(This is a review for Richard Wiseman’s “Rip It Up.” I first published it on HugDug – go and buy this book there so we can help their charity of the month!)
You need this book to make sense of all the other books that tried to help you.
Psychology, life coaching and therapy carries a heavy burden of the white male gaze. It is sometimes hard to shake off the feeling that white men decide what’s normal and what isn’t – they decide who to cure, who to coach, who to showcase as the “healthy” specimen.
Here’s another white man reviewing a white man’s book about psychology. But this time, it might be a bit different.
Richard Wiseman methodically goes from one area of psychology and therapy to another. He takes you with him, and you follow willingly (the style of the book is chatty and quite engaging and it helps). Along the way, you meet the big questions in psychology and coaching: the problems that the world’s greatest minds have long tried to answer.
Richard Wiseman tells you: it’s not the mind you should be worried about. Or rather, not just the mind. The whole book is a powerful account of how your body influences the way you think: how your smile makes you happy instead of the other way around, how a determined posture increases your willpower rather than resulting from it.
I saw people read this book on trains, and fidget in their seats, sit upright and smile all of a sudden. Page after page and chapter by chapter, Richard Wiseman helps you figure out these questions:
- How does your body influence the way you think, feel and perceive?
- What can you start doing now to feel, walk, think and act “outside” these confining postures?
- Have you been spending too much time in your head recently? What if you didn’t?
There is a lot to say about this book – but it’s best experienced. Go and read it: it’s entertaining, clever and will change a few things about your every day.
Wiktor (Vic) Kostrzewski (MA, DELTA) is an author, translator, editor and project manage based in London. When he works, he thinks about languages, education, books, EdTech and teachers. When he doesn’t work, he probably trains for his next triathlon or drinks his next coffee.
BRAVE Learning (formerly known as 16 Kinds) is a lifelong learning and productivity blog. If you enjoy these posts, please check out one of my books and courses.
My recent publications, and my archive, is now all available on my new project: PUNK LEARNING. Hope to see you there!