After hearing everyone talking about this bestselling book, I was finally compelled to read The God Delusion by British biologist Richard Dawkins. Among his main points:

1. The existence of God is a scientific question. You can’t say that science is completely separate from religion, because a universe with a God would look very different from a universe without one.

2. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit. The Boeing 747 gambit is an argument for intelligent design, saying that the odds of higher life forms emerging by chance are roughly the odds of a hurricane sweeping through a scrapyard and happening to assemble a Boeing 747. But attributing the design of a complex world to God doesn’t solve the problem, because the creation of a God capable of such design would have been an even more improbable event.

3. Natural selection gives a much better explanation of the world by use of a “crane” rather than a “skyhook,” or creating complexity by building on lower layers rather than from a miracle.

4. There is almost (he does give that concession) certainly no God, and belief in one in spite of the contradictory evidence qualifies as a delusion.

This part of the book is very strong, and frankly, you don’t need reasoning nearly as sophisticated as his to argue the point.

I was raised as what you might call a casual Christian. It was our affiliation by default, but I think we all knew it was made up. Actually, until I saw Religulous in 2008, I had no idea the whole Bible was meant to be taken literally. For those who don’t know, the universe was created by the Big Bang, snakes can’t talk, dinosaurs were real, and Jesus did not reincarnate as bread.

Even if you interpret the Bible metaphorically, it still doesn’t make sense. God commits random acts of genocide, then says “Thou shalt not kill.” He’s omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, but prefers to take a completely hands off approach to running the world, lest his existence be revealed. He created (at least some) people with rational minds, then gets offended when they don’t believe in him without evidence. He loves everyone, but he’ll send you to hell if you’re gay or you eat the wrong apple or work on a Sunday.

(And for those who wonder how I can say this while entertaining the possibility of phenomena such as Akashic record reading, keep in mind that not believing in something full of ridiculous contradictions is very different from automatically rejecting everything we can’t see.)

But I was wondering why Richard Dawkins would write this book. Yeah, I knew I would agree with a lot of what he said, but why put so much effort into refuting something that’s so obviously false, and which does no harm if not taken to extremes? Why not live and let live?

I changed my mind when I read about some of the anti-atheist and pro-religious discrimination Dawkins talks about. Some examples:

• When an atheist asked for police protection for his peaceful protest of an anti-vaccination group, eight different police officers independently refused to protect him, or even threatened violence against him.
• The Supreme Court ruled that members of a particular New Mexico church can take hallucinogenic drugs because they believe that it connects them to God. Meanwhile, doctors believe that medicinal marijuana can prevent blindness in glaucoma sufferers, but apparently that’s not good enough. (Though New Mexico legalized medicinal marijuana after the book was published.)
• A twelve year old student wasn’t allowed to wear an offensive t-shirt to school because it violated the school’s policy against harassing homosexuals. The student’s lawyer got him a religious exemption from the harassment policy, on the grounds that homosexuality conflicts with his Christian beliefs.

We’ve been conditioned to think that all religious beliefs are automatically untouchable. If stuff like this is happening, maybe it’s time to question that.

This book is more constructive than I was expecting. As opposed to just being anti-religious, Dawkins claims that atheists can be happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled, and the benefits potentially gained from religion can be better gained in other ways.

However, this part of the book needs to be greatly expanded to do this topic justice. Before reading the book, I thought, “OK, it’s a delusion. But is all delusion bad? What about the placebo effect, where a sugar pill cures a disease because the patient believes it will?” I don’t think he answered this question well enough.

Share your thoughts. Is all delusion bad? Is religion OK? Is atheism OK? Do people have the right to their own religious beliefs? Do other people have the right to say that their religious beliefs are stupid? What happened to the separation of church and state in America? Is mainstream religion a direct threat? Is it an indirect threat, in that it provides a breeding ground for extremists?

Leonardo da Vinci: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, and writer. Polymath is almost an understatement.

“Polymath” comes from the Greek word polymathēs, meaning “having learned much,” and usually refers to having significant knowledge or expertise in a variety of fields. I’m going to broaden the term and say it also refers to having diverse interests and hobbies. It’s the opposite of a monomath, someone who specializes in one field and has a more focused range of interests.

The word “polymath” is less common than the term “Renaissance man,” but (1) being politically correct by writing Renaissance (wo)man every time would be awfully cumbersome, and (2) the world has changed a lot over the last 400 years, and the Renaissance ideal no longer applies in the age of the iPhone.

Polymaths and monomaths are at opposite ends of a long and nebulous spectrum. An extreme example of a monomath would be someone who completely isolates themselves from society to devote their entire life to becoming the ultimate chess player, to the detriment of everything else. An extreme example of a polymath would be a pure generalist, someone who chases everything under the sun, seeking high achievement in every field of study, every language, every musical instrument, every sport, etc.

But neither of these extremes actually exists. Everyone is somewhere in between. Most people are clustered near the middle, some are more on the monomath side, and others are more on the polymath side. It’s a really vague scale, so don’t worry about pinpointing your location on it. You might have a sense of where you are, and if not, that means you’re in the middle, in the range we call “normal,” with a typical balance of breadth and depth.

As you can see, my blog’s tagline is now “Personal Development for Polymaths.” Nothing is really going to change, except that I now have a context for everything. The purpose of my blog is to seek an answer to the question: How does a polymath make the most of their life?

I haven’t thought the whole polymath thing through all the way, but here are some thoughts for now. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Let’s ditch da Vinci as an example of a typical polymath.

Yes, that’s his self-portrait above (copyright expired), but he’s an extreme example, not a representative one. Leonardo was an outlier among outliers, the archetype of the Renaissance man at the height of the Renaissance. He made Michelangelo look like a two-bit hack who just got lucky with a chisel. He bears little resemblance to the modern day polymath next door.

2. You are a polymath if you think you are.

If Leonardo-like stature is not required for admission into the ranks of polymaths, what is? It’s hard to propose a clear definition, because polymaths are all so different. Tanned muscle-bound aikido-master genius stud philosophers would probably qualify, but what about real estate agent psychologist figure skater weapons expert hamster breeders?

Anyway, do you have intense interest or significant proficiency in areas that are usually considered unrelated? Do you struggle with finding something to focus on, because you think you’re supposed to? Would you find life to be empty if you could only pursue one thing? Do you think specialization is for insects? If so, you might be a polymath.

It’s hard to judge other people because we don’t necessarily see all sides of them, and it’s probably pointless to come up with a test that tells you where you fall on the spectrum. So you’re the best judge of yourself.

3. Polymathy is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Albert Einstein focused on theoretical physics. Isaac Newton took a much broader approach, making important contributions to many different branches of science. He also invented calculus, and though he’s not known for it, most of his work was actually in the field of Bible interpretation.

In the end, they achieved very similar levels of success, recognition, and impact. They both did what they wanted, and they both came out on top.

4. The world needs specialists, but you don’t have to be one of them.

We need specialists to do things like find a cure for cancer and research alternative fuels. But that doesn’t mean it has to be you. Don’t worry about what you should or should not be. Just go with what you are.

(However, this is not to say that a polymath should eschew all aspects of specialization, as it still has a place in their bag of tricks.)

5. Somewhat paradoxically, being a polymath has nothing to do with being well-rounded.

Polymaths are often condescendingly called “jack of all trades, master of none.” This is flawed right off the bat because no one is a jack of all trades. Everyone has major holes. Trying to be well-rounded means ignoring your strengths and passions to work on things you hate and suck at. How can that possibly be a good thing?

Being a polymath means pursuing a wide variety of trades, but certainly not all of them. If you don’t want to play the piano, don’t play the piano.

6. Mastery is overrated.

A follow-up to the “master of none” bit. First, specialization does not guarantee mastery. There have been many people who gave their lives to theoretical physics, who did not come close to Einstein’s level. That doesn’t mean their lives were a waste, of course. But if you have many interests, you shouldn’t ignore all but one with the expectation that greatness will surely follow.

Also, maybe mastery at that level isn’t that important. Reaching the 95th percentile is far easier than reaching the 99.99th percentile. Some people will prefer moderate mastery of many things over supreme mastery of one thing. Besides, being the best in an objective sense doesn’t guarantee that others will subjectively agree, because value is in the eye of the beholder.

7. Polymaths may have certain traits in common.

As different as one polymath is from the next, I’m sure they tend to have certain things in common. For now though, I don’t know what they might be.

Any list of recognized polymaths you dig up will look like a list of universal geniuses. But I actually think polymathy has little to no correlation with intelligence (witness Einstein the monomath). I was thinking that polymathy is highly correlated with curiosity, but again, Einstein is an obvious counter example. Thoughts?

8. Polymaths face different challenges from monomaths.

Monomaths face challenges such as burnout from lack of variety, working ever harder for continuously diminishing returns, and facing stiff competition from people who do the exact same thing, only better.

The main challenge polymaths face is that their fanatical thirst for variety may deprive them of the focus and follow-through needed to have a significant impact in any one area. Leonardo himself warned about this, saying “Like a kingdom divided, which rushes to its doom, the mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.”

Polymaths may also have trouble finding appropriate outlets for their talent in a world that increasingly demands specialists.

Overall, I think the monomaths have it easier, because the world is friendlier to them, they know exactly what they want, and they’re likely to have a clear road map to follow. Hence, there is a need for more polymath support.

Please share your thoughts. What makes someone a polymath? What do they have in common? Do they have a harder time in life? Would they be better off pursuing all their interests, or focusing on a smaller number of them?

Marge Simpson is known as the patient mother, dutiful housewife, and voice of morality in the Simpson family. But every now and then, she takes up a bold and daring project that rocks Springfield.

Case in point: her first novel, The Harpooned Heart. She started it on a whim, got it finished in record time, and quickly became the talk of the town. Here are some tips she used to spur herself to success (as well as some lessons she hopefully learned along the way).

1. Know that you can do it.

Marge walked into a Bookaccino’s bookstore to get a muffin. But once inside, she found out that Esme Delacroix, author of the novel To Kiss a Scoundrel was there. Marge asked Esme if she had any special training to become a writer.

Esme said that she just took a class at “the Y” (Yale University), but anyone with passion can write. Hearing this, Marge realized that she too could become a novelist. She had only one more question: ”If I write a book, will they tell me when it comes out?”

2. Enlist the support of your family.

Writing a novel is going to impact your family, so you need them to be on board with you.

On what Marge wanted to be her first night of novel writing, she was hoping that her husband Homer would watch the kids. But Homer informed Marge that he had just started a new job as an ambulance driver, with his first shift being that night.

A little more communication both ways would have been helpful in letting everyone pursue their goals.

3. Get inspiration from anywhere.

While pondering what to write about, Marge noticed a painting of a sailboat that had always sparked her imagination. As she looked at it, her imagination morphed the sailboat into a whaling vessel. Then she shouted, “That’s it! A novel about whaling! That’s something you haven’t seen before.”

4. Be aware of what’s already been done.

It turns out that there was already a kinda famous novel about whaling. When Marge read the title of the painting that inspired her, she said “Thank you, ‘Scene From Moby-Dick.’”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that her book would be accused of plagiarism, but it would be nice to know what’s already out there. However, it’s hard to know about everything. In high school English class, I wrote a short story that the teacher said was “Very Grapes of Wrathy, don’t you think?” But I had never read The Grapes of Wrath, and had no idea what it was about.

5. Don’t be a perfectionist.

If you try to write the perfect novel on your first try, the likely result is that you’ll never finish. Instead, try the NaNoWriMo approach, which advocates getting a rough draft done quickly, then revising only when the draft is done.

Marge sat down at her computer and wrote this:

“Chapter 1: Starts and Beginnings

Swim, swim, swim, thought the whale, flopping his floppers.”

It’s not exactly great literature, but the time to revise it is after the draft is done, not constantly.

6. Be careful about taking too many brownie breaks.

Immediately after writing her first sentence, Marge ran into the kitchen for a “brownie break.” While it’s important to take breaks as needed, your breaks will be more effective and better deserved if you take them as a reward for getting more than one sentence done. And eating too many brownies poses nutritional problems.

7. Watch out for procrastination.

This is related to the previous point, but more subtle. While it will be obvious when you’re eating too many brownies, it’s less obvious when you’re doing work that seems productive but isn’t really.

Having barely started, Marge stopped to write her acknowledgements page. After thanking “…Mayor Quimby, Disco Stu, and our fighting men and women overseas,” she returned to the novel.

She then wrote one sentence: “Temperance Barrows stared at the sea, like a dog stares at a ham.” Realizing that she had just finished her first paragraph, she decided it was time to run spell check.

These are things that need to be done, but don’t forget that almost all of your focus needs to be on actually getting the novel written.

8. Write about what you know.

Marge based her characters on people she knew, which made it easier to give them consistent personalities. She was also knowledgeable about her novel’s setting, which made it easier to create realistic surroundings.

Everyone brings their own experiences to the table, so try to get some use out of them.

9. Be careful about writing a real person into your novel.

It’s one thing to base a character on someone you know, perhaps borrowing their looks, occupation, or personality to inject some believable positive qualities into a character. It’s another thing to make the character so similar that the person feels like they’ve been put in the spotlight.

Controversy erupts when Marge created a character based on Homer’s bad side, revealing his flaws to the world. Fortunately, Lisa advised her to show it to Homer before publishing it. Unfortunately, Homer said he was OK, but hadn’t actually read it. It’s best to let your fiction be fictional.

10. Don’t make your characters too perfect.

While Marge shouldn’t have done that to Homer, it did have the beneficial side effect of adding some character flaws. When Temperance’s husband was perfect, there was no conflict, nothing to keep the reader interested. But when he became a jerk, things became interesting. (Especially when the character based on Ned Flanders became a potential love interest – see the previous point.)

11. Create an idea file.

After seeing the conflict arising from the deeply flawed husband, Marge says, ”This story is as dark as those new Milky Way bars. Ooh, that’s a good analogy. I’ll work it in somewhere.” She then writes this down for later, and continues writing.

Lots of ideas will come to mind when you’re writing. If you always stop to see how you can work them in, that will suck up a lot of time. But if you write them down in your idea file, you can keep going, knowing they won’t be forgotten. When you’re done with your draft, you might see that they’re no longer needed, or you might know the perfect place to use them.

12. Be prepared for criticism.

You may have fans. You’ll definitely have critics. The best review Marge got was Homer’s less than enthusiastic testimonial: ”The end of your book was the wake-up call I needed after falling asleep at the beginning of your book.” But she handled it just fine, and will hopefully use the criticism to improve.

13. You don’t ever have to stop writing.

If you like writing one novel, there’s no reason you have to stop there. As soon as Marge was done promoting her first book, she jumped right into the sequel, The Harpooned Heart II: Thunder Down Under. She started with “Temperance Barrows stared at the shrimp on the barbie…” Who knows where her imagination will take her this time?

Photo by dannysullivan

Here’s a true story about how daylight saving time can point out overly conforming tendencies. (Note that it’s not “daylight savings time” – it’s about conservation of daylight, not a clearance event.)

The newspaper said it very clearly. “At 2 AM, you should set your clocks back one hour.” And so, she set her alarm for 2 AM, waking up in the middle of the night to set back every clock in her house at the scheduled time.

Yes, she followed the rules to the letter. But was that the best way to do it? Would the time cops have found out if she had changed her clocks the night before, or the morning after?

Not everyone is a natural rule breaker, but if you can’t take the plunge with your own clocks, perhaps that’s something to work on.

I just read Hugh McLeod’s book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. This is the book version of his 13,000 word post how to be creative, which has been read by over a million people, and is a must-read if you’re not one of those million. And you can read more about Ignore Everybody here.

I don’t remember how different that post is from the book, but they’re probably very similar. The main difference may be that a way-too-long post works better as a bit-too-short book. Anyway, the book retains his wisdom, his cynicism, and most importantly, his cartoons drawn on the backs of business cards.

And by turning it into a book, Hugh gives us yet one more key to creativity: if you can’t think of what to write a book about, first write a blog post that a million people want to read. You now have a best seller just waiting to be published.

We all know we live in a right-handed world. Every day, we use countless things that were designed for right-handers: refrigerators, microwaves, can openers, coffee mugs, corkscrews, notebooks, phones, scissors, cameras, and so on.

This arrangement creates two kinds of people: those who use everything the intended way, and those who have to figure everything out. Of course this affects the way we look at appliances, but in a bigger sense, can it affect the way we look at the world?

In David Wolman’s book A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw, he shares the thoughts of his father, a Harvard psychologist:

“Lefties can never accept the world as it is presented to them, always reconfiguring spatial arrangements, implements, and the like from right-oriented to left-oriented. My guess? The same thing happens conceptually, and lefties are often re-imaging ideas and concepts because of their proclivity not to take things at face value.”

Ask a right-hander how they write, and they’ll just show you. Ask a left-hander how they write, and there’s a good chance they’ll say “Well, I can do it this way, or maybe this way, or sometimes this way…”

Because they can’t just accept what’s presented to them, they’re forced to figure out their own way, and this mentality may extend beyond figuring out how to use a right-handed guitar or field hockey stick.

Which way is better? Well, there are obvious benefits to doing things the direct and efficient way. But if you get in the habit of doing everything on autopilot, you might get lazy and miss out on what can be gained from a novel approach.

On the other hand, there are obvious benefits to working out alternative solutions to problems. But if you insist on bypassing the standard route every time, you can get really burned out from overcomplicating things.

There’s room for both approaches: following a tried and proven path, as well as forging your own. And that’s true regardless of which hand you use.

For more stuff for lefties and righties alike, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

I’ve been interviewed on the Introvert Zone regarding my ebook The Personality Puzzle.

The Personality Puzzle: Interview with Hunter Nuttall, Part 1 – this is about whether our personality changes with age, or in response to significant life events.

The Personality Puzzle: Interview with Hunter Nuttall, Part 2 – this is about why it’s helpful to understand different personality types, and what advice I have for introverts.

Klaus @ TechPatio asked a question in the comments, but when I realized that my reply was way too long for a comment, I told him I’d answer his question here. Here’s what he asked:

“A week ago I took a 40-question test that gave me these four letters: INTJ
I: 75%
N: 55%
T: 55%
J: 55%
As you can see, NTJ is pretty close to the middle, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, if I’m just “average”?

But then I took another 40-question test a few days ago, that placed me as ISTP and a bit ISTJ. So I think it’s quite confusing with all those personality types when they can change so much in tests depending on your mood when you take them, and how you understand the questions.

I guess my question is, Hunter, what is the *best* way to find out your four-letters?”

Great question! It’s not always easy to determine your type.

When I attended a full day MBTI workshop, I came away thinking I was an ISTJ. I actually tested as an INTP, but the facilitator explained that the test is not always accurate, and after going through all the exercises, I decided I was an ISTJ in spite of what the test said.

Looking back on that now, it sounds ridiculous to me, but it made sense at the time.

3 years later, I met with a career coach to talk about career options, and the MBTI just happened to come up. I said I was an ISTJ, and she seemed surprised. She asked me if fitting in was very important to me, and I said no, if anything, I’d want to be different.

She said, “Oh, then you’re definitely not an ISTJ,” and after a couple of minutes decided that I was probably an INTP. I told her that’s what the test said, and she smiled.

Now I can see why I misunderstood some things and concluded that I was an ISTJ. And when I take the online tests, I get INTJ/ISTJ/ISTP quite often, and I can see that it depends on how I’m interpreting the questions, and even my mood.

First you need to realize that even the official test isn’t perfectly accurate. Yet it’s been tested and refined over 40 million administrations, and it meets and exceeds the standards for psychological instruments for both reliability (consistent results from one test to the next) and validity (measuring what it attempts to measure).

On the other hand, the online knockoffs have barely been tested at all. And even tiny variations in the questions can make a difference in how you answer them.

When I see you’re testing as INTJ, ISTP, or ISTJ, I know something is way off. These aren’t just three different types – they’re three different temperaments.

The 16 types are organized into four temperaments, which are the most basic personality types dating back to ancient times. They represent the starkest differences you can have between different personalities.

So if the online tests are taking you across temperament boundaries so easily (even if you’re borderline on those letters), something is wrong.

The best ways to find out your type, in descending order:

#3 – Take the official test and attend an MBTI workshop. The test results will probably be accurate, and the workshop will provide additional info as well as being a lot of fun.

#2 – Read books and websites about the MBTI until your type becomes obvious. The official MBTI guidelines say that you are the best judge of your own type, regardless of what the test says. And I think that when you understand the different types well enough, you can’t fail to correctly type yourself.

And the #1 best way to find out your four letters…read my book!

While I’m at it, I’ll comment on this part too:

“As you can see, NTJ is pretty close to the middle, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, if I’m just ‘average’? ”

You’re using a smiley, so you know that “average” isn’t a bad thing here. It just is what it is.

If you have split preferences, you can say you have a balanced personality. This might sound good, and of course it is in some ways. At the same time, it can lead to confusion. Imagine not being sure whether you want to be a hedge fund analyst or a panda ballet choreographer.

If you have very clear preferences, you won’t have this confusion. You’ll be pulled in only one direction, and you’ll be full speed ahead when you get to do what you want. The downside is that you’ll be a fish out of water when you have to act against your preferences.

There are always pros and cons. There are no bad types, nor bad preference splits. So just be who you are!

My post on mixed handedness generated a lot of interest, and I said I’d return to that topic after I had learned more about it. It turns out there was far too much information to put into a post, or even a series of posts. So I’ll be releasing it as an ebook in the near future.

One thing that surprised me was how astonishingly hard it is to get reliable information on whether certain famous people are left-handed, right-handed, or mixed-handed.

What often happens is someone hears that so-and-so is left-handed, so he puts that in a book without checking for any evidence, and before too long it ends up on a million web pages. It’s kind of annoying when you’re just trying to find the truth.

Here we see 6 famous people who regularly appear on lists of southpaws, despite the notable distinction of not being left-handed. (Thanks to Chris McManus for bringing these people to my attention in his book Right Hand, Left Hand.)

Billy the Kid

First on the list is Henry McCarty, AKA Henry Antrim, AKA William H. Bonney, AKA Billy the Kid. He’s been the most famous southpaw outlaw since Paul Newman played him in the 1958 western “The Left Handed Gun.”

It’s actually understandable that we always thought he was left-handed. After all, we only had one photograph of him, and it showed him with a pistol on his left hip, steadying a rifle with his right hand.

The problem is that we only had blurry copies of the original photo. After discovering the original more than 100 years after his death, we found that it was made using a technique that reversed the image.

Furthermore, the original was clear enough that we could see that the buttons were on the wrong side of his vest, and his belt buckle was backwards. The corrected version appears above, showing Billy’s pistol on his right hip.

Pablo Picasso

We only had one picture of Billy the Kid, but we don’t have that problem with Picasso. Actually, we have thousands of pictures of Picasso, and plenty of videos as well. The only problem is, he isn’t using his left hand in any of them.

Albert Einstein

You’ve probably seen this picture before, with Einstein writing on the chalkboard right-handed. He may very well have been mixed-handed, but he sure wasn’t left-handed.

James Michener

Pulitzer Prize winner James Michener was once nominated by Southpaws International as one of their southpaws of the year. He wrote to them to say that the only thing he used his left hand for was occasionally scratching his right elbow.

Bob Dylan

If Bob Dylan were completely left-handed, you’d think it would be easy to find a picture of him playing a guitar that way.

However, he may have been mixed-handed. In David Hepworth’s 1986 interview with Bob Dylan, Hepworth noted that Dylan autographed his album with his left hand.

Benjamin Franklin

The confusion here comes from Benjamin Franklin’s essay a petition of the left hand. It’s written from the point of view of a left hand, complaining about how he’s treated differently from the right hand. But is that enough to mean that Ben was left-handed?

The portrait above was painted by Mason Chamberlin, from life (i.e., in person) in 1762. Ben Franklin is shown holding a quill pen in his right hand. I have to think that the artist wouldn’t go to the trouble of reversing the image since the model was right in front of him, and Ben would surely have noticed had he done so.

At any rate, there are many possibilities between completely left-handed and completely right-handed. Take this handedness test to see where you fall on that continuum.

Do you know any other right-handed “southpaws?”

For more handedness myth-busting, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

I always thought winning the Nobel Peace Prize was a big deal. After all, this is a prize that even Gandhi wasn’t good enough to win.

Barack Obama was nominated for it less than two weeks after his inauguration. The committee voted for him while he presided over two wars that have lasted longer than World War II. And he actually won the award on the day we bombed the moon. I don’t know where to start with what’s wrong with this.

The problem with handing out Nobel Peace Prizes like tic tacs is that it cheapens the award for the people who really earn it. You know, the people who actually do something for peace, like Martin Luther King, or Mother Teresa, or Nelson Mandela, or the 14th Dalai Lama.

It’s entirely possible that Obama will earn it in time (ending these two wars would be a nice start). But even so, wouldn’t it have been better for everyone, Obama himself included, to at least wait until the end of his presidency, instead of hoping he’ll earn it someday?

###

In other news, the price of How To Be Rich And Happy has been dropped from $97 to $47. For people who have already bought it, don’t worry – Tim will be in contact with an offer to make it right.

I usually roll my eyes whenever I see a title containing the word “rich.” That goes double for the word “happy.” So why on earth would I use both the words “rich” and “happy” in a post title? Because this is about the new book How To Be Rich And Happy by Tim Brownson and John Strelecky.

I know, a title like that makes you want to ask “What the hell were you thinking?” (It’s actually my first question to Tim below.) But this is actually a book of substance and not hype. Instead of writing a normal review, I thought it would be better to interview Tim about what being “rich and happy” means.

But very quickly, here’s what you get. This is an electronic book delivered to you by instant download, but its 218 pages have the look and feel of a “real book.” It contains a tremendous amount of information, a great variety of material, and it keeps things fun. You can download the first three sections for free, and it’s backed by an amazing 12 month money-back guarantee.

It also includes:

- #1 Best Selling author John P. Strelecky’s inspirational book “Life Safari.” John’s works have been translated into nineteen languages and been best-sellers around the world.

- Tim Brownson’s critically acclaimed book – “Don’t Ask Stupid Questions, There are no Stupid Questions.”

- Access to an ongoing library of video tutorials in which John and Tim explain the exercises and findings in How to be Rich and Happy.

Update 10/9/2009: Due to numerous complaints, the price has been dropped from $97 to $47. However, it no longer comes with the two additional ebooks.

Go check it out now. Well, if you can wait a bit, read my interview with author Tim Brownson first.

Hunter: First things first, Tim – there’s no way we can avoid talking about the title. You know you were setting yourself up for ridicule by calling it “How To Be Rich And Happy.” If your book were a kid on the first day of school, it would be the one with a bowl haircut, the latest pocket protector with the memory expansion pack, and a t-shirt with a bullseye labeled “aim fist here.”

I’ve noticed that a lot of the fluffy self-help books use certain trigger words in the title to magnetically pull people in. The problem is that often there’s not enough substance inside to make it worthwhile. And readers find that an irresistible title has made them buy a book containing nothing but recycled platitudes and sales pitches for overpriced workshops.

So, when I heard that your upcoming book is titled “How To Be Rich And Happy,” well, let’s say it’s a great credit to your reputation that I didn’t immediately vomit in terror! But while I was mocking the title for the first few pages, I have to say that by the end of the book I was actually a fan of the phrase “rich and happy.”

Tell us about rich and happy. What does that mean to you?

Tim: Relieved to hear you didn’t vomit in terror, that wouldn’t be a good thing. Interestingly enough my reaction to the title was very similar to yours. When John told me he was planning a book called “How To Be Rich and Happy” I barely managed to control my mirth, as I was about to drive off the first tee.

If I hadn’t known John I would have dismissed it out of hand. Even when he sent me the draft I didn’t even read if for over a month, but when I did, I thought, wow!

The title will definitely raise a few eyebrows and some people will think it’s a scam to help me and John get Rich and Happy, but we’re prepared for that.

The point is we couldn’t think of a better way to describe what we were doing and to go all coy and bashful because we were worried about what others would think wouldn’t have served anybody. And at the end of the day who doesn’t want to be rich and happy?

Hunter: I’ve known you through your blog for a long time, but I hadn’t heard of your co-author John Strelecky. How did you decide to write it with him? What do you each bring to the table?

Tim: How I met John is really weird. I had a copy of his book “The Why Café” and wanted to ask a question. I shot him an e-mail and he responded with a reply almost immediately saying “let’s meet for breakfast.” I thought, “What the hell is this nut job talking about?” I had no idea he lived only a mile down the road, he could have been anywhere in the U.S. for all I knew!

That was over 3 years ago and we became good friends sharing a very similar outlook on life. His book “The Big 5 For Life” is one of my favorite business books of all time and one I’d encourage anybody to read.

So as I was reading the draft of the book I kept thinking “I want in on this project!” So I asked him if he’d consider letting me co-author and he said yes. Easy when you ask!

In terms of what John brings to the table. He was a very successful consultant and independently wealthy by the time he hit his early 30′s. He’s also had a lot of experience living the Rich and Happy life and spends upwards of 6 months per year traveling because that’s what he loves to do.

I’ll let you judge what I bring! A funny accent maybe?

[Hunter's comment: Tim is being a bit modest here. You can read more about him on the About page of How To Be Rich And Happy.]

Hunter: Your book’s introduction is bound to remind people of Napoleon Hill’s classic Think And Grow Rich. That’s a book I enjoyed very much, though like most classics, it’s sorely dated. In what ways would you say your book is similar to TAGR, and how is it different?

Tim: John loves TAGR and I am more ambivalent toward it probably because it is so dated now and I can’t remember it that clearly.

There has been a conscious effort by us both to make this a process that people can follow easily. We did 6 or 7 rewrites in the last 3 or 4 months to make sure the book “flowed” for people. In that way I guess it is a bit like TAGR. I actually received a DM on Twitter from one of my own favorite authors in the UK, a guy called Michael Heppell saying he thought it was like TAGR for the 21st Century.

[Hunter's comment: Darn, he stole what I was going to say in my testimonial! ]

The differences are tricky because it’s about 4 years since I read TAGR, but I have no recollection of the importance we place on values and understanding what your own core values are. I could be wrong on that though because I have read one or two books in the meantime.

Hunter: Who is your book meant for? If you come across a burned out lawyer who just can’t take another day of work, a single mother who dreams of the day she can spend more quality time with her kids, and an aging idealist who never figured out what he wants to do with his life, who are you going to recommend your book to?

Tim: Are you ready for a huge cop out? All of them! Because what we do starts at the level of identity and ascertains what drives somebody at an unconscious level it can work for literally anybody that applies the formula to their life. Obviously the path will be different for different people, but I would be lying if I said it would benefit one type of person more than another and that is quite deliberate.

Actually scratch that, it will benefit anybody that is actually prepared to do what is necessary. Anybody thinking of buying it and hoping they will get Rich and Happy purely by reading it, is in for a huge let down and I’d advise them to save their money. One of the positive side effects of the price is we know we’ll get a higher than average percentage of people doing the work.

Hunter: I know you’re an NLP Master Practitioner, but my knowledge of NLP is pretty much limited to what the acronym stands for – neuro-linguistic programming. Does your book teach any NLP techniques, or is that something you need to hire a high-priced shrink for?

Tim: LOL, not many high priced shrinks use NLP although some of the processes are starting to be picked up and move into the main stream.

There is plenty of NLP in there although it may not always be visible as NLP to the casual observer. There are some obvious techniques like anchoring, reframing and using submodalities to help the reader change their subjective experience about an event and there is also some subtle use of language patterns designed to get people to do the work!

Hunter: Many parents tell their kids they can grow up to be president if they put their mind to it. Is that true?

Tim: On a local level I think it’s perfectly true. However, on a global level it obviously cannot be true, there is only one President. I think it’s important to encourage kids to believe anything is possible within physical reason.

I much prefer clients that come to me have outrageous goals than puny simple goals that will probably happen by default. The latter have usually had their dreams knocked out of them as kids by constantly being told to, “be more realistic” As one of the chapters says, “realism is for accountants,” and in my opinion it stifles creativity and kills hope.

Hunter: How do you know your formula can work for someone who is sincere in their desire to apply it? Don’t we all vary dramatically in our strengths, interests, assets, connections, opportunities, etc? So how can there be one formula that works for everybody?

Tim: Because the formula is dynamic and will vary from person to person. Our starting point is to say “Look, we don’t know what Rich and Happy means to you. We don’t know what your core values are and we don’t what your belief system is like. However, we can show YOU how to find that stuff out and start to lay the foundation for moving forward.” What we do that in my experience a lot of self development books don’t do, is explain how this stuff works and we back up a great deal with a lot of cutting edge medical and scientific research.

Not only that, but it’s the blueprint I use with clients so I have first hand experience of knowing it can work across all types of people.

Tim Brownson is a Life Coach out of the UK but now living in Florida and with clients all over the globe. He runs the blog The Discomfort Zone where he takes a light-hearted, left field approach to self-development and refuses to take himself too seriously.

His latest book How To Be Rich And Happy is now available for the bold and daring.