141. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

 

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Ramsey, Dave. TheTotal Money Makeover. New York, NY: Nelson Books, 2007, Kindle eBook.

229 pages

Reviewed by Jess d'Artagnan Love

I picked up The Total Money makeover because it has been pushed on me and pushed hard. Any mention of finances in any of my social circles and I was suddenly being in-boxed adamant suggestions that I read this book and adhere to Ramsey’s advice. I finally caved and bought a copy for my Kindle. I now regret spending my hard-earned dollar on this book rather than checking out from the library.

Ramsey uses the metaphor of “fatness” to describe when a person is lacking financial freedom. He calls lacking financial freedom being “financially flabby.” He describes fat bodies in ways that make them seem undesirable, disgusting, and unworthy of existing. This fat-phobic theme arches through the entire book and set me on the path to greatly disliking not only the book, but Ramsey himself.

Ramsey in the very first chapter tells you that what he wrote in this book are a collection of unoriginal ideas. He admits that he not adding anything new to the field of finance but repeating financial “truths” and debunking some financial myths. You can so easily find this information literally anywhere else. It is not Ramsey specific and he doesn’t provide a unique or original strategies to the field. I’m not making that up. He flat out states that in the first chapter. So why write a book and then market it to a bunch of people struggling financially, desperate for answers? Money, duh. Ramsey’s ultimate goal is to be super rich and I guess exploiting readers is one way he meets that goal.

The chapters are made up of a recipe of thirds. One third of the chapter is actual, practical advice (that you can find anywhere else online), the second third is Ramsey shaming people for being financially “flabby,” and the final third of the chapter is “testimony” (AHEM: marketing) from “real life couples (usually white couples) who have used Ramsey’s strategies (that are not really his original strategies) for financial freedom so you should buy ALL OF RAMSEY’S PRODUCTS. :: insert cheerleader split jump here ::

My ultimate takeaway is that there are good principles in this book, but they aren’t Ramsey’s. He is a wordsmith who knows how to grind into people’s emotional vulnerabilities around money, so I’m not surprised that there is what I am calling a “cult of personality” around this guy and his work. Because his work isn’t really that good, but his personality is what he’s selling.

1 star out of 5

Would I read it again? 

No, and I won’t be reading or investing in any of his other products either.

Recommended for

Nobody. Don’t. waste. Your. Money. On. This. Rubbish. You can find this information online. FOR FREE.

Not Recommended for

People who are trying to save money or who are looking for financial advice that isn’t deeply rooted in shame.

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135. Getting Things Done by David Allen

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Allen, David. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Shepard, Sara. Pretty Little Liars. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2001. Print.

259 pages

Reviewed by Jessica d'Artagnan Love

This book was recommended to me numerous times by the driven, ambitious women in my life. They all swear by Allen’s method of organization and productivity. So, I added the book to my list and finally got around to reading it. Allen’s main purpose is to provide a productivity system that will allow you to focus so you don’t get random thoughts popping into your head about the things you need to be doing. Those random thoughts are distracting and decrease productivity and he claims his system will eliminate the distraction.

Honestly? This book is summed up in the first chapter. That is all you really need to read of it to understand and implement the system. It is a simple process that goes something like this: collect all your tasks, decide what needs to be done with those tasks, decide how you will do them, and do them. He offers some random interesting ideas like working from the bottom up—getting the easy stuff out of the way first so you can concentrate on the big things. He also has an interesting idea of having a “tickler file” system to organize your daily to-dos. The phrase “tickler file” kind of gave me the creeps, though. Aside from that, he basically describes a bullet journal system which I think works better than his exhaustive method.

I blame a lot of the problems with this book on the editor and publisher. Allen has some ideas that would work for a magazine article and that’s about it. In order to get a full book out of the concept, he had to squeeze all possible minutiae of the process out onto paper and it really felt like he was struggling to make word count because it was repetitive. A publisher saw a chance to make some money and jumped on it instead of producing something of higher quality.

Some of the things I will apply in my life from this book include his workflow chart for processing email, mail, and paperwork. I am also going to try out working from the "bottom up" by finishing the easy tasks first so they don't clutter my brain and I can focus on the big tasks with more clarity. We'll see how it goes!

Would I read it again? 

No.

Recommended for

If you’re not familiar with the bullet journal system this might be helpful to read in conjunction with information online about the basics of the bullet journal method. Read the first chapter fully and then feel free to pick and choose what you read of the book from there. 

Not Recommended for

Readers who are already organized. Those who use a bullet journal system.

Word Bank

·         None

2 star out of 5

David Allen’s website: https://gettingthingsdone.com/

David Allen on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1058.David_Allen

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86. "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni

Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

224 pages.

Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Dysfunctional teams are something I’m sure many of you have experienced. You know the team—at a meeting one member stares off into space, another makes rude or sarcastic comments and the leader seriously fumbles the entire agenda. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team seeks to identify and alleviate the problems that arise when building a team. Lencioni argues that the success of a company depends largely on how successfully its leadership team acts as a high functioning team.

The first dysfunction is lack of trust followed by several others such as focusing on individual success rather than team success, lack of commitment to decisions, and an absence of healthy conflict. All of these concepts are first illustrated with a story about a team in the Silicon Valley experiencing some major dysfunction. To fix the problem, the CEO steps down and the board of directors brings in Kathryn, a woman with years of experience in leadership in the automotive industry, to fix the problems. Readers follow Kathryn as she walks the team through the steps of fixing the five major dysfunctions of the team.

Lencioni breaks down his concepts clearly and while some might think the story a bit cheeky, I found it really helpful to see how the concepts might play out in an actual organization. As a leader myself, I’m going to put some of these concepts to use and see how it goes!

3 darts out of 5

This book is FOR people who: want to learn more about management and leadership skills, and who may be interested in Industrial/Organizational psychology.

This book is NOT FOR people who: want empirical studies and intense management theory.