Book: You Don't Have To Be Born Brilliant - How to Design a Magnificent Life

John McGrath has written an pretty interesting book in You Don't Have To Be Born Brilliant - How to Design a Magnificent Life. I had run out of reading material while travelling lately (well ran out of any that I had with me). This looked like something I could read over one or two flights and it was, given the inevitable delays at airports. I thought the title was pretty corny and reeked of the old-style self-improvement books. I hadn't read too many of them in recent years. I used to love the parody names that people came up with for such books. Like:

* How to control children with nothing more than a role of fencing wire and a sharp stick

* How to bonzai your pet

But seriously, most of the books in this genre I find pretty shallow. Even this book showed lots of signs of John's youth and inexperience. However, he's a pretty switched on thirty-something that seems to have made most of his wealth in real estate. In the book, he puts forward a good deal of common sense. I have to say that I would find his idea of a good week to be pretty regimental. What always intrigues me with guys who write books like this is that they make no mention of family. John's work seems to be his life and the standard that he judges success by. I really think he missed an opportunity to discuss the role of families in a "magnificent life". It left me wondering what sort of relationship he has with his own family.

It would be hard to imagine anyone reading it and not picking up a few pointers or hearing a few hard truths that we all need to be reminded of from time to time. The section on health and diet certainly hit the target for me, many times.