Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
It is particularly infuriating when a reference page is constantly mentioned in the footnotes but said page is actually on a different page number.
It’s a really easy read - it’s over 250 pages but actually there’s a huge amount of white space, the font is relatively large and you could easily read it in a day or two. I know his ethos, banter and growth stories because of Instagram, I’ve been in the JSA, I’ve listened to his podcasts (pre the most recent lads in Aus podcast series) and I’ve seen the value James can bring to people and I’ve personally drawn a lot of value from him. Meditation and mental health were great chapters but the ones that hit home was mindset and motivation. The book is part self development, part stories about James’s own development and part him adding definitions to words or phrases.He doesn't blow smoke up your arse and tell you what you want to hear and he doesn't feed you bullshit. As for the target audience, through reading the book I percieved it to be aimed towards young adult men in their early 20ies.
Reality is he had a privileged upbringing, back packed around the world for a while and quickly became very successful and very wealthy. It gets worse when there is a chapter titled “fucking” where the author brags about hitting his “century” (for those of you who have been spared the painful explanation in the book, a “century man” is someone who has slept with at least 100 different women).Since cutting it out, I've been a little better and also tells you how even though things may be against you now, the "future you" will have your back because it would know how to deal with it so there are some great bits of information to take from reading this. Let me start by saying I've followed JS for years, love his fitness content, loved his first book and love his general approach to health and fitness advice. Personally I’ve read a lot of self development books and I know James’s story so I don’t feel I gained as much value from this book as someone who is reading self development for the first time. All in all an incredibly bland listen from a stereotypical personal trainer, providing absolutely no original thoughts or highlights. To give a James Smith like analogy, this book is like me reading his 'not a diet' book then writing a diet book myself as though I know what I'm on about.
Would recommend to anyone who wants to change their life, whether minor or majorly, but is sitting in the fence/living in fear. Good general guidlines to living life in a different manner and not following a script that makes you unhappy. e. double spacing between lines, far too many blank pages and lots of repetition throughout, all of which give a misleading impression of the quantity of content contained in the book. That said, there are still some good stuff here, like the part about brain plasticity and growth mentality (ok, one good thing).This book is full of contradictions, one minute he’s saying he believes people should leave their careers if they don’t align with their utopian vision of their future, the next he’s idolising people working in checkouts of supermarkets, admiring the nobility of it.
It is also reminiscent of times I would just open a web page and copy verbatim what was in front of me in an attempt to pass it off as my own work. I am not disappointed in this book as I didn’t really have much expectations prior to the purchase, rather I am just educated now as to the actual level of self-deluded grandeur’s Smith has of himself. Good for perhaps a teenager or someone in their early twenties who aren’t sure on what route to take in their lives.
Whilst yes, he did talk about this, he's going by his experiences and then telling you to interpret them and he does state this a few times in the book. Instead you are getting a crass account of the life of someone living in dreamland on the other side of the world, who has cashed in on the vanity trend of Instagram and travelling. Time to stop sleep-walking through your life, to challenge the status quo and to truly ask yourself if you’re on the right path to success, happiness and fulfilment. You’re gonna be told what you need to hear, not what you want to hear so approach it with an open mind.
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