Author: Sal Damiata

Introduction

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata, and that’s the book summary of “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster. 

Why this Book?

What if every literature text has some hidden meanings that are evident only to the most attentive reader? Without the proper tools, you’d be missing out on a deeper understanding of the work. 

If you want to learn how to decode messages in literary works, keep reading as that’s probably the right book summary for you.

Synopsis

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book that aims at teaching its readers what differentiates an amateur reader from a professional one. Anyway, is it really possible to become a professional reader even without being a professor? Let’s discover it together.

Who’s it for? 

• People that would like to make their reading experience more enjoyable;
• People that would like to get a deeper understanding of how literature works;
• Curious people that would like to learn how to uncover the secret messages in literature works.

What You’ll Learn from it

• How to read between the lines of any literature piece;
• What all great stories have in common and how they are structured;
• How to identify the interplay between classic and modern literature.

In a Nutshell

• There is only one story, and every story created is just a small part of a bigger story that’s going on, that’s why literature is a way with which we humans get to know each other, talking about each other. The secret messages in any literary work are nothing but references to universal truths and archetypes.

3 Sentence Summary

• Symbolism can’t be reduced to one single thing, and that’s precisely the purpose of a symbol; ambiguity. This gives the reader the possibility of limitless interpretations that will be derived with their pre-existing knowledge.

• No literary work is completely original. This phenomenon is called intertextuality and is widely used to trigger memories so that the reader can enjoy the work more and also to let the author say more with fewer words. 

• Seasons and weather conditions are used to evoke something specific in the reader. For example, spring is usually associated with happiness, summer with passion and romance, autumn with aging, and winter with death. Rain, fog, and other weather conditions are also used to evoke something specific.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Understand the Fundamental Elements of Literature
2. The Quest Structure is Everywhere
3. Symbolism is Free of Interpretation 
4. Watch for Literary References 
5. Characters’ Traits & Settings Have their Purpose

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Understand the Fundamental Elements of Literature

Literature work is like an iceberg; what you see on the surface is not everything that exists. In order to better understand how literature works, it’s important that you understand the most frequent elements that are used by writers in their works. 

Those elements are:

• Symbols
• Memory 
• Patterns

Writers use those elements to enrich the reading experience and to keep you coming back to read their works and to provide other levels of reading. 

The majority of people only get to the surface of their works and can only grasp the first level of reading (the actual story). To become a proficient reader, though, you should understand reading from an emotional level as well.

A Relatable Example

Let’s make an example of the various literary elements that evoke an emotional connection to the work from the reader’s side.

Memory

The use of memory is where the reader makes connections between that specific book he is reading and others he’s already read so that he makes a comparison between them. 

The typical Professor always has the feeling he has already encountered a particular scene because he typically reads lots of books, that’s why professors always wonder, “where did I read this before?” 

Symbols

Symbols are used by the author to represent something in particular. Whenever in the presence of a symbol, the reader should ask himself what a particular object, figure, or event stands for in the plot. 

Patterns

Patterns are details, ideas, characters, events, or objects that seem to appear again and again during the story. 

Patterns are nothing but a reflection of archetypes that are the original model from where similar things are patterned after. If you read enough, you will know how to look and where to look.

Big Idea #2: The Quest Structure is Everywhere 

Every little story that you have encountered or will encounter in your life is nothing but an addition to the one single greatest story. 

That story is what makes us human beings in this life, and is generally linked to survival and reproduction. That’s the structure of almost every story that has ever been written:

1: There is a hero;

2: That hero needs to go to a specific place or destination for a particular reason;

3: The hero must face some challenges during his path;

4: After he faces the challenges he learns something about him, life or the function of the universe getting an epiphany;

5: The hero generally comes back as a new, transformed person.

This structure is often referred to as the “Hero’s Journey.” The various authors take that conventional structure and change its details to create a new story. 

A Relatable Example

As you can see the pattern in this story structure usually is: 

1: Departure

2: Initiation

3: Return

During the process, the hero changes from the person he is to the one he needs to be. One example of that of Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars,” Frodo in The “Lord of the Rings,” Harry in “Harry Potter,” and so on in many other stories.

Big Idea #3: Symbolism is Free of Interpretation 

People generally expect symbols to mean something. Some of their meanings can be actually understood, like the presence of a white flag that can signify “don’t shoot,” “giving up,” or “we come in peace.” 

Anyway, some symbolism can’t be reduced to one single thing, and that’s precisely the purpose of a symbol; ambiguity. 

This gives the reader the possibility of limitless interpretations that will be derived with their pre-existing knowledge. This means that the interpretation will largely depend on the individual and thus won’t be standardized. 

A symbolism that has a definite meaning is an allegory instead where things stand for other things on a 1-1 basis and convey a specific message as clearly as possible.

A Relatable Example

For example, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is an allegory for the obvious meaning that people that make revolutions and win them, once they get into powerful positions, are corrupted by them, exposing the weak human nature.

An example of symbolism instead can be seen in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. 

He writes about the Mississippi river as being both dangerous, when it provokes a flood that destroys things and kills people, and safe when it represents a road to freedom for the protagonist.

Big Idea #4: Watch for Literary References 

If you didn’t know, all books borrow ideas from each other; thus, no literary work is completely original. 

That phenomenon is called intertextuality and is a widely accepted one both to make a tribute to the greatest writers and also because that’s how human creativity works. 

That’s why readers must reconsider the characters they meet in the novels; that might come from another work.

This entails that often find generally universal messages about the human condition. We find such messages in Biblical references, Christ figures, and references to Shakespeare as well. 

The more you read and become acquainted with literature, the more you’ll catch those references. Writers do this to make you enjoy their work more and so that they can say more with fewer words. 

A Relatable Example

Biblical references

You can find biblical references almost everywhere in American and European literature. Usually, those biblical references relate to characters that are submerged in water and then come back alive as a reference to baptism. 

Some typical references to the Bible are gardens, serpents, milk, plagues, partying of waters, honey, floor, fishes, slavery, 40 days, etc. 

Shakespeares is almost everywhere

Between the 18th and 21st centuries, Shakespeare can be practically found everywhere. In literature, the reference to Shakespeare can be events like women drowning that refer to “Hamlet” or the impossible love between two people, clearly reminding us of “Romeo and Juliet.”

A famous one, for example, is Jane Smiley that in the 1991 novel “A Thousand Acres” refers to “King Lear” by Shakespeare with the acts of greed, gratitude, and love.

Myths

In literature, we need myths because they are a way to get to know each other talking about each other. Spartans, Romans, and Greeks myths are present in our literary culture much more than we believe. 

We need to write about those myths because we want to feel like we have a potential for greatness, even if we are humans. 

The Iliad is a great example of human nature brought into a setting where non-human things are possible, praising heroism, courage, and the fight for noble values. 

Big Idea #5: Characters’ Traits & Settings Have their Purpose

Every story needs a setting to evoke certain emotions in the reader, this means that in novels, the weather is never just weather. 

Water, for example, evokes strong emotions in us because the majority of people are afraid of drowning. That’s why some writers use rain as a way to set scenes with specific moods. 

Seasons are also correlated with specific emotions or concepts. For example, spring is usually associated with happiness, summer with passion and romance, autumn with aging, and winter with death. 

Another important element to notice when reading literature is the physical traits intentionally given to the character by the author. Acquired scars or birth defects can determine what the character’s role is in the novel. 

A Relatable Example

Thomas Hardy has written a novel where the setting he chose is a dark and stormy night. In this case, he used the rain for plot reasons so that the people in the novel would group together when the storm arrived. 

Rain can also be used as a way to symbolically cleanse a specific character or to signify democracy when it falls onto everyone equally. 

An example of a physical trait that gives the character a specific role can be found in Harry Potter’s where his scar signifies he is destined for greatness. 

Conclusion & Takeaway

Literature has definitely more than meets the eye. To really enjoy reading literature as experts do it understand the elements that are often put in the works and read as much as you can. 

Have fun with your discovery process as the more you read and the more enjoyment you will draw from each new book.

My Advice For You

​Since I’m not an expert in literature, I leave you with the advice of the author of reading more and more so that you get more proficient at understanding literature. In the end, practice makes perfect, as many successful people often say. 

This way, you’ll be able to read between the lines of those works and uncover the surety messages that are hiding in plain sight.

About the Author

Thomas C. Foster grew up in West Cornfield, Ohio. He first studied English at Dartmouth College, later continued his studies at Michigan State University. He teaches literature since 1975 and nowadays gives talks and workshops on how to understand literary works.

Reading Suggestions

• “How to Read Poetry Like a Professor” – Thomas C. Foster
• “How to Read Novels Like a Professor” – Thomas C. Foster
• “How to Read a Book” – Mortimer J. Adler
• “The Kite Runner” – Khaled Hosseini
• “The Poisonwood Bible” – Barbara Kingsolver

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Introduction

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata, and that’s the book summary of “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. 

Why this Book?

Would you like to expand your social network and to create strong and long-lasting relationships to increase your success chances, but you don’t know where to start from? Keep reading, as that’s probably the right book summary for you.

Synopsis

“Never Eat Alone” is a book that is aimed at helping people with weak social connections expand their social circle by adopting some simple strategies and mindset. 

Anyway, is it really true that everybody can do this, even if their current social situation is desperate? Let’s discover it together.

Who’s it for? 

• People that struggle with creating sustainable personal and business relationships;
• People with an under-developed social and business circle;
• Shy people that would love to learn new networking strategy.

What You’ll Learn from it

• How to relate to people effectively and build long-lasting relationships;
• Strategies to speed up the expansion of your social network;
• Some tips to increase your personal magnetism and social influence.

In a Nutshell

To build a long term successful career, you need the strong foundations of a solid network. 

To create such a network, adopt the mindset of the helper when you’re with people and connect with them on a deep level to ensure the connections are strong and genuine. 

To increase your chances of success, get a mentor that has already gotten the results you want, and stay around people that hold many connections.

3 Sentence Summary

• Always be the value provider when you’re around people as nobody likes to be exploited or to stay with selfish people.
• What matters is not how much time you spend with people but the quality of the time you spend with them.
• Get to know people that have lots of connections and get a mentor. Finally, decide what your goals are and connect with the people that can help you achieve them.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Help Others First
2. Connect Deeply
3. Leverage Super Connectors & Mentors
4. Develop your own Brand
5. Set your Goals and Act!

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Help Others First

If you want to grow your network, the first thing you should work on is your mindset, and the most important principle to follow when it comes to connecting with people is to be the value provider. 

People are not meant to be used as objects to help you achieve your goals, nobody likes to be used and thus to stay with selfish people.

When you put yourself as the helper, whether this means giving emotional support to people, helping them out with their career, or introducing them to others, you’re building trust. 

People want somebody that will help them become successful when you help them out first, then you can ask for what you need without any problems. 

Always remember to do it authentically and not to expect anything in return when you help people out; this will build trust and mutual understanding. 

Moreover, be ready every single day to connect with people and make new contacts and approach your network building more like a marathon runner than a sprinter. 

A Relatable Example

Bill Clinton was very social and knew many people, and already at his young age, he used to write down the names of people he met during his day on his index cards. 

He did so to record the status of everybody he met during the day because he exactly knew what his goals were and that developing good relationships with people was key to reach them.

Big Idea #2: Connect Deeply

What really makes the difference when creating social relationships is not how much time you spend with people, but the quality time you spend with those people. To develop strong bonds between you and others is essential to share things with each other. 

This might be sharing an interest, to exchange ideas, to get to know each other’s experiences or to talk about each other’s future plans and desires.

Do not make small talks with people if you want to connect with them to another level but share something interesting on a friendship level rather than a business one. You’ll be surprised by how many meaningful relationships you’ll manage to establish.

A Relatable Example

One advice Keith Ferrazzi gives to create such moments is by hosting dinner parties with the people you want to build a relationship with. When you eat with people, it’s common to share things that are beyond the surface and to connect to a deeper level. 

The author suggests organizing those dinner parties regardless of your budget because, in the end, what’s important is to gather together.

Big Idea #3: Leverage Super Connectors & Mentors

One great tip the author gives is connecting with what he calls “super connectors.” Those are people that have thousands of contacts that generally are into Politics, Lobbying, Public Relations, Journalism, and Club and Restaurant Managers. 

If you want to maximize the chances to connect with the right people, get to know them as connecting people is what they regularly do on a daily basis. 

Another tip he gives is to have the right mentors around you. It’s not a surprise that the people who got guided by mentors drastically improved their success chances. 

People around you will determine how successful you’ll become, so stay with the ones that have already achieved the results you want. Anyway, always remember to find out what you can do for them and then think of how they can help you. 

A Relatable Example

When I was producing music back in 2014, I was looking for a way to work in the music industry so that I could maximize my probabilities to get my songs heard. Fate wanted that one day, while I was a good friend of mine’s house, he showed me a guy he knew on facebook that worked in a famous record label as a journalist. I contacted that guy and told him my intentions. 

He passed me the email of that record label’s boss and told me to contact him under his name. I contacted the boss and told him about my plans and that I could also work for free in exchange to work alongside him and grow. (he was very powerful and is a V.I.P. in the music industry). 

He accepted my proposal, and so I moved to where he lived to get mentored. Spending time with him has been almost a life-changing experience for me as he probably is the smartest person I’ve ever met to date; that’s the power of mentorship.

Big Idea #4: Develop your own Brand

In order to stand out from the crowd, you should understand which type of person you want to be and how you would like to be perceived by others. 

You should start developing your own personal branding message, and you can do this by deciding on what clothes to wear, how to pose yourself with people, and the energy you convey when you’re with others.

A Relatable Example

The author advises to ask you the following questions to make it easier for you to develop that unique character of yours. 

1: What do I want people to think of when they hear my name, and what would I like to be known for?

2: What am I good and bad at?

3: How am I different from others?

4: What can I do to feel like a worthy individual?

Big Idea #5: Set your Goals and Act!

Finally, to concretely step up your social game, you should set your goals and act upon them. Make them as clear and concrete as possible and develop a plan to reach them. 

To maximize the reach of your goal, start with your long term one first, then move to the middle term and finally to the short term goal with a backward strategy.

While you develop your plan to reach your goals, it’s also important that you develop a lifestyle of passion because, with it, it will be much easier to draw people to you. 

To do this, the author suggests to find out your blue flame that is basically the point where your passion and abilities meet. 

A Relatable Example

To find out what your blue flame is, do the following:

1: Make a list of all your dreams and of all the goals you want to reach;

2: Make a list of all the things you truly enjoy doing.

3: Combine the two lists and see where the two things overlap, your blue flame lies over there.

Conclusion & Takeaway

Your network will greatly determine the degree of success you’ll achieve in your life. You can do things alone and still be successful, but surely you will become even more successful and more quickly with the help of other people. 

Start planting your seeds little by little, and, over time, they will grow up to a beautiful social network.

My Advice For You

I probably was the least social person I knew when I was younger. After years of crafting my social skills, the best advice I feel like giving you is to talk to as many people as possible and to challenge your social fears when you’re with them consciously. 

This way you’ll achieve total social freedom and, believe me, there are few things in my opinion that feel as good as being able to talk to everybody you want wherever you want and be as comfortable as talking to your best friend while you do it.

About the Author

Keith Ferrazzi is an expert when it comes to business and marketing. He started his career from the bottom but due to his drive and intelligence, he made it to top of the corporate ladder, becoming one of the most requested marketing figures in the U.S. 

Today he works in his own consulting firm “Ferrazzi Greenlight” where he teaches the importance of healthy relationships to achieve business success.

Reading Suggestions

• “Who’s got your back?” – Keith Ferrazzi
• “How to Talk to Anyone” – Leil Lowndes
• “How to Win Friends and Influence People” – Dale Carnegie
• “Getting to Yes” – Roger Fisher
• “Give and Take” – Adam Grant

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Introduction

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata, and that’s the book summary of “Think Like a Freak” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. 

Why this Book?

What if I told you that everybody can become a creative genius by adopting the right mindset and attitude towards life? If you want to learn more about that, keep reading as that’s probably the right book summary for you.

Synopsis

“Think Like a Freak” is a book that is aimed at challenging the way you think about everyday things and inspire you to adopt new perspectives. The authors claim that creativity can be hacked, but is it really true? Let’s discover it together.

Who’s it for? 

• Everybody confused about what belief system to adopt to become successful;
• People who are easily influenced by other’s opinions;
• People that believe to know it all or that take things too seriously.

What You’ll Learn from it

• How to upgrade your thinking and belief system;
• A simple tip to persuade people more easily;
• How to keep your mind receptive to new ideas.

In a Nutshell

We are creative beings at our core, and if we manage to keep our mind free of dogma and open to learning new things, then we will start to think more creatively. Moreover, if we can keep a child-like attitude to life, we will start to think like freaks and upgrade our thinking patterns.

3 Sentence Summary

• Instead of trying to solve problems by looking at one aspect only, get to the root cause of the problem and look at it from different perspectives to harness new creative ways to solve it.

• Stop pretending to know everything because this will make your mind believe you have nothing more to learn, causing it to shut down when exposed to new information.

• Violate conventions and try to do things in ways that haven’t been tried before. Don’t be afraid to experiment and to put your own style in everything you do.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Find the Root Cause & Solve Small Problems
2. Think Like a Child
3. It’s Fine not to Know everything
4. Understand how to Persuade 
5. Violate Conventions

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Find the Root Cause & Solve Small Problems

The authors here talk about the importance of finding out the root cause of any problems you want to solve. Sometimes we get caught in finding the solution to a problem without looking at what’s the cause of the problem itself. 

He also talks about the idea of focussing on the solution of smaller problems at first and once they are solved, to focus on the biggest ones.

The advantages of such thinking are that small questions get generally less attention, and it’s easier to change something small first. Solving small problems will give you faster solutions and, thus, quicker rewards. 

This will eventually help you solve bigger problems as well as they’re just a sum of many small problems, according to the author.

A Relatable Example

The authors make an example of the longtime hot dog eater champion Takeru Kobayashi that in order to eat more hot dogs, he didn’t ask himself, “How can I eat more hot dogs” but asked himself, “how can I make hot dogs easier to eat?” 

That gave him a new perspective on what to focus his energies, and even though he wasn’t famous yet when he got this idea, he later managed to surpass all his competitors and to establish himself as the champion. 

Big Idea #2: Think Like a Child

Another great tip that the authors give is to harness the natural childish creativity that every one of us possesses. You can do this by having fun while you work, being always curious to learn and discover new things and by challenging things that are often given for granted by people. 

Children generally have an advantage over adults because they know how to have a broader focus and to see things from various perspectives rather than getting caught in the focus trap. 

That’s why they’re better at finding out magicians’ tricks that usually work because they direct your focus to a specific place. 

A Relatable Example

When you open your mind to new possibilities, you will make it receptive to the absorption of new information. 

When you instead believe to know everything in a specific subject, you will have no reason to keep information in as your mind believes that it knows it all and thus will shut down towards new perspectives. 

As Albert Einstein said, the mind is like a parachute; it works only if you open it. 

Big Idea #3: It’s Fine not to Know everything

Some people are so afraid to admit they don’t know the answer to a particular problem or question that they often end up lying to protect their image not to look incompetent. 

The reality is that overconfidence is bad and doesn’t help others around you, yet 80% of people fake knowledge of subjects to avoid looking stupid.

If you admit you don’t know something when a specific circumstance will arise, people will trust you more. Moreover, you will keep your mind open to learn new things, and this will make you an even more knowledgeable individual!

A Relatable Example

The authors warn taking tips from experts in their field unless they’re humble because often they don’t publicly disclose they don’t know something. Another reason why many people keep their minds shut to new information is caused by confirmation bias. 

This happens because people are too busy to rethink the way they think so they don’t often engage in metacognition (the act of thinking about thinking). 

Metacognition anyway is an essential practice to adopt in life because it can help you stop being at the mercy of people, the environment, and urges of the body. Try thinking about your own thought for 15 minutes a day and see how your beliefs get a new shape.

Big Idea #4: Understand how to Persuade 

A skill that comes really handy in life is the art of persuasion. In the book, the authors explain how important listening to other people’s arguments is before trying to persuade them about something. 

Generally, avoid making your argument perfect and allow some imperfections to be in it; otherwise, people will trust you less.

If you find somebody hard to persuade, probably this person is taking from an ideological point of view. 

In this case, use rationality but always remember to show both the good sides and the bad ones of your argument as benefits without costs don’t exist in life, and people intuitively know that.

Finally, to effectively persuade somebody to use stories. We as humans are wired to stories because that was a way our ancestors used to pass on knowledge to us. 

With stories, we can easily put ourselves in other’s shoes and thus learn their principles easier due to the emotional involvement in them.

A Relatable Example

Robert Cialdini, an American psychologist and researchers on persuasion, found out that a great way to persuade people is by using the herd effect. 

Since the majority of people do things just because others do, if you want to persuade somebody about something, just say that the majority of people are interested in your idea, activity or whatever else you want to promote.

Big Idea #5: Violate Conventions

Adopting conventional beliefs isn’t always good because you might end up a victim of the herd effect. Most people do certain things just because they’ve been told to or because it’s popular to do them. 

They don’t spend some time questioning the “why” behind certain thought patterns or actions. 

If you want to upgrade your thinking and become a super-human, base your thoughts on statistical evidence and not on simple conventions. Generally, those conventions are just limits that don’t exist, or as the authors put them, artificial limits. 

Can you base your entire life on artificial limits only? I guess not.

A Relatable Example

An example of that is the popular phrase, “A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits.” This quote, even if it sounds like the quote that Rocky Balboa would go for, is really bad advice. Why? Because it’s obvious that, sometimes, quitting is good! 

Think for a second of all the sunk costs that there are once you invest too much on one idea. 

Not to talk to the opportunity cost of trying out one different thing. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should quit everything you start (and I don’t think you’re that dumb even to do that) but at least be flexible! 

Conclusion & Takeaway

The way you think will greatly influence your life from every aspect of it. If you manage to think outside the box and to think for yourself instead of following the herd, you can make your life great, like the ones of many successful people out there. 

Stop pretending to know everything and keep your mind open, having a child-like attitude towards learning and problem-solving.

My Advice For You

My advice for you is to make a weekend retreat into a calm place where nobody disturbs you, avoiding as much as possible contact with other people. 

This includes a smartphone, computer, and anything else that might get in the way of staying in contact with yourself. What should you do during those days? Think.

About what? About whatever you want, as long as it’s you engaging your pre-frontal cortex and it’s not somebody else thinking at your place. 

You won’t become crazy spending 2 days alone trust me; at most, you will come back home smarter than before. Remember to take a notepad with you to jolt down all the things that you came to understand.

About the Authors

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner are an economist and New York Times journalist, respectively. Apart from writing this book together, they collaborated on “Freakonomics,” a major success on how to apply economic theories on various subjects. 

The two are both respected figures in the United States due to the many public recognitions they received.

Reading Suggestions

• “Freakonomics” – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
• “When to rob a bank” – Steven Levitt
• “The Art of Thinking Clearly” – Rolf Dobelli
• “The Tipping Point” – Malcolm Gladwell
• “Everybody Lies” – Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

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Introduction

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata and that’s the book summary of “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser. 

Why this Book?

Would you like to know what hides beyond the tasty fast food business? Keep reading as that’s probably the right book summary for you.

Mystery Synopsis

“Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser is a book aimed at examining the burden that the fast-food industry has been causing in the US in the latest years. The fast-food world seems to be an environment where everything is shiny and perfect but is it really like that? Let’s discover it together.

Who’s it for? 

• Everybody that loves or is addicted to fast foods;
• People that want to really know what hides behind the fast-food industry;
• Everybody wanting to improve their health condition and eat more responsibly.

What You’ll Learn from it

• The filthy lies we are fed by the fast-food corporations;
• The health consequences that the fast-food phenomenon caused on people and the environment;
• Other damages that the fast-food industry is causing for years.

In a Nutshell

• The fast-food industry is cancer for our world because it is destroying our economy, our environment and the lives of many people and animals. Its business model is all based on profit, carried on through lies and through the manipulation of people’s minds.

3 Sentence Summary

• More than 200.000 people every single day suffer from food poisoning derived from the consumption of fast food products. One of those causes is the artificial flavors that are added to products in the fast-food chains, another one is the presence of excrements in the fast-food meat.

• The workforce of fast food companies is usually comprised of teenagers, immigrants and, generally speaking, poor people. This happens intentionally because they are temporary and low-cost resources that require low or even no training.

• The recipient of their marketing is children that are lured into the shops by the colorful environment, the playgrounds and Ronald McDonald. The children, manipulated and used as a bait, push their parents to come with them to McDonald’s, making the company earn more profits.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Fast Foods Exploit their Employees 
2. Damage to the Farming & Meat Market
3. Damage to the Health of People
4. Health Risk of Employees
5. Children and Teenagers are the Targets

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Fast Foods Exploit their Employees 

Mc Donalds has been the first company to start this fast-food phenomenon. At first, it started slow and as a normal restaurant but then the two founding brothers found a way to avoid restaurant routine issues like the management of the staff and of its tasks. 

That’s when they started to think of some ways with which they could avoid such complications. 

They started training employees with specific tasks and their business began to thrive. Later on, seeing the success that Mcdonald’s was achieving other industry giants like KFC, Burger King and many more followed.

A Relatable Example

The employee policy of those fast-food chains is very simple; they are temporary and at low cost by design. This means that they won’t be subjects of a great amount of investment from the companies and thus will be very easy to replace. 

This workforce is usually comprised of teenagers, immigrants and, generally speaking, poor people. From this evidence, we can realize that a high turnover rate is not a problem for those companies. 

Moreover, all the subsidiary money received from the federal government (that is supposed to be spent on employee training) is instead used on research and development of those fast-food companies.

Big Idea #2: Damage to the Farming & Meat Market

With the advent of those major companies that own huge lots of terrain, family farming basically becomes an anomaly. 

They are so powerful that influence the majority of industrial agriculture, favoring the use of preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, and other substances that protect crops from premature degeneration. 

This shows how big corporations rule everything and how the chemicals they use poison both the food and the water near their facilities. 

A Relatable Example

In the farming market, potatoes are generally controlled by huge multinational corporation. This is a great obstacle to individual farmers that have trouble keeping up financially. Like in the potato market, the meat market is also controlled by major companies, in this case, is 4. 

Few independent ranchers still remain but they have to accept the low prices proposed by the gigantic 4 and obey their rules. 

Big Idea #3: Damage to the Health of People

Apart from damaging local economies, one of the worst consequences of the fast-food phenomenon is the proliferation of food born illnesses amongst people. Those inborn illnesses are caused by various factors and are the cause of the food poisonings of more than 200.000 people every single day. One of those food poisoning causes is the artificial flavors that are added to sweet and other products in the fast-food chains.

Another cause is the contaminated meat that is produced and then sold in fast foods. This contamination usually happens because often in the meat sold in the fast foods there are deadly bacteria, derived from the contamination from cattle feces in the production factories. 

A Relatable Example

Sometimes the meat that consumers eat at fast food gets involuntarily mixed with animal excrements because of unsanitary working conditions, the too-high speed of assembly lines, and also when there are new or unskilled workers in the workplace. Companies like Mc Donalds also are aware of the possibility to contaminate their consumers because they feed cows with dead horses, pigs, and poultry, causing them to get bacteria that consumers later ingest.

Big Idea #4: Health Risk of Employees

Consumers aren’t the only ones to risk their health and lives when talking about the fast-food industry. The employment process promoted by those companies is one that foresees the exploitation of the weak in favor of higher profits and a high turnover rate.

Companies like McDonald’s do this by employing people under the age of 20 and creating an assembly line labor that requires short o no training at all. Workers in the factories spend more than 10 hours cutting meat and animal carcasses. 

Since their job is by its very nature very robotic, they suffer from long term muscle pain for the repeated movements they make. Sometimes they even get injured but if they lose their fingers while working are often paid less than 5 thousand dollars for the incident. 

A Relatable Example

Some employees have even riskier tasks like cleaning the working machines with 180 degrees water mixed with chlorine. Those generally are the poorest people that often suffer from headaches, while others even die during the cleaning process suffocated by the chemicals. The majority of those employees must use drugs to over-perform while they work to meet their demands. 

Big Idea #5: Children and Teenagers are on the Target

If you think that McDonald’s markets its products to adults, think again. Their marketing starts before each one of us even decide to consume a hamburger. 

Why? Because they target children that are in primary schools, middle schools (and sometimes even kindergartens). What’s most scary in my opinion is that McDonald’s also partnered with big companies like Disney, which helped them to create welcoming environments for children. 

A Relatable Example

Those children are attracted by characters like Ronald Mc Donald, along with the colorful environment of McDonald’s and the playgrounds that are installed in them. 

It’s all a trap as you can see because once children get to see those shiny toys, they push their parents to bring them there and, thus they also get lured into the trap. 

Try to think for a second the typical McDonald’s without the colors, the playgrounds, and the happy faces but think of them as slaughterhouses where children are lured in. 

Then imagine those children getting out of those evil places with some those health-destroying substances in their stomach, that give them food poisoning and make them obese. What do you really see now?

Conclusion & Takeaway

It seems like our world is crumbling down because of those corporations that only think about profit

It’s a bad situation. Better not to think about consequences but what legacy are we creating? Automation must be used well

My Advice For You

If you have family members or friends that consume fast foods, talk to them about what’s really going on below the surface. Show them the videos circulating on the internet, showing how those companies operate and why they operate this way (profit). 

Cut out on fast food for 30 days as a challenge and then see how you feel and if you can refuse to hang with your friends when they propose you fast food. 

See if they respect your healthy choice by telling them why you’re doing this and discover if they care about you or if they just want to drag you down to their unconscious eating habits. 

I’ve cut out fast foods from my life for about 7 years now and I feel better than ever. It won’t be easy at the beginning but trust me it will pay off in the long term.

About the Author

Eric Schlosser is an investigative writer and American journalist. He studied American history at Princeton University and later got a degree in British Imperial History at Oxford University. 

He has written other successful expose’s apart from “Fast Food Nation” like “Reefer Madness” and “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety.” 

Apart from writing books he has been of help in the development of various documentaries and films as a producer. He almost won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 2014 and now is on his way to finishing another book on the American prison system.

Reading Suggestions

• “Command and Control” – Eric Schlosser
• “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” – Michael Pollan
• “Freakonomics” – Steven Levitt
• “Nickel and Dimed” – Barbara Ehrenreich
• “The Jungle” – Uptown Sinclair

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Introduction

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata and that’s the book summary of “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” by Scott Adams. Enjoy your read!

Why this Book?

Are you looking for a way to maximize your success chances while at the same time avoiding getting at the end of the day tired of your work? Keep reading as that’s probably the right book summary for you.

Who’s this Book for? 

• Employees stuck in their routine and struggling with the fear of failure;
• Ambitious people believing that to succeed, a talent on something and a clear goal is necessary;
• Everybody unmotivated to keep going and that finds it hard to make definitive life-changing decisions.

What You’ll Learn from this Book

• Why systems are better than goals to achieve success;
• How to maximize your energy levels and keep you active most of the times;
• Why possessing many skills is preferable to being a specialist in today’s world.

The Book in a Nutshell

• Failure is a normal part of our life journey but if we keep a system of habits that lead us towards our goals, the risk of failure will be hugely reduced. Moreover, if you manage to develop a set of different skills during your career and to surround yourself with the right energy and people, your chinches of success will skyrocket. 

3 Sentence Summary

• Setting goals is not the best way to reach success because on the way to measure it, people generally lose motivation. Having a system works better because when you do a specific activity consistently, it will keep you accountable and motivated to go on.

• Scott noticed how the majority of the people that became successful, made a conscious decision to succeed and let wishing out of their vocabulary. That conscious decision implied that the would not have acted the same way again.

• In our society, nowadays, it’s preferable to possess many skills rather than just one because the more the world changes and the more the market need for people that can do more than one thing. Combine your skills in such a way that they are complementary and choose them wisely because possessing just any skill won’t be enough.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Manage Your Personal Energy
2. Multiple failures won’t prevent you from Succeeding
3. Having Systems are better than Setting Goals
4. Decide, Don’t Wish!
5. Acquire many Skills

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Manage Your Personal Energy

Another concept that the author talks about in his book is energy management. The first advice he gives here is to separate the place where you work from the space where you relax.

Apart from that, he says that each one of us has his own body rhythm and that because of that we must adapt to it in order to function effectively. Don’t just work at a specific time because others told you to do it. When are you the most productive? And the most creative? It’s all about knowing thyself. 

Next, the author talks about how important it is to understand what tasks drain you of energy and which ones give you energy. Those activities could really be anything, like dancing, writing, reading a journal, shopping, working out, socializing, solving problems and so on. In his was, for example, shopping drains him of energy while blogging fills him with energy.

Then the importance of a good diet is also stressed. The perfect diet for you can be found with the same concept expressed above; which foods give you energy and which ones rob you of energy? Fitness is also important as keeping the body moving is a way with which you can keep the energy flowing without getting stuck.

A Relatable Example

When it comes to energy it’s important to understand the concept of associate energy as the author calls it. In his book, he talks about a friend of his that once told him that he would move into an affluent block so that he would have become affluent himself.

Scott Adams at first thought that his friend was nuts, in reality, he was right because the people we associate ourselves can greatly influence us, especially if we spend a lot of time with them. The author also remembers that before starting to write his comics, he was spending his time with various aspiring writers that, it seems like they influenced him.

Big Idea #2: Multiple failures won’t prevent you from Succeeding

Many people are terrified of the idea of failing, let alone the idea of failing in more than one project. You know, Scott Adams failed at dozens of projects and failed at more things than what most people are even willing to try. 

In fact, he was fired from a phone company, then started a burrito chain business than went down as well as failed at dozens of other projects. What he says is that you must always keep the optimism in your mood and have the belief that eventually something will work out.

Success, most of there time, depends on timing the idea rather than having the right one, apart from possessing a specific skill set that would turn useful at that moment. Scott Adams was successful because it turned out that his idea, develop with a set of skills accumulated during his many failures, was promoted at the right time. That’s why you don’t have to be scared to keep trying. 

A Relatable Example

Want to know my story? I probably failed as many times as Scott Adams did and I’m just 26 at the time this article is being written. Those have been my failures so far.

1: When I was 18 I went to the Italian Air Force to become a military pilot but then dropped out as I didn’t like it.

2: Then went to study economics and I even graduated but didn’t like the subject and decided not to work in this field. 

3: During my college times I wanted to work as PR to make some money while knowing people but didn’t bring enough at parties and had to quit it. 

4: Then I worked as an Electronic Dance Music producer but never made it and thus failed. 

5: Then I started a personal development blog with a friend of mine that made us earn less than $200, fail. 

6: Later I worked at a famous record label in Italy but had an issue with the boss and quit it. 

7: After that, I worked as a sales representative in Barcelona but I was told not to continue after the probation period. 

Now I have my own coaching business that slowly is taking off and this website is my first real success, anyway I had been a writer for many years without seeing any result whatsoever. You ahem to keep trying because as Scott said, you can fail but the amount of skills you’ll acquire during the way will be invaluable, just as it has been with me.

Big Idea #3: Having Systems are better than Setting Goals

The self-help industry stresses a lot on the concept of setting goals, like if it is the holy grail to reach success. In reality, what Scott Adams says, is that goals are not the best way to become successful as they put a mental strain on you that is never relieved until you reach that goal.

Moreover, goals come with a predetermined end-point that once gotten puts you in a mental state of void as you have nothing else to strive for. Lastly, whenever you check how you’re doing with your life, you will feel like a failure every time you didn’t get closer to your goal (weighting yourself for example). 

This puts you in a continuous state of failure, that is nothing else than your body producing cortisol instead of dopamine. How can we overcome that? By creating a system according to Scott Adams. Having a system works better than having a goal because you just have to do a specific activity every day. Then this activity, if done consistently, will keep you accountable and motivated to keep at doing it.

A Relatable Example

Scott in his book talks about Mark Zuckerberg’s system. In fact, he never had the goal to create largest social media company in the world. He just followed a system that eventually proved to be right. That’s why goals are generally pathways to failure if they’re not backed up with a systems that it what concretely gives you the tools you need for success.

Big Idea #4: Decide, Don’t Wish!

Many people wish they could be richer, happier, fitter or more famous. The problem with wishing is that there is no correlation between it and taking action unless you actually decide to become all the above-mentioned things.

Scott notices how all the people that made it to success made a conscious decision to succeed one day. That conscious decision implied that they would eventually need to make concrete choices that were completely different from the previous ones, as the word decisions literally means cutting out.

Then Scott says that once you make your decision you must become aware of the price to pay for that decision and be willing to pay it. Once you know the price to pay and are willing to pay it, just do it without second-guessing yourself. 

A Relatable Example

Talking about my story a little bit, I was a very shy guy when I was young. I could express myself around people, let alone women. That made me suffer so much that one day I literally said to myself that I had to change, or my life would have remained the same shitty one I had. That decision I made that day, at the bottom of depression changed my life for the better because I completely refused to be the person I was before. 

That’s when I started socializing, making new friends and talking to women in a way I had never done before. I proved myself right eventually as now I’m a socially free person, apart from being truly satisfied with my dating and social skills. What life-changing decision will you take today?

Big Idea #5: Acquire many Skills

Scott Adams is one of those men that supports the idea of possessing various skills instead of becoming a master in one single one. He says that you can succeed both by possessing a very strong skill or by possessing many of them that are complementary and that make you stand out from the crowd.

That’s why he says that you shouldn’t be the best at one thing but moderately good in various things so that you can stand out fro the crowd. But is it just enough to possess various skills to be successful? 

Not at all, in fact the trick is to have some skills that are complementary, like being with a writer and a speaker (with which you can promote your written products).

Every skill you acquire, he says, doubles your odds of success and makes you a much more valuable piece in today’s market. Choose your skills well anyway because the world is in constant change and just possessing any combination of various skills won’t be enough to make you successful. 

A Relatable Example

In his book, he talks about failing many times and only after having failed many times at different thing she managed to acquire skills that were very competitive in the market.

Anyway in order to make it happen this way he had to be the first one to believe in himself and to create some products that had that x-factor that eventually made them successful. If nobody has already done what you want to do it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be successful. 

Conclusion & Takeaway

Don’t let failure put you down. Adopt a smart system that is applied every day and, with patience, success will come. In the end, we don’t have a magic wand that will make our dreams come true but by following the advice Scott Adams gave use, we can maximize the probability of that event. 

My Advice For You

If you want to try a new thing, do it because you never know what you can learn from it. Anyway if you’re struggling financially, I would suggest you start first with a job that provides you financial stability so that you don’t stress yourself on how to make a living.

I tell you that from my personal experience because when I was producing music I didn’t have a job and I was supported by my parents. This made me stressful over time and, when I eventually failed with my project I found myself without a job and without money savings.

More About the Author

Scott Adams was raised in a small town in upstate New York. He studied at Hartwick College from which he graduated with a bachelor in economics in 1979, then he got an MBA from Berkeley California.

After that he started working an office worker, anyway in the meantime started working on his Dilbert character that eventually became a worldwide phenomenon. Today he owns a blog where he writes about American politics, specifically he likes to write about how Trump should think of America.

Reading Suggestions

• “Good to Great” – Jim Collins
• “Zero to One” –  Peter Thiel
• “Principles” – Ray Dalio
• “The four-hour workweek” – Tim Ferris
• “Essentialism” – Greg McKeown

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Introduction 

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata and that’s the book summary of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Enjoy your read!

Who’s this book for? 

• Everybody lacking awareness of how the US food chains work.
• Everybody purchasing food without any awareness of how they are produced
• Everybody that doesn’t like how the food economy works and wants to find a way out.

What you’ll learn from this book 

• How to make healthy food choices for you and your loved ones.
• How food choices inevitably affect our finances, health, and planet.
• How to rediscover tackle the negatives of industrial food production and rediscover true pleasure in food.

The book in a nutshell

• Much of the food we consume today is produced industrially and this entails unethical practices, environment damage, and high economic costs. Eating is an agricultural, biological and political act that we all should take more responsibly for the good ow our own species.

Three sentence summary

• According to Pollan, 1/4 of all items in the US supermarket are made of corn. Some examples are eggs, chicken, corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, candies, ice cream, cereals, chewing gum, and mayonnaise. Also, drinks are not excluded here, for example, sodas like Coca Cola, Spite and Ice Tea are made 100% out of corn apart from the water component. 

• Organic food today is mostly crap because due to the movement gaining popularity, small farms couldn’t keep up with the market demand and expanded by sacrificing some of the original movement ideals.

• Purchasing food from local farms is one of the best choices you can make as it will reduce the costs of transportation of food, it will support local farms and positively contribute to the health of our environment.

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Eating is an agricultural, biological and political act 
2. We are fed Corn
3. Organic is more a label than a food 
4. CAFOs vs. Management-intensive grazing
5. Buy from local farms

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Eating is an agricultural, biological and political act  

Nowadays we live in a globalized and highly industrialized world where we can have almost every type of food we want at any time. This leaves us in a constant choice dilemma on what foods to purchase, a choice that will inevitably have an impact on our world.

Food, according to Pollan, is the bounty of the earth and power of the sun captured by plants and animals. With the advent of industrial agriculture, anyway, the demand for food was so high that the natural sun cycle was not enough to satisfy it. That’s when farming techniques came into usage, letting us produce higher quantities of food, even if they were off-season. 

This inevitably came with some costs, like polluted water and air, chemicals and pesticides being pumped into our foods, poor animal treatment and the spreading of diseases. 

A Relatable Example

Before the advent of today’s technology, we used to get 2 calories of food energy from 1 calorie of fossil fuel energy. Today we only get 1 calorie of food with 10 calories of fossil fuel energy used. 

Americans use oil to grow corn, and then corn to make an oil substitute. This means that 17% of our fossil fuel actually feeds us while another 18% is used for transportation, factors contributing to climate change. The majority of the food in the US (and oftentimes in other parts of the world) is so polluted and low quality that today’s generation of people gets diabetes much more frequently. So much that it will be the first generation dying earlier than their parents, due to their poor diets.

Moreover today’s food culture is costing the US citizens more than they know, in fact, the American government subsidizes the big food industries with more than $25 Billion a year, making the production of those foods per on the taxpayers themselves, i.e. the citizens. 

Big Idea #2: We are fed Corn 

Corn is a very adaptive and genetically robust plant that can be harvested largely today thanks to the new technologies. In fact, in 1920 farmers could only produce 20 bushels of corn per acre, today they can produce more than 180 bushels per acre.  

Why is there an overproduction of corn? First of all, corn is cheaper than the other edible plants and it’s also subsidized by the American government so that there is always an overproduction of it. Pollan states that 80% of our calories are only coming from 4 or 5 different plants instead of the hundreds of thousands we could consume.

A Relatable Example

According to Pollan, 1/4 of all items in the US supermarket are made of corn. Some examples are eggs, chicken, corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, candies, ice cream, cereals, chewing gum, and mayonnaise. Also, drinks are not excluded here, for example, sodas like Coca Cola, Spite and Ice Tea are made 100% out of corn apart from the water component. 

What about corn percentages in fast food chains? Milkshakes are made of 78% of corn, chicken nuggets 56%, cheeseburgers 52% and french fries 23%. The cows we eat, moreover, are fed with the surplus corn produced even if they’re supposed to eat grass.

Big Idea #3: Organic is more a label than a food 

The phenomenon of organic food surged as a consequence of the awareness of how regular food was produced, stored and delivered to provide a better health solution to consumers. Real organic food is much better than the regular one (even if that should be the regular one) as apart from having a better taste and quality, it also contains cancer-fighting polyphenols. Anyway, even if that phenomenon was born with the best intentions and was a good one at the beginning, it ended up getting corrupted by government intervention. 

Organic food today is mostly crap because due to the movement gaining popularity, small farms couldn’t keep up with the market demand and expanded by sacrificing some of the original movement ideals. The problem is that the US government made allowance for the organic label with no strict regulations and vague standards to big industries as well, so that could have it instead of only small ones. This means the majority of what you find out there is not organic but a fake organic, just like the label representing the happy cows wandering through the grass. 

A Relatable Example

As Pollen found out, many products meat labeled organic were produced with animals that were kept in small and constricted spaces for the first 5 weeks of their lives and then allowed to go into open spaces for the other 2 weeks (since they lived 7 weeks in total). 

The problem is that those animals have been conditioned to stay inside after the first 5 weeks as their food and water was inside and they never went to the open spaces that would make them grow as organic. That’s another business lie put in front of our eyes but what’s the reason for all of that? To make supermarkets profit more by always having food on their shelves regardless of seasonability or natural availability of products. 

Big Idea #4: CAFOs vs. Management-intensive grazing 

A CAFO is a concentrated animal feeding operation, representing an animal feeding area where more than 1000 animal units are grouped for more than 45 days each year. In those areas, animals are treated unethically, just as you’ve probably seen in many videos circulating on the internet. In those places where the majority of the meat that Americans consume is produced, diseases amongst animals are very common as they are only corn feed even if they’re not supposed to eat corn. 

Eating a diet that’s not there makes those animals sick as it weakens their immune system and so they are injected antibiotics to keep them alive. They are constantly filled with those antibiotics that they develop antibiotic resistance superbugs that we later inject and can’t defeat with medicines. 

A Relatable Example

As concerns plant cultivation and livestock, growing grass instead of corn with management intensive grazing is a much better solution. Management-intensive grazing is a farming technique where livestock are moved into various portions of the pasture while others rest. This promotes optimum grass growth using the plants’ natural growth cycle by using the natural relationships between grass and cows. 

Animals enjoy their natural diets and avoid contracting diseases and infecting us in return and the environment doesn’t suffer the pollution of water of chemicals and hormones. 

Big Idea #5: Buy from local farms 

We saw how today’s’ food culture is emptying our pockets, destroying our health and the environment along with treating millions of animals unethically every month. This reinforces the first idea that eating is a biological, political and agricultural act. How can we avoid such a culture and progress towards a more sustainable generation of humans?

A Relatable Example

Pollen advices purchasing food from local farms for various reasons. One of those is the reduction of transportation costs and thus of the Co2 emissions negatively impacting our environment. Another reason for that is that by supporting local farms we encourage them to keep producing without sacrificing the quality of their products or adapting to big industry standards. 

This means they’ll avoid using pesticides and will keep producing food that is created in accordance with the natural ecosystem, thus promoting the stability and harmony of our environment and making our life on earth as humans as best as possible.

Conclusion & Takeaway

Our eating choices play a huge role in how society develops, make it a priority to eat in a way that is responsible as every action has a consequence, just as every cause has an effect. The consumer can be a creator of a new food chain but only if he starts to shop for values and not perceived value of the food itself. 

My Personal Advice 

I believe that everybody being aware of this has his own responsibility and must recognize that action must be taken to change our world for the better. Together we can make this change possible not only for us but also for the future of our children and the prosperity of humankind and its related species on this planet. Start today with your contribution, even if small as you never know how many people you could be impacting with your intervention. Thanks for your collaboration.

More About The Author

Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, and activist. He was an unconscious eater, just like many people worldwide, until he found himself behind the curtain of food production by visiting farms. He then started making his own research until he found out the facts outlined in his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Today he is a contributor writer at the New York Times Magazine, apart from participating in various documentaries centered in his food-related subjects.

Reading Suggestions

• “In Defense of Food” – Michael Pollan
• “Fast Food Nation” – Eric Schlosser
• “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” – Barbara Kingsolver
• “The China Study” – T. Colin Campbell 
• “How not to Die” – Gene Stone

Introduction (Book Cover Photo)

Hi Success Titan reader, I’m Sal Damiata, and that’s the book summary of “So good they can’t ignore you” by Cal Newport. Enjoy your read!

Who’s this book for?

• Everybody who can’t find passion or meaning in their job.
• Everybody who’s struggling with finding the right career path.
• Everybody who feels like they’re performing the wrong occupation.

What you’ll learn from this book

• The right attitude to have to develop the foundations for long-term career and personal satisfaction.
• The 3 most essential elements to master to develop top-notch skills and be always in demand.
• How to keep the flame of passion burning and keep enjoying what you do for a living.

The Book in a Nutshell

• Skill always surpasses passion when it comes to become satisfied with your job and become a valuable individual to society. This means you shouldn’t just follow your passion, but you must instead adopt a realistic success strategy. You can do this by crafting a particular skill until you become so good at it that you’ll inevitably be both passionate and successful with your career.

3 Sentence-Summary

• You shouldn’t follow your passion because 
• Craftsmen mindset
• Career Capital
• Pursue Mission

Big Ideas

Those are the most relevant ideas expressed in the book that we’ll explore together.

1. Following your passion generally leads to failure;
2. Competence increases passion;
3. Adopt the craftsman mindset;
4. Enjoy the process;
5. Find your mission.

Let’s explore them together now:

Big Idea #1: Following your passion generally leads to frustration (Photo 1)

It’s sporadic in our world to find a passion that corresponds to a profitable career. That’s why usually striving for a job you’re just passionate about leads to dissatisfaction and frustration. This means that if you only focus on your passions as careers, you won’t take as many opportunities as you could. This creates damage to society because of high switching job rates and general dissatisfaction. 

A Relatable Story 

Cal Newport, in his book, talks about a man who decided to quit his job and to pursue his passion of being a Zen master. Anyway, even after having become a Zen master, the man didn’t change from the one he was and didn’t truly feel satisfied with his “calling.” That’s proof that a better route to take is to become really good at something instead of just following your passion.

Big Idea #2: Competence increases passion (Photo 2)

The more competent you become at something, the higher the chances that you’ll become passionate about it. Cal Newport has also done a research where he found out that a typical employee thought of his job to be his true calling only after having become really experienced at it (10 + years). This shows how passion is the majority of times, a consequence of high-quality skills. 

A Relatable Story 

In my personal experience, I found this out to be true. When I was in college studying economics, I was happy and passionate about it whenever I managed to take good grades on certain subjects but then hated my studies whenever I failed the exams or didn’t understand the subjects. From this experience, I realized that my passion for the subjects was conditional on how good I was at them. That aspect also translated to my relationships with people and women. When I was young, I wasn’t good at social skills and hated every kind of social interaction and situation. After having gone through a lot of social interactions and having become good at them, I started to love talking to people and to women in general, another personal example proving Cal Newport’s theory right.

Big Idea #3: Adopt the craftsman mindset (Photo 3)

If you want to become passionate about something, you should start adopting the craftsman mindset and practicing a lot by getting out of your comfort zone consistently. The passion mindset that many people follow usually revolves around the question, “what do I really want?”. This will make you focus on the pleasure you can get from your job rather than the service you can give to the world. 

The craftsman mindset instead makes you think about what value you can bring with your job to people. It forces you to focus on quality over pleasure and making you so good they can’t ignore you. Moreover, he advises developing a valuable skillset if you want to have a rare work trait as that’s the basic rule in our capitalistic world. 

A Relatable Story 

Think about a man that is passionate about creating a particular style of music that is without a specific rhythm and melody with a strange musical instrument. He absolutely loves that music, but people, once they hear him playing in the streets, seem to hate it. This man is following his passion and doing what makes him feel good only rather than doing something that makes both him and other people feel good. Since he does the things just for himself, people will ignore him, but what if he creates a musical style that people like by caring about other’s feedbacks instead of only his own?

Big Idea #4: Enjoy the process (Photo 4)

Cal Newport stresses the point of taking on challenging tasks so that you’ll be forced to develop rare and invaluable skills. When you take on challenging projects that not many people are willing to take on, you will eventually create your own niche and win. Once you become a master in what you do, you’ll unlock the 3 elements that will harness passion out of your job. 

Those elements are:

1: Creativity as the ability to improvise and implement your own ideas;

2: Control as the privilege to decide how, when and where your work is done;

3: Impact as bringing positive influence on customers.

If you fail to meet those 3 criteria, your passion will fade away one day, and you’ll start hating your job. A way with which you can become a master more quickly is by getting guidance from people that are more skilled than you. Anyway, you should get into deep focus when you work and cycle between moments of comfort and discomfort by pushing yourself to the edge.

A Relatable Story 

In his book, he talks about Joe Duffy that at first used to work in a graphic design company. He later volunteered to do some work that others in the company didn’t want to do, and that was getting into an international logo design project. After practicing his skills, he became so good that he got his own group to manage apart from the creative and decisional freedom that eventually made this job his vocation.

Big Idea #5: Find your mission (Photo 5)

People who strive for a purpose with their work are more satisfied with it and can handle difficulties better. How can you find that kind of a condition within your job? According to Cal Newport, you’ll find that in the “Adjacent Possible.” This is a space where al the possible combinations of the next discoveries are waiting to be made. 

It’s basically the next invention or discovery that would benefit humankind, like when sunspots were independently discovered by 4 different researchers in 1611.

This means that to discover the Adjacent Possible, you should be at the cutting edge of a specific field so that you’ll be part of a mission. But how to get there?

Choose a few critical areas where to develop your skills and adopt the craftsman mindset to practice those skills. To maximize your success probabilities, you gotta stay focused on those skills and avoid being scattered. Finally, don’t spend too much time finding your mission as it will come by itself when you have mastered some skills.

A Relatable Story 

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, wasn’t just a beginner scientist in that field. He spends hours and hours crafting his skills until he reached that point, where he was amongst the best scientists on the planet. His skilled position made him one of those having the potential to discover the Adjacent Possible, that, in his case, was the light bulb after more than 1000 attempt. 

Conclusion & Takeaway

Instead of looking for a job that necessarily satisfies your passion, learn to love what you do by becoming highly skilled at it so that you’ll be able always to impact the world as you’ll be so good that they can’t ignore you.

My Personal Advice (Book Summary Writer Photo)

If you are equally good at many things that the world needs, then go for the one that gives you the most joy. In that case, following your passion makes sense, provided you put in the hours.

More About The Author

Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University. In 2009 he earned his Ph.D. in the same subjects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He currently writes in his blog about personal improvement and academic success and has written 6 self-development books. 

Suggested Readings

• “The Obstacle is the Way,” Ryan Holiday.
• “Mastery,” Robert Greene.
• “What color is your parachute?” Richard Belson Bolles
• “Give and Take,” Adam Grant
• “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” Greg McKeown