In this episode of the, It’s Not What It Seems podcast, my brother Darron and I discuss March 2019’s book of the month, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong by Eric Barker.

Here’s a little more about Eric Barker:

Eric Barker is the creator of the blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree, which presents science-based answers and expert insight on how to be awesome at life. His work has been mentioned in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, TIME magazine, The Week, and Business Insider. He is a former Hollywood screenwriter, having worked on projects for Walt Disney Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, and Revolution Studios. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA from Boston College and a Master of Fine Arts from UCLA.

Here’s a little more about the book:

Much of the advice we’ve been told about achievement is logical, earnest… and downright wrong. In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success and most importantly, how anyone can achieve it. You’ll learn:

• Why valedictorians rarely become millionaires, and how your biggest weakness might actually be your greatest strength

• Whether nice guys finish last and why the best lessons about cooperation come from gang members, pirates, and serial killers

• Why trying to increase confidence fails and how Buddhist philosophy holds a superior solution

• The secret ingredient to “grit” that Navy SEALs and disaster survivors leverage to keep going

• How to find work-life balance using the strategy of Genghis Khan, the errors of Albert Einstein, and a little lesson from Spider-Man

By looking at what separates the extremely successful from the rest of us, we learn what we can do to be more like them—and find out in some cases why it’s good that we aren’t. Barking Up the Wrong Tree draws on startling statistics and surprising anecdotes to help you understand what works and what doesn’t so you can stop guessing at success and start living the life you want.

This book is filled with insights that (granted) do have a lot to do with context, but they’re delivered in the form of powerful inquiries into the forces that drive us and the world around us. Darron and I will go over the key questions posed in the book, and how we’ve come to perceive them in our own lives.

As always, if you weren’t able to pick up or finish this book for March, don’t worry. You can tune in to our next book club episode, which will air on April 28.  

Here’s more on the NEW book club for 2019: http://douglasvigliotti.com/blog/bookclu

Here’s the April 2019 Book of the Month - The Case against Education by Bryan Caplan:
http://bit.ly/caseagainsteducation

LINKS FROM EPISODE:

• David Brooks on “eulogy virtues”: http://bit.ly/moralbucketlistbrooks

• More on Introversion vs Extraversion: http://bit.ly/introversionvsextraversion

• Read Einstein’s list of demands for his wife: http://bit.ly/einsteinlettertowife

BOOKS FROM EPISODE:

• Barking Up The Wrong Tree by Eric Barker: http://bit.ly/barkingwrong

• Give and Take by Adam Grant: http://bit.ly/adamgrantgiveandtake

• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl: http://bit.ly/manssearchformeaningviktorfrankl

• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: http://bit.ly/tippingpointgladwell

• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari: http://bit.ly/21LessonsFor21

• Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow: http://bit.ly/sickintheheadapatow

• Factfulness by Hans Rosling: http://bit.ly/factfulnessrosling

Would you like to see my book recommendations? Join my private reading list.

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