end, your performance will grow dramatically better and eventually reach the highest levels?"

One of the fundamental questions to ask yourself is: What do I really, deeply want? This question is crucial, because deliberate practice requires a substantial investment. Colvin suggests that deliberate practice contains the following components:

It is designed specifically to improve performance
It can be repeated a lot
Feedback on results is continuously available
It is highly demanding mentally
It isn't much fun

Everyone who has achieved exceptional performance has faced tremendous challenges...there are no exceptions. Top performers make knowledge a direct objective and set goals to be an expert in their chosen field. Colvin suggest that the 10 year rule...10 years of consistent, deliberate effort... is required to be outstanding in your field.

The book provides a snapshot of the preparation time for: Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods, Mozart, world-class violinists and chess players to give you a sense for the commitment of these performers. Clearly, the time they invest is extraordinary and not for the faint of heart. Perhaps, it is easy for us to dismiss their greatness with genetic predisposition, yet their effort transcends that notion.

Their investment of time and effort allows them to develop deep domain knowledge in their fields which allows them to make finer distinctions. Their knowledge becomes integrated and connected to higher level principles, thus they know more from seeing less.

Now we have some additional evidence for what it takes to perform at the higher levels, so now we cannot easily excuse our life away...we just have to make a decision to claim our destiny!

As you accept that Talent is Overrated...the questions for you are:
What beliefs have guided your life to the present moment?
Is this what you want to achieve?
What beliefs do you need to perform at your desired level?
What do you really, really, really want?
When will you commit to taking action now?

Editorial Review:

Expanding on a landmark cover story in Fortune, a top journalist debunks the myths of exceptional performance.