My first review of the year is “The Think Big Manifesto: Think You Can’t Change Your Life (and the World)? Think Again” by Michael Port. While the title of the book is certainly BIG the book itself is quite small. It’s a 166 pages and although the book is hardcover it’s in paperback size so it’s a perfect size for tossing in a pocket on your way out the door.
Now I think I have to say this or the FTC will come and send me to Gitmo or some damn fool crap like that. I got the book for free as a review copy almost a year ago. That means this review is utterly useless to the publisher and probably why everyone’s stopped sending me review copies but I digress.
I had never heard of this book or it’s author when it arrived out of the blue. I tossed it in a pile of other ’someday’ books where it has sat for over 6 months. Seriously, it’s a book on thinking big by a guy I had never heard of so I didn’t think I was missing out on the year’s sleeper thriller hit if ya know what I mean. This was a tiny bit of a mistake I’m sad to say. This is a short book with big bold statements (Some of them inaccurately rehashed from other sources- the Steve Jobs reflections were misquoted) but it has some really good stuff that I think will resonate differently for different people. I don’t think it really picks up steam until you get about halfway in and some actual steps and practical advice starts to flow. Some of it’s crap (Particularly the bending to authority section) but some of it’s extremely insightful. There were a few sections that were very extraordinarily helpful to me personally around the areas of collaboration and people that, if I’d had actually paid for the book been 100% worth the cover price. I skimmed through the first half at speed since it really wasn’t all that interesting to me but since the second half was so good I am thinking about giving it another once over.
The book has a companion website which on the surface looks to be just a marketing tool. I liked the book but there’s only so much time I’m willing to devote to these things so Caveat Emptor on that one.
3.5 out of 5 whatever arbitrary scale you want to use.