Category: Nonfiction

Never has a woman embodied that old saying “when a door closes, another one opens” quite like Elizabeth Gilbert.

There she was, married and nesting, trying to get preggers, when she realized that women who really want husbands and babies probably don’t sob for hours every night on their bathroom floors. Three years and one nasty divorce later, Gilbert had lost it all. Broke and bereft, she had no idea where to go or what to do.

Then her publisher had a great idea. They’d give Gilbert an advance that would enable her to travel abroad for a year, writing the book that would become the mega-bestseller Eat, Pray, Love.

Some people have all the luck.

Gilbert segmented her trip—and her book—into three equal parts. The first stop was Italy, home of gastronomic and linguistic pleasure; next came India, where all the serious people go to connect with God; finally, Bali, to learn…erm…something about balance. If you’ve been trolling this blog for a while, you’ll know I was not particularly keen to read Eat, Pray, Love, but I will happily admit that the book was much better than I feared. Gilbert’s writing is witty and charmingly self-deprecating, and she has a wonderful way of drawing threads through the story that make the whole journey—or at least the resulting book—cohesive and complete.

The section on Italy will make you drool. Hell, it’ll probably make you fat. (Is there a volume of Eat This Not That for Italian food? It’s probably Not That! No, Not That Either!) Gilbert’s life in Italy is almost unbearably dreamy. She does nothing but whatever she wants, every day—mainly eating gelato and speaking Italian—for four pound-packing months.

Oh, it hurts not to be her.

But I stopped feeling so envious in part two, when Gilbert heads to India for four months of spiritual calisthenics. I’m sure her descriptions are all very insightful and magical…but if you are not especially spiritual or into meditation you may find this portion of the book boring. Or loony. I sort of wanted to pat her on the head the whole time and say, “Sure, lady. Mm-hmm.” (And I’m not the only one. I talked to two genuine grade-A middle-aged moms—the demographic voted Most Likely to Inhale This Book—and even they skipped parts of this section.)

Finally, Gilbert whiles away the final leg of her journey in Bali, and in her search for balance she’s back to her old witty ways. Her portrayal of the culture and characters of this tiny Indonesian island is both charming and fascinating. And by the end, the broken woman we met at the beginning of the story has become happy, balanced, and whole.

So I gotta say that overall I was pleasantly surprised. Hear me now—Eat, Pray, Love is a thoughtful and enjoyable book.

But I do have to bring up one teensy weensy little thing.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that so brazenly celebrated self-absorption. I know, I know—it’s the genre. It’s what Gilbert’s publishers paid for. I get it. Still, what is with female readers and their excessive navel-gazing? Unlike most literary works, which at least cover a number of characters and ideas, this book is literally about one person. It’s kind of about the pursuit of pleasure; it’s kind of about praying; it’s kind of about balance. But mostly it’s about Elizabeth Gilbert. In short, one of America’s very favorite reads for the past 61 weeks is about someone who spends a year doing nothing but thinking about herself. Is this the new American dream? Looking at our literature, it certainly seems that way. Too bad only the very very fortunate get paid for it.

Holy crap, what a dumb name for a book. I know it’s been on the bestseller charts for a while, but I’ve been ignoring it because 1) it’s a diet book, yawn and 2) its title is so exceedingly lame.

But last night John and I went out in the world and spied this little volume with our own eyes. And I realized when I saw the cover that this was not your typical benign-but-forgettable book of diet advice.

See, the title wasn’t just the result of a lazy or uninspired author. Eat This Not That is literally the point of the whole book: it provides specific suggestions for what to eat and what not to eat at some of America’s most popular chain restaurants. Try the chili onion rings, not the nacho cheese bacon poppers. Order the fried butter, not the ham-and-lard sandwich. In other words, eat this [unhealthy garbage] instead of that [even more unhealthy garbage]. The book features two pages for each establishment—Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Cici’s Pizza—providing a list of thises and thats for each beloved, nasty greasehole.

Boy is this the perfect “diet” book for the modern era. Only Americans could be so retarded as to think that eating a Big Mac instead of a Whopper with Cheese will help them lose weight (yes, this is actually one of the proffered suggestions). That people would seriously buy and recommend this book (it’s got almost five stars on Amazon)—and that someone in good conscience could publish it—absolutely boggles the mind.

The only merit to Eat This Not That, I would say, is that it exposes just how horrible and fattening this kind of food really is. Even I didn’t know that a plate of Denny’s pancakes packs a walloping 980 calories, and I’m pretty obnoxious when it comes to caloric awareness. The book also goes on to offer general suggestions for making healthier food choices, but frankly the main thrust of the content is so ridiculous that I can’t give Eat This Not That even the teensiest endorsement. But maybe that’s not entirely fair. After all, while dieting you could be kidnapped and forced to eat at Popeye’s, and then this book would be totally useful. Riiight.

Look, I’m not saying I never ever eat this type of food—I do—but never would I dream that it was going to result in anything but bulges and flab. The plain truth is that no dieter should even breathe the fumes of any of these restaurants, and the fact that thousands of people are buying a book like Eat This Not That shows we are nowhere near to facing, let alone solving, our ever-swelling obesity epidemic.

You’d better think twice before slapping a fatwa on Greg Mortenson. Try to deny this dude his dream of educating Pakistani children and he will be all over your sorry terrorist-abiding ass. Oh sure, he’ll sit down with you, all civilized-like. But as soon as you’ve poured the tea, he’ll overturn the table and scald you with the requisite three cups, all the while screaming, “I’m gonna build you a school, mother****er!”

Oh, if only. Maybe that’s how the movie version will turn out.

Three Cups of Tea is a fine book. A fine book that could have used just a little spice. Journalist David Oliver Relin ably tells the story of unwitting hero Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber who gets lost during a K2 expedition and discovers not only a remote Pakistani village but his life’s purpose. Three Cups chronicles Mortenson’s efforts to build schools for the Middle East’s poorest children, thus fighting what he believes are the root causes of terrorism and religious extremism. Risking his life countless times, devoting himself in a way unimaginable to most of us, Mortenson is a remarkable and inspiring man who deserves every royalty he gets from this raging bestseller.

And yet this book didn’t quite grab me the way Reading Lolita in Tehran—to which it is frequently compared—did. I’m sure that’s partially because Lolita is about the transformative power of literature, and Three Cups is more vaguely about education—I dunno, math and crap. (I’m joking. I love math. But it doesn’t get me all misty.) It’s also, I think, because Three Cups is kind of a one-note inspirational experience, a reeeeaaaallly long Chicken Soup for the Soul selection. Mortenson is awesome. I believe it. But I believed it by page 10 and at that point there were still 320 pages to go.

That’s not to say I didn’t learn a lot. I learned about mountain climbing and construction and the Middle Eastern way of life (don’t rush it, man—the Pakistani chiefs are rather like the chilled-out surfers in my native Santa Cruz, though probably not as stoned). I learned that most Americans are into helping Buddhists but tend to shun the Muslims. And I learned that that’s just silly, because Muslims are poorer and will thus love you more when you lend a hand.

Okay, that’s not really the message of Three Cups, though the book says in no uncertain terms that Mortenson’s beneficent, education-bestowing presence in the Middle East combats terrorism and anti-American sentiment better than any military approach ever could. Passionate testimonials from all and sundry confirm the lasting dividends of both secular education and American lovingkindness, making the book positively pulse with a heartwarming (if heavy-handed) glow.

So: if you’re looking for an interesting plunge into another culture, a well-written chronicle of a real-life hero, Three Cups of Tea is the book for you. But if you’re looking for whoop-ass, even one cup of it, you’ll have to drink something besides Mortenson’s inspirational tea.

Okay, so should I read Eat, Pray, Love? I know it’s #1 on the USA Today list right now. I know it’s been a bestseller for 50 weeks, and it’s surely going to be on the annual bestseller list for 2007. And I know that reading it will give me untold insights into the American psyche. Well, maybe.

But its name just totally bugs me. I know that sounds stupid, but I’m really into names, and this one is just…ugh. It smacks of A Female Journey, all serious and misty.

Am I wrong? Am I a jerk? Is this book wonderful? Please enlighten me!

In Why We Read What We Read, John and I discuss how many of the business/finance books of the 90s contain a spiritual element, a conviction that material success could (and should) be linked to emotional well-being. These warm ‘n’ fuzzy notions seemed to be petering out in the last several years, as evidenced by the giant sales of amoral hits such as Good to Great. Well, the success of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek may be proof that America is over the touchy-feelys once and for all.

It’s not like Ferriss encourages readers to make money by kicking lepers and killing endangered frogs. But a book of good, old-fashioned values this is not. Just so you know what kind of dude we’re dealing with, here are a few of Ferriss’ more questionable suggestions:

1) Trying to dream up an online business? Ferriss says sell whatever will sell—his own fortune (around $40K a month) comes from peddling sketchy nutritional supplements.

2) Trying to make the jump from office-based to home-based (and thus sun-soaked paradise-based) employment? Just deceive your boss by looking much more productive from home, and then work about two hours a day thereafter, collecting the same salary.

3) Tired of dumb, time-slurping chores? Hire an overseas personal assistant for a few dollars an hour to make travel arrangements, buy gifts, do research—you name it.

4) Want to do something extraordinary? Exploit the technicalities. Ferriss himself won the gold medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championships thusly:

Using dehydration techniques I now teach to elite powerlifters, I lost 28 pounds in 18 hours, weighed in at 65 pounds, and then hyperhydrated back to 193 pounds. It’s hard to fight someone from three weight classes above you. Poor little guys…[He continues] If one combatant fell off the elevated platform three times in a single round, his opponent won by default. I decided to use this technicality as my single technique and just push people off. (29-30)

To be fair, these seedy tidbits are sprinkled throughout what seems to be pretty good advice on a number of topics. First, Ferriss takes time explaining the mentality of the “New Rich,” as he calls them—which is to enjoy life now, filling it with hobbies and learning and “mini-retirements” rather than doing endless soul-sucking work to save up money for some long-distant and vaguely conceived retirement. (Hard to argue with that one.) He also offers helpful productivity tips for both employees and entrepreneurs, including specific techniques for preventing interruptions and severely limiting time spent on meetings, phone calls, and e-mail.

But the best way to make money and free yourself to do what you wish, Ferriss says, is to own a small, automated, online business that brings in the income you need (it doesn’t have to be a ton—just enough to pay your bills and make your “dreamlines” possible, whatever those may be). For best results, this business should sell a product costing the customer $50-200 and be marketed to a very specific niche. Ferriss provides detailed instructions on how to test out the selling potential of a product, then how to automate the selling process so that the lucky business owner has to do as little as possible.

Does it work? How the hell should I know? It sounds good, but of course the magic part is coming up with the right product to create, resell, license, or manufacture. Ferriss can’t help you there; you have to rely on your own imagination and expertise. In other words, most of us are screwed.

Finally, Ferriss uses the end of the book to provide tips for long-term world travel and residence and—most unnecessarily, I suspect—how to keep that spring in your step when extraordinary wealth grows boring and angst-inducing.

The writing is sarcastic and funny, though the book is a bit scattered, since it’s basically a manual for living like a man who places a heavy premium on regular world travel—which may not be possible or even desirable for those with kids, dogs, or airplane phobias. Still, it’s easy for the reader to pick and choose the chapters that appeal. The book also provides lots of cool online resources for everything from how to register oneself as a media expert to how to rate charities.

But ultimately, I have to predict that most readers will not achieve a 4-hour workweek or anything close after reading this book, and not just because they lack the courage to think outside the box. The 4-Hour Workweek is probably most useful for true entrepreneurial spirits and those who already have successful online businesses and want to automate them. Most of us slouches, I fear, will find the ideas exciting, the fantasy tantalizing, but the brilliant products—and the resulting cold hard cash—all too elusive.

Last month I ended up reading a lot of relationship-oriented books: the Nora Roberts, of course, but also Opting Out? and The Five Love Languages. Love is good and all, but I needed a break. A shift. A different perspective.

I needed Stephen Hawking.

I have had a copy of A Brief History of Time patiently waiting on my bookshelf lo these many long years. I picked it up sometime after its bestselling stint in the late ’80s, when it was touted to the masses as a bang-up effort to help “nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today”—questions about the origin and nature of the universe.

I never seriously considered that I would be too dumb for this book. I’m smart. I never took a math class I didn’t ace. I haven’t done physics since high school, but I managed to scrape out an A there too. I’m not one of those creative people who can’t do logic. I have lengthy delusional fantasies about my aptitude for engineering and astronomy.

Looking back now, it’s easy to see I was doomed.

The first couple chapters went all right. Hawking covers things like gravity, Newtonian physics, and general relativity, stuff I remembered well enough from high school to ring a bell. The uncertainty principle was new, but I basically followed along. Then came some horrifying stuff about particles, colored quarks, “spin,” and event horizons, and I started to wish I were dead.

But I knew the end had come when I got to page 121, where Hawking neatly summarizes the “important questions” remaining at that point in the book, questions like this one:

Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that separates models that recollapse from those that go on expanding forever, so that even now, ten thousand million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate? If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size. (121-22)

He doesn’t say so outright, but the implication is that a smart and engaged reader would be bursting at the seams with those same questions. My questions, it turned out, were more like “Why is this so hard?” and “When is this book going to be over?”

That was several weeks ago. Thereafter the book sat forlornly on the arm of my couch, and I pretended it wasn’t there.

My basic problem with Brief History, I realized, was that I actually don’t care why what Hawking says is true. He really doesn’t need to prove it to me. He could have written five pages of conclusion and it would have been more than sufficient. (Little did I know, Hawking actually did publish A Briefer (!) History of Time in 2005.) I just wanted to know what those physicists were up to. And now that I know, I’m sorrier than ever that I’m too dumb to be one, because it’s pretty much the best job ever: What you do makes so little sense to almost anyone that no one will ever know if you’re not really working. And it’s so geeked-out—the later chapters in Hawking’s book bear a remarkable resemblance to a conversation I once overheard about the theoretical powers of that Balrog-thing in The Fellowship of the Ring.

Still, still, I hadn’t fully admitted to myself that the jig was up. I kept thinking I’d get back to the book…sure I would!…just as soon as I managed to get more time. Just as soon as I could really focus on it.

Then my dog ate it.

She’s never eaten a book before. She’s never even sniffed a book before. Yet this time: tatters. And though I should have been mad—a book-eating dog is not the pet for two writers—all I could do was laugh. Because I realized that ripping that book to shreds is exactly what I’d wanted to do all along.

It’s only fair to note that the Amazon reviews rave about Brief History; everyone says it’s so easy and clear and fascinating and how you’d have to be a complete tool not to understand it (gushes one reviewer, “as a recent high school graduate, I can say with some level of certainty that the average person can understand 90% of this book”). I blame myself, not Hawking. So if you’ve got the interest and the moxie, don’t let my sad story dissuade you.

But I think I’ve learned my lesson—Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics is the closest I should come to reading about astrophysics. As my friend Alice used to write at the end of all of her chemistry lab reports:

Today I learned a little about science…and a lot about myself.

Hooray! At last, a bestselling relationship-mending book I can get behind. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman hasn’t yet made an annual list, but it’s been kicking around the USA Today top-150 for the past four years or so.

Chapman’s premise, developed during his years as a marriage counselor, is that people have different ways of expressing and feeling loved. You might get all squishy when your special someone helps you with your origami, but your partner might be dying for you to make him a bologna sandwich. And if your relationship is suffering, most likely you’re expressing love in the way you want to receive it, rather than the way your partner does. So, if you want to turn things around, you have to determine your sweetie’s “love language” and start speaking it.

According to Chapman, there are five main “love languages”:

1. Words of affirmation (“You are a tidy little bon-bon!”)
2. Quality time (talking, shopping, escuchando los discos a la biblioteca)
3. Receiving gifts (don’t have to be expensive—it’s the thought that counts)
4. Acts of service (cooking, mowing the lawn, making that bologna sandwich)
5. Physical touch (holding hands, hugging, doing the nasty)

While most of us respond to all of those things to some degree, one probably stands out as our primary “love language.” And when our significant other speaks that language, we get the misty-eyes and the jelly-knees.

Five languages, five reasons to read

Here are the top five reasons I liked this book, especially as compared to other love-related mega-sellers.

1. Doesn’t simplify—accepts the complexity of humanity and the fact that we are all different. This book does not employ the one-size-fits-all mentality so common in the self-help universe. Each individual has his or her own “love language” and even own “love dialect,” which is a variation on one of the five main languages. The call to action here is not to pigeonhole your spouse but to understand and respond to his or her distinctive needs.

2. Gender-neutral. The Five Love Languages is not addressed to women only, nor does it put the burden on women to make relationships work. It doesn’t assume all women (or men) want or need the same things. Chapman even says “there are no rewards for maintaining stereotypes, but there are tremendous benefits to meeting the emotional needs of your spouse” (110)—even when they don’t fit traditional gender roles.

3. Doesn’t claim relationships are easy. Speaking an unfamiliar language is hard work, and doing it for a lifetime will take commitment and a real desire to do “something for the well-being of the one you love” (41). In fact, Chapman claims that the “in-love” period of a relationship—when everything seems so wonderful and effortless—is not really love at all. Real love, he says, “is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and required discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth” (35). But it’s not as boring as it sounds. Chapman promises that, if we make all this effort, true love “will be exciting beyond anything we ever felt when we were infatuated” (37). While I would argue that falling in love is a form of true love, one that makes the next, quieter stage of love possible—the simple and necessary admission that long-term relationships take work is almost foreign to bestselling relationship reading.

4. Describes happy spouses as having a deep connection. In Chapman’s world, the point of a relationship isn’t just to get along or accept each other’s differences. “Our most basic emotional need,” he claims, “is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving” (35). By meeting our spouse’s deepest needs, we forge a powerful relationship, not just a functional household.

5. Doesn’t even mention a “white knight.” I don’t think I can take any more of those.

Complaints? Instinctively, my main issue with the book would be how unnecessary it is. I would think that anyone who is even fractionally emotionally astute would know, from experience if not conversation, what made his/her spouse the most happy. And, unless that person was totally creepy or lazy, s/he would probably do it.

But I think I am wrong on this one. I have always found relationships extremely easy (not work-free, understand, but easy), so all this gooey emotional stuff and its associated effort are a snap. However, I am starting to think I am a freak (for this and the other ten thousand reasons). Given the enormous popularity of bestselling books like this, it seems a lot of people are not particularly emotionally perceptive and really don’t know what their spouses want. I find such a possibility mystifying, but this is far from the first time that I have been mystified by America’s needs. So I’m going to assume that Chapman’s is a lesson that needs to be taught.

And teach he does. He offers a variety of methods for sleuthing out your partner’s love language, mostly pretty obvious techniques such as “listening to what your partner asks you to do for him/her” and “observing your partner’s behavior toward you” (since people often give love the way they want to receive it). Once you have identified the hidden language that’s been mucking up your life, you just have to start to “speak” it. For each language, Chapman offers a list of suggestions for new practitioners. Most are reasonable, but some veer into the ridiculous, like this one for the “Words of Affirmation” people:

As you read the newspaper, magazines, and books, or watch TV or listen to radio, look for words of affirmation which people use. Observe people in conversation. Write those affirming statements in a notebook. (If they are cartoons, clip and paste them in your notebook.) Read through these periodically and select those you could use with your spouse. When you use one, note the date on which you used it. (56)

I mean, come on. Good at relationships or not, a person who needs to do this is bordering on mentally challenged. And imagine finding this notebook—wouldn’t it give you the creeps?

Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, especially the stuff about sex (how many times in a paragraph can a person say “sexual intercourse”?), though thankfully it’s still a big step above the language in Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

But these are minor quibbles. The book makes sense. And it explains to me why some relationships are just harder than others—having to do unnatural, uncomfortable things all the time is just plain more difficult and more apt to fail than doing natural, comfortable things. I’ve witnessed relationships like that, and unless there is a great amount of love and commitment on both sides, they simply don’t work in the long run. How reasonable is it to expect that a person who never needs to be touched, for example, can really make a physically-oriented spouse happy? Good intentions or not, people often revert to their old, familiar ways. And can you really blame them? In the book Chapman claims he rarely meets couples who speak the same love language. I’m assuming he’s saying that to send an optimistic message to his lonely readers (“you’re normal! you can fix it!”), but I read it differently: People who need the same things are much less likely to seek counseling.

Chapman’s moral is work hard and make your spouse happy. My variation is pick the right person to begin with, someone who needs what you need, and the work you do will be a lot more enjoyable—and the relationship a lot more likely to last.

But hey, that’s the opinion of a freak.

by John Heath

Let’s get this right out in the open—with all the hoopla surrounding The Secret, one of us had to read it. Lisa is still a bit annoyed that she had to read so many New Age books for Why We Read What We Read, so there was no real way I could get out of it when she asked me to take a closer look at the book.

Payback is a bitch.

The Secret may be the fluffiest thing I have read in three years, and that’s saying something, considering I made it through the first 50 pages of Embraced by the Light (I couldn’t finish—I made Lisa read that one too) and read Life’s Little Instruction Book cover to cover. It takes one basic, reasonable premise—that a positive attitude can make a difference in how one experiences life—and drives it to unfathomable depths of silliness. Actually, only the cosmological improbability and materialistic self-indulgence can fairly be called silly. There’s also a more insidious side, a moral repugnancy of The Law of Attraction that has been well discussed by many reviewers, as well as ruthlessly parodied on YouTube, Saturday Night Live, and even in entire books. To believe that everything—and this means everything—that happens in this world is the direct result of the universe responding to your thoughts is not just demonstrably false, but the height of narcissism, ethical obtuseness, and spiritual desperation. It’s enough to make one pine for the relatively harmless inanity of The Celestine Prophecy.

At some point, an honest reviewer has to throw his or her hands up in the air and concede that certain New Age and Christian fundamentalist self-help guides are beyond critique, at least as far as trying to keep an open mind about the people who are buying them. This book lives in that ether that can be reached neither by reason nor common sense. Either you are a believer or you aren’t.

So why have so many people chosen to believe (or at least buy) this book? Where’s the proof that thinking good thoughts about wealth and health, for example, will make you rich and strong? (Or, on the necessary flip side, that thinking negative thoughts will result in such obviously self-induced traumas as slavery, rape, inner-city poverty, the Holocaust, Katrina, and Darfur?) Well, this proof is entirely in the anecdotes provided by the author and contributors, who comprise nothing short of a pantheon of New Age Gurus, folks who believe (if we can believe them) that because they envisioned getting checks instead of bills, they got rich. (Cynically, it’s easier to believe that they got rich by getting people to write them real checks by convincing them they could get rich by envisioning checks in the mail.) Rhonda Byrne herself is the one who pulls it all together, the best-selling peddler of the Secret who links the masters’ words with interludes like this:

“Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight. Remember, thoughts are the primary cause of everything, and the rest is effects from those thoughts. Think perfect thoughts and the result must be perfect weight.” (p.59)

It simply MUST be! Fat people aren’t just fat—they’re dumb, so dumb they think it’s the calories that put on weight.

Lordy.

Here’s something I waver about. Do these people really believe what they say? Have they convinced themselves they are telling the truth? Could they pass a lie-detector test? Does Rhonda Byrne really think weight gain or loss has nothing to do with food? I honestly can’t tell.

In the end, I guess it just boils down to your willingness to believe something incredible because someone tells you it’s true (and it would be so cool if it were true). Are you like that? I have a test. Here’s a list of the credentials of the contributors to The Secret:

• Founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center and originator of the Life Visioning Process
• Founder and CEO of Empowered Wealth, and founder of the Quadrant Living Experience, LLC, “a boutique firm that licenses and trains an international network of Quadrant Living Advisors.”
• Chiropractor of the Year
• Internationally known Feng Shui master
• Co-founder of Totally Unique Thoughts (TUT), who sold over 1 million t-shirts and then transformed TUT into a web-based inspirational and philosophical Adventurers Club
• Creator and Facilitator of the Wealth Beyond Reason program
• John Grey (see our section on Mars/Venus in Why We Read What We Read)
• Creator of Holosync
• Founder of Live Out Loud
• Founder and CEO of Motivating the Masses (and Motivating the Teen Spirit)
• Developer of The Science of Success and Harmonic Wealth
• Neale Donald Walsch (another best-selling author we discuss in our book)
• And a guy who holds a doctorate degree in Metaphysical Science (?), who also is a certified hypnotist, metaphysical practitioner, ordained minister, and Chi Kung healer

I think it boils down to this. The world is divided into two camps: those who look at this list and laugh or shake their heads, and those who read it and wonder where they can sign up.