George Orwell

It is such a shame. Imagine a party where everyone is telling the best reditions (often exaggerated) of their life choices and career path. These party goes will be slapping each other on the back for their good judgement, their luck, their brilliance. They are unlikely to tell the truth such that you would ever use the story as a basis for your own decision making. The story is also unlikely to provide access into what actually happened so that you get a sense of being there or give lessons to repeat it. Record these stories at your next party. Transcribe them. Publish as a book.

...or have been asleep since 1990.

This book was released in 2001? It was written for things I recall in 1980. Take a class in "word processing"? WTF!?!?!?

an unsuccessful insurance broker, real estate salesperson or poorly motivated housewife.

Ditch the tired cliches. Ditch the empty academic citations. This book is not helpful.
It reads like it was written in about as much time as it takes to read it.

The book is just a series of pop-advice...
example: "Worry will not lead to happiness" Really? Thanks for the wisdom!

...and recitations from academic literature
"research shows that procrastinators do not trust other procrastinators." Really?

Do these two statements help with your motivation? Then this book is for you.

The problem is that this is a tired subject and the author seems to be an expert (don't believe me? Just ask him!), but is too lazy to edit the book down to what is actually useful (new & rare, if not unique).

What is in this book that you Mother hasn't told you? Very, very little.

No!

hard to listen to, perhaps b/c it is unabriged. I would rather read (and scan) the book. This tedious listen includes *frequent* articulating of the address 'h t t p : / / w . w . w....' That grates really fast. This program goes slooooowly.

I couldn't care a hoot about baseball, but after this book, i find a part of it to be fascinating. To do that takes very good writing.