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walkitoutSubtitled Sales Sisterhood Supremacy and the Other Lies Behind Multi Level Marketing
I saw this in the background on one of TikToker Canadian Kels’ tiktoks. It looked interesting, and I actually read samples. The sample is good, and I may get the book, but for now, I will continue through other books I already own. Paulson has fictionalized the MLM she participated in and the people she recruited other otherwise interacted with at that MLM. Paulson had 5 kids (!!) when she started participating in an MLM, and was already in marriage counseling and money was difficult. It sounds like she did well selling, but developed a drinking problem, got sober, continued selling, and then got out because, well, look, you can only do this kind of thing for so long. Cults are exhausting.
And that is probably why, as good as this sample is, I am in no great hurry to read the whole thing. But if it sounds interesting to you — or useful! — I think it is worth a try. Paulson has a good grasp of why MLMs are so appealing to certain people at certain points in their lives.
Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
Subtitled Why You Can’t Pay Attention
Hari is a journalist, apparently, and sounds like maybe an elder Millenial? Considerably younger than me, anyway. I do not think he has offspring of his own, but he has a younger person important to him who really struggles with attention in an addictive way, and Hari realized that it was not just the younger person, but a society wide problem. Hari has an initial approach, which dominates the sample: book a beach apartment in Truro (he says P-town, but it really sounds like Truro) for three months and bring a Jitterbug phone, paper books, a laptop that does not have functioning wifi, and have cable and internet disconnected from the unit. He then documents the impact on himself. He talks about walking on the beach, reading 3 newspapers a day in a cafe in P-town (yeah, yeah, look, this is so Walden it is hilarious), taking yoga classes and initially sleeping a lot and then, around the time the sample runs out, the initial relief is replaced by wild, compulsive need for connectivity.
He talks to a lot of men — and yes, it is almost all men — about changes in focus over time and the impact on whatever. None of it is particularly new or earthshaking. It is a pity that this book is pitched as being about attention or focus or whatever. If it had been pitched as My Struggles with Information Sobriety, it would have been a super different reading experience. I think it is probably pretty good as a My Struggles type book. As an analysis of our society and focus and attention and wtf, it is … meh.
But it is just a sample, so what do I know. If I want to read a book about information addiction, I will shop for one. It might wind up being this one, but I think I would prefer a woman author, honestly.
It is odd, tho. I used to absolutely adore non-fiction that was about someone who got really interested in a topic and then wandered around and talked to the experts in the topic and just hard core nerded out about it. On one level, this is one of those books. And yet, it is so simultaneously self-obsessed and lacking in self-insight (the reading 3 newspapers in the moring and feeling like he was on some kind of an info diet felt super, super, odd, even to me.) that it is difficult to continue.
I saw this in the background on one of TikToker Canadian Kels’ tiktoks. It looked interesting, and I actually read samples. The sample is good, and I may get the book, but for now, I will continue through other books I already own. Paulson has fictionalized the MLM she participated in and the people she recruited other otherwise interacted with at that MLM. Paulson had 5 kids (!!) when she started participating in an MLM, and was already in marriage counseling and money was difficult. It sounds like she did well selling, but developed a drinking problem, got sober, continued selling, and then got out because, well, look, you can only do this kind of thing for so long. Cults are exhausting.
And that is probably why, as good as this sample is, I am in no great hurry to read the whole thing. But if it sounds interesting to you — or useful! — I think it is worth a try. Paulson has a good grasp of why MLMs are so appealing to certain people at certain points in their lives.
Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
Subtitled Why You Can’t Pay Attention
Hari is a journalist, apparently, and sounds like maybe an elder Millenial? Considerably younger than me, anyway. I do not think he has offspring of his own, but he has a younger person important to him who really struggles with attention in an addictive way, and Hari realized that it was not just the younger person, but a society wide problem. Hari has an initial approach, which dominates the sample: book a beach apartment in Truro (he says P-town, but it really sounds like Truro) for three months and bring a Jitterbug phone, paper books, a laptop that does not have functioning wifi, and have cable and internet disconnected from the unit. He then documents the impact on himself. He talks about walking on the beach, reading 3 newspapers a day in a cafe in P-town (yeah, yeah, look, this is so Walden it is hilarious), taking yoga classes and initially sleeping a lot and then, around the time the sample runs out, the initial relief is replaced by wild, compulsive need for connectivity.
He talks to a lot of men — and yes, it is almost all men — about changes in focus over time and the impact on whatever. None of it is particularly new or earthshaking. It is a pity that this book is pitched as being about attention or focus or whatever. If it had been pitched as My Struggles with Information Sobriety, it would have been a super different reading experience. I think it is probably pretty good as a My Struggles type book. As an analysis of our society and focus and attention and wtf, it is … meh.
But it is just a sample, so what do I know. If I want to read a book about information addiction, I will shop for one. It might wind up being this one, but I think I would prefer a woman author, honestly.
It is odd, tho. I used to absolutely adore non-fiction that was about someone who got really interested in a topic and then wandered around and talked to the experts in the topic and just hard core nerded out about it. On one level, this is one of those books. And yet, it is so simultaneously self-obsessed and lacking in self-insight (the reading 3 newspapers in the moring and feeling like he was on some kind of an info diet felt super, super, odd, even to me.) that it is difficult to continue.