Couple more books

I finished a couple of other books this past week. They are a rather eclectic lot. One was an audio book about golf, the other is Malcom Gladwell's second book BLINK.

I found BLINK to be better than Gladwell's first book, The Tipping Point. That book seemed to make so many leaps that it drove me crazy at times. Blink deals with the issue of rapid cognition. How people make decisions, or maybe I should say could make decisions in a matter of seconds. The section that dealt with psychologist John Gottman was the most fascinating. He claims that he can, with 95% accuracy determine whether a couple will stay together for 15 years. While the interview he does takes an hour, he suggests that he can make his determination in a much smaller amount of time.

We all make snap decisions, can we really train ourselves so that we can understand what we are doing and use that to our benefit? Fascinating book.

But what sold me on the book was his reason for writing it. Unfortunately, he does not share that until the very end. I don't want to spoil it, but it would have been helpful to have known his motivation a bit earlier.

The second book (audio book) was in many ways similar, even though it focused on how to become a better golfer. Putting Like A Genius, by Dr Bob Rotella is slow and redundant, and he is not a very engaging speaker, but he does offer some great tips to help one putt better, and we can all use help with our putting! Overall, his approach is much like Gladwell's --- trust your yourself, and don't think too much. If only it was that easy.

Rotella tells you how to tune out extraneous factors such as anger, fear and other emotional responses that often cause you to leave the ball short or run it by the hole. Rotella's tips feature a series of exercises and techniques that will help you visualize success on the green.