Jim Randel

This book, part of a series, attempts to distill a number of self-help books into a clear and easy to read format. It is intended for busy people who don’t have time to read all those self-help books.

If there is such a thing as a definition of a successful person, it is someone who finds something about which they are passionate, they take action to achieve that objective, and they don’t give up when setbacks get in the way.

Billy works for a CPA, and thinks that he has a knack for making show more people laugh. Therefore, it’s nothing to participate in a comedy club’s open mike night, become a successful comic, and appear on the Tonight Show, right? All you need is talent, right?

Randel, the narrator, tells Billy that passion and determination are much more important than talent. Stephen King got so many rejection letters that he needed a large spike on which to hang all of them. Steve Martin spent 10 years working to become a stand-up comic, after he worked at Disneyland as a teenager, trying out jokes and magic tricks on the public. Did they give up when success was not immediate? Brian Williams of NBC News and Jim Nantz of CBS Sports knew what they wanted to do when they were 8 years old. Many people give up on their dreams out of fear of failure, or fear of looking stupid. That may happen, but unless you try, failure is assured.

Billy’s wife, Beth, is a paralegal with an interest in politics. She has been asked to run for the town Board of Finance, but she is wavering. She decides to go for it, and after getting beaten handily, is ready to give up on politics. Randel tells her that persistence in whatever you do is most important, along with not giving up when things don’t go your way.

This book is excellent. It does a fine job at presenting a potentially vague subject like "success" in terms anyone can understand. Don’t let the stick figure illustrations turn you off of this book that is made for busy people. show less

If you really want the skinny on success, I can boil it down even further than Jim Randell does:

Being successful is hard work
There are no shortcuts
The secret is perseverance

Jim Randel sent me a copy of this book for review promising it would be a quick, diverting read, and it is - I got through it in about an hour, as Jim promised I would, and to the extent you can be said to truly enjoy a book you're done with in fewer than sixty minutes, I did so - though I do wonder what it achieves, show more seeing as its content seems to squarely defeat its own purpose: if, according to Jim Randel, you are the sort of person who needs a "skinny book" - with cartoons, designed with those with the attention span of a gnat, that you'll get through in an hour - to tell you how to succeed, you've a fat chance of ever doing so.

For Randell is firmly in the camp of those, like Malcolm Gladwell, who believe that it is not talent but hard work and perseverance that delivers success. But that's more or less where Randell leaves it: for those with a short attention span, that's clearly a thanks for nothing moment. But even Gladwell noted there's a bit more to it than that (he cites "opportunity" in his prescription as well), and my own view, having read and been dismayed by Gladwell's book, is that that, too, underplays the role of talent, aptitude, potential or whatever, which is the gating criteria for any success, as it's that baseline capability that even keeps you coming back. It doesn't matter how hard you practice, if you're tone deaf you'll never play violin at the Royal Albert Hall, and if you're not a complete moron, very quickly you'll figure that out and move onto another hobby.

Now if one takes opportunity and talent/potential for granted, it seems to me it is a truism that anything worth doing will also require application, so the main message of Randel's book, no matter how compelling it may be, really ought not be a surprise to anyone who remembers their socks before trying to put on their shoes each morning.

The illustrations are a bit feeble. I know they're meant to be of stick people - that's part of the joke - but it's a weak joke and the illustrations look rather a lot like Microsoft Word Art - the sort of graphics which inhabit dreary PowerPoint presentations - and if I were the publishers of this series I'd spend quite a lot more effort on page layout and illustration to compensate for the meagre amount of actual content.

Anyway, to go into much more detail would be to provide more content than the author has himself, so I'll stop. Better than a kick in the head, but so is boiled cabbage, and someone really passionate about the ideas in this book would get far more from Gladwell's Outliers (notwithstanding my own qualified opinion of that book), and on Randel's own theory would be much better advised to read in more depth anyway. show less

Here is a simple, but not simplistic, look at the world of credit cards.

Beth and Billy are your average married couple who suddenly find themselves with a lot of credit card debt. Billy feels that as long as he pays the minimum payment each month, everything is fine, but Beth is not so sure. Along comes Randel, the author, to explain to them the reality behind credit cards.

Credit card companies want cardholders to pay just the minimum payment each month. That way, they can charge interest on show more the unpaid balance, raising your overall bill. If that particular ard was never used again, it can take years to pay your total bill by paying just the minimum amount. You will also pay the credit card company more than you originally owe, because of the accumulated interest on the unpaid balance.

Credit card companies can, and will, raise your APR (Annual percentage Rate) whenever they want; the Cardholder Agreement says so. They can also be very sneaky about setting the cut-off time for receiving payments. For instance, they can set the cut-off time for 10 AM, when they receive their daily mail delivery at noon. Even if your payment was received that day, it is still late, which means that they can charge a late fee. College students are a goldmine, because they are probably financially illiterate, and think of credit cards as free money.

What can the average consumer do about it? Pay off as much of your bill each month as possible; forget about paying just the minimum payment. Call your credit card company, and ask them for a lower interest. It could shave months, or years, off the time needed to eliminate your debt. If you have a large debt, look for a one-time infusion of cash to reduce the debt. Consider a low-interest credit card as a place to which to transfer your balances.

This book does a wonderful job at teaching the financial literacy not taught in school. get past the stick figure illustrations, and this book is highly recommended for everyone. show less

This is an interesting, informative and quick read to learn time management skills. It is plain, simple and to the point so as not to waste your time! It is not at all stuffy, but lighthearted, and I love the stick figure people and the Power-Point style pages. This book teaches the reader how to tackle procrastination, goals setting, focusing, creating a time journal, prioritizing, distractions, and much more.

The Skinny on Time Management has been very helpful for me as someone working in show more a busy medical office. I do have to say though that it would have also been helpful back when I had my first career which was as a homemaker and mom. In business and in the home we can all use lessons on using our time wisely.

I recommend this book for those in the business setting, in-services, homemakers, and even for teens in school. show less