Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly insightful
Review: This is a brief, easy-to-read book (I zipped through it in one evening), but I found it remarkably enlightening about the learning process in general. What especially struck me were three points: (1) The "plateau" is just as important in learning a skill as the rare moments when you exceed yourself, so don't become impatient (or quit) when you hit a plateau; it's where you consolidate your skills, make them automatic, and get ready for the next step. (2) To learn something new, you have to become a beginner again. (3) If you focus on achieving ever higher and higher goals, you'll burn out; but embracing the process and the attitude of being a learner will last you a lifetime. (About 25 years ago, a group of Apple Computer employees paid for a billboard in honor of Steve Jobs' birthday; it read "The Journey is the Reward." At the time I thought this was pseudo-Zen fluff, but I know better now -- and that's exactly the point of this book.)
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly insightful
Review: This is a brief, easy-to-read book (I zipped through it in one evening), but I found it remarkably enlightening about the learning process in general. What especially struck me were three points: (1) The "plateau" is just as important in learning a skill as the rare moments when you exceed yourself, so don't become impatient (or quit) when you hit a plateau; it's where you consolidate your skills, make them automatic, and get ready for the next step. (2) To learn something new, you have to become a beginner again. (3) If you focus on achieving ever higher and higher goals, you'll burn out; but embracing the process and the attitude of being a learner will last you a lifetime. (About 25 years ago, a group of Apple Computer employees paid for a billboard in honor of Steve Jobs' birthday; it read "The Journey is the Reward." At the time I thought this was pseudo-Zen fluff, but I know better now -- and that's exactly the point of this book.)
Rating:
Summary: A good and not so common self help book
Review: Whilst most self help books focus primarily on planning, goal setting, motivation, action etc, this one is a little bit special, not because it's written by an ex fighter plane pilot or an aikido master, but it's just so straightforward and simple emphasis on "practice". The main theme of the book can be summarized by a paragraph in page 48: "Goals and contingencies, as I've said, are important. But they exist in the future and the past, beyond the pale of the sensory realm. Practice, the path of mastery, exists only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most esssential and enduring in your life." In other words, this book centers around patience, resilence, continuous learning and a little bit of zen, though the former three terms were not present inside the book at all. Many reviewers gave five stars to this book and some even said that this is the unique self help book one might need. However, I really cant agree so because this book is so targeted to specific segments which the author described as the dabblers (the eternal kids) and the obsessive (the bottom line type), where the lack of patience or persistence appears to be their primal problem. Certainly there are other types of issues that deter "self helpers". Meanwhile, I must say that the passage devoted to homeostasis (internal resistance to change) is brilliant. In short, this book is worth a read. p.s. I would like to quote two passages which I like the most for your reference. 1. In his book Zen Mind....Suzuki approaches the question of fast and slow learners in terms of horses. "In our scriptures, it is said that there are four kinds of horses:...The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sess the shadow of the whip; the second best...just before the whip reaches its skin; the third ....when it feels pain on its body; the fourth...after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones....When we hear this story, almost all of us want to be the best horse....But this is a mistake, Master Suzuki says. When you learn too easily, you'r tempted not to work hard, not to penetrate to the marrow of a practice. pg 66 2. Are you willing to wear your white belt? pg 176, the last page of the book.
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