What I’m Reading: 7L, 4HB (What?)

Now that I’m not spending all my hours playing WoW anymore (and not really missing it, either), my reading is back up to previous levels of voraciousness. Here’s what I’ve read over past couple weeks.

Both of these books have short abbreviations consisting of numbers and letters, hence the cryptic headline for this post. All links are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may be able to buy half a stick of gum or possibly a paperclip, thanks to Amazon’s lame affiliate commissions. Knock yourselves out.

The Seven Levels of Communication, by Michael J. Maher

The Seven Levels of Communication is a great book if you deal with people a lot in face-to-face situations. If you’re a real estate agent, you absolutely must read this. Written in the form of a story, we follow the progress of one down-on-his-luck agent named Rick as he meets someone who changes his life around after meeting a mysterious woman.

Rick’s a cynical guy and his reactions and thoughts as we follow him to a seminar were pretty funny to me. I’m not a big “rah-rah” kind of guy so I identified with that. As you follow Rick’s story, you’ll learn a lot about how to communicate with others, network with them, and get tons of referrals without even asking for them. The way the information is delivered–through a story instead of a bunch of how-to–works very well in this case because the writing and the storytelling are good.

Kindle viability: This book kinda sucked on the Kindle device, because the only place the 7 levels are clearly listed all at once (that I remember seeing) are in diagrams, which are small to the point of near-illegibility on the Kindle screen. I recommend you get the physical book or read it on Kindle for the PC, Mac or iPad.

The 4-Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss

The 4-Hour Body is from the guy who told you to only check email twice a day and outsource as much of your life as you can. All that 4HWW stuff was nothing. It was only a tiny facet of Ferriss’ real obsession: this guy has recorded nearly every workout he’s done since the age of 18. 4HB is the ultimate body-hacking geek-out.

I’ve already read Good Calories, Bad Calories and am familiar with “Paleo” style diets. I’ve tried going paleo myself and it’s a bitch because not only do you cut out white starches, all sugars and all dairy, you also cut out legumes and many other vegetables & fruits that weren’t part of early humankind’s diet. Ferriss doesn’t go for that. His approach to diet gives you the same benefits but without the nearly-impossible restrictions. It’s called “slow carb,” and it works.

I’ve lost 19 lbs since I started it and I’m now down to 170 from 189. I feel great. I’m not exercising (that will come soon, baby steps).

Tim does a great job of playing the “I’m-circumventing-the-establishment” game. Doctors and scientists can’t be too risky in their official work or they lose credibility among their peers. However, “off the record,” they provide Tim with a lot of help and information, which he combines with information gained from the some of the world’s top athletes and trainers.

Using himself and about 200 others, Tim experimented with all kinds of food, fitness, sex and sleep craziness. The results are in this book. This is one of those books some people are going to follow like a cult and others are going to dismiss as preposterous (probably without even reading it). I’ve already gained from it personally, so I’m open to Tim’s approach. He’s a smart guy and the writing is easy, snappy, and often pretty damn funny.

Kindle viability: Pretty good, but Ferriss knew he’d get a lot of Kindle readers and took smart steps to ensure they get good images by making them available on his website (very smart in other ways, too: your marketing Spider Sense should be tingling, right about now). In fact there are a TON of URLs to look up, which can be very tedious from the Kindle device or the physical book. Computer or iPad Kindle readers should make it easier to effectively use The 4-Hour Body.

That’s it for this week. Next week I’ll be reviewing Scott Stratten’s UnMarketing and Paulo Coelho’s Warrior of the Light.