Who Moved My Cheese? (1998)

Changes are inevitable in the blazingly fast-paced uncertain world. It is how we deal with those changes that speak volumes about our weaknesses and strengths.

I loved the takeaway of this book. "We should learn to anticipate and adapt to changes that transpire in our lives every day, or else we will go extinct by sticking to our old beliefs and resisting those changes". We should always be on our toes, start sniffing the changes around us, and be prepared to scurry past them. Otherwise, we will keep on hemming and hawing until we figure out that our "New Cheese" lies on the other side of our irrational fears.

I send my best wishes to everyone who is on the lookout for their "New Cheese". ( )

This was a staff read for my department so I got paid to read it, which is nice. I read it before when I was in high school because my dad, who loves moving like it's a hobby, enjoyed it and thought that his family could benefit from it along with his workers. I'm as torn with it now as I was then because I do believe strongly in the transformative power of meaningful change, and I do believe that people very often conflate comfort and familiarity for contentment and resist change solely because they're afraid of it, not because they're happy with where they are in their lives. So the underlying message in this book is one that I largely believe in and is something I think is important to consider. But fuck do I hate cutesy self-help parables. God, I hate them so much. I hate how condescending they are, how they always have a little part where they say that if you don't like the story then you just don't get it, and how badly written they always seem to be, right down to dialogue that feels like it was written by a robot pretending to be a human being. They always feel like slide-show presentations and I hate that they rarely have much practical advice because they mistake platitudes for guidance. I much prefer books that combine a message with actual steps, whether I agree with the steps or not. To that end I would recommend that instead of reading this book, someone read a book like Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog! or even Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, both of which I also had some problems with but which dispensed actual actionable advice to their readers instead of making me read Business Baby's first fairy tale. ( )

Cómo adaptarnos a un mundo en constante cambio

Loved this book! It was recommended to me by Koski (thanks, Koski!) at a time when I needed to make a life decision and it was extremely insightful and empowering! I highly recommend this book.
( )

It's really difficult to evaluate this book ... on one hand, it belittles the audience, is mostly pages of empty fluff and makes a simplistic argument.

That being said, the core page of truisms is one that would be really handy to keep with me whenever I'm getting upset about change. It's nothing I couldn't logically conclude by myself, but when emotionally reacting to negative change I'm likely to lose sight of them and would do to be reminded.

On one hand, I'm more likely to read a tiny book and absorbe the clearly distinguished page of worth (one in which the author acknowledges the fluffiness as a method that works better for some than others) than just finding these truisms on an internet PDF somewhere.
On the other hand, I feel like this page basically tells employees to suck it and adapt whatever change comes their way. While this is true in many cases, there are often times where change is worth resisting, and this book does no job of telling you that resistance is a worthwhile response to change in certain circumstances. I feel this book really benefits employers in that they can expect their employees to blindly adjust to anything.

In conclusion, this book does remind you that there is a way to reorient yourself. On the other hand, it's mostly common sense and makes a very simplistic case. If the book wasn't so short I'd feel it was a waste. Given how easy it was to read (about a half hour) I figure it's a sorta-healthy snack of empty calories, like Smart Food popcorn. ( )