If you thought self help books are boring, preachy tedious reads then this is the book to bust that myth. Written with great sense of humour, Eric Barker plays devil\’s advocate to turn every so called \”success formula\” on it\’s head, with help of scientific evidence. He also weaves numerous real life stories into his narrative making it a page turner and in the process drives home some important lessons to those chasing success.
Some interesting facts from the book:
Who can we look up to for lessons on co-operation and trust- prison gangs and drug dealers!
Pirates have an exemplary democratic system to ensure Justice and fairness from topmost person to bottom most person on the rung, so much that economists study them!
Garry Kasporov lost the most famous man vs machine chess match all thanks to a software bug!
Paul Erdos, one of the world\’s topmost mathematicians was a lonely single child but built such a huge network of mathematicians singlehandedly that how good you are at the subject can be calculated using \”Erdos number\”- a score which gives how closely related one is to him..

Some of the interesting questions tackled in this book are:
Does playing by the rulebook pay off? Do nice guys finish last? Do quitters never win and vice-versa?What is more important: who you know or what you know?what is the middle path between overconfidence and humility? What it takes to achieve work- personal life balance?
The only flip side I found was that the book didn\’t reveal any earth shattering truths but it certainly made for an engaging and useful read….this is a perfect book to start with of you are reading self help for the first time..