I had the wonderful opportunity to read an advance copy of "Awaken Your Genius - Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativy, and Become Extraordinary" by Ozan Varol. This book was impossible to put down - and that's saying a lot when I'm reading digitally vs. my preferred hard-copy medium.

This was such a well-written book serving up inspiring and practical advice, and replete with reinforcing, succinct quotes from my favourite thought leaders, past and present. If you love the lyrical yet evergreen, time-tested insights of the great poets (Whitman, Dickinson), yet strive to break the algorithms seizing our mindshare today, this is nourishment for your brain (you know who you are and I've already pre-ordered your copy when it releases on April 11, 2023).

I am now eager to complete the associated chapter exercises and videos to fully appreciate the new lessons learned and those I want to unlearn.

Without ruining the evocative appeal of the wisdom in this beautiful and empowering read, I will leave one teaser quote "focus on things that age well". I believe this book will be one of them.

I previously read Think Like a Rocket Scientist, and am subscribed to Ozan's newsletter, so had high expectations from this book. It did not disappoint and in fact exceeded what I hoped to derive from the book. This book is an organic next step to learn the principles that can help you shed conventional mindsets that hold you back and create spectacular success. Love it, esp the chapters titled 'detecting bullshit', 'uneducate' and 'look where others don't look'.
Highly recommend.

As one who has researched genealogy and continues to dig into my ancestors - there was one quote that is my favorite from this book. "If you look only at the last 300 years of your family tree, you'll find that you have over 4,000 direct ancestors. Take out just one of them and you wouldn't be here today." This is stated to show how unique each reader is and encourage them to be "unapologetically and spectacularly you." So much great content in this book - starting with critique of our education system and how we teach facts and answers, and not creativity and how to find answers. My favorite portion of the book though is the discussion of metamorphosis. Often the caterpillar to butterfly transformation is used as examples of how we can change from our past or who we were were but the details of how the caterpillar actually rots before forming into the beautiful butterfly are meant to give us all hope that though "you'll be tempted to go back to your life as a caterpillar" - don't! Success and beauty - the new you - is just around the corner as you awaken your genius inside. I was provided an advance copy of this work through NetGalley with no commitment for a positive review.

"Awaken Your Genius - Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary" by Ozan Varol. This motivational manual rings true to its title. It is not the typical self-help book that relies on recounting inspiring stories of overcoming failure or difficulties; it creatively combines poetry, quotes from literature, films, science, and personal experience to help give perspective to each person’s unique journey and, most notably to embrace it to change or improve.

I heard Ozan Varol speak at a conference, and his humble and personable voice comes through his writing. Varol is determined to make his diverse scientific, humanistic, and immigrant background serve him and serve others along the way. His is not a rags-to-riches story, nor one about overcoming insurmountable adversity. This is the story of an average guy, albeit a somewhat eccentric kid, who has “engineered” his dreams to come true. The book is simple to read, making it appealing to high-school graduates, anyone going through a mid-life crisis, or just asking themselves if there is something more to the daily grind; it gives practical advice, inspiring quotes as well as insights into human behavior-backed up by statistics and scientific research, for example, you will be surprised at the amount of time the average person spent on social media in 2021

The associated chapter exercises and videos help to apply ideas that could be dismissed, but, as Varol says, “no one can compete with you at being you,” so why not be the best and original version of yourself?
The notes to the chapters are a bonus source of information, further reading, or research into cases presented in the book.

This is one of those books that I didn’t want to put down, however, this author once said slow down and take your time reading a book so you can connect with the story. The content is so thought provoking that I immediately relate to the concepts and can apply them immediately. I purchased 2 copies just to receive the early preview because I really enjoy Ozan Varol’s newsletter and his book “Think Like A Rocket Scientist”. I can’t wait for the print copy so I can read it again!

There were absolutely some interesting and useful / practical ideas in here that I plan to try out. However, I got really turned off when in Ch9 "Detecting Bullshit" (ironically) the main study that is discussed is completely misrepresented and the authors and various news outlets criticized inappropriately.

The study's conclusion is that skipping breakfast increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. Varol argues that the study's results were sensationalized and taken out of context in the news, and says that it isn't true because "correlation does not equal causation". I get this is a trendy phase right now and there are lots of silly examples of it, but it's not at all what is going on in this paper. The original study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which sounds like it could potentially have some validity...so following Varol's own advice, I went ahead and "did my own research" by reading the original report. The hazard ratio for eating breakfast vs not, AFTER controlling for lifestyle and socio-economic factors, is 1.87 (95% CI 1.14-3.04). The hazard ratio reached statistical significance, which means that there was a difference between the two groups. Varol does this weird math to try to explain an absolute difference vs a relative difference, but he picks raw data from the paper and says that the hazard ratio of 1.87 is equal to a 1.5% absolute risk reduction and it's just...wrong. This should be fixed before going to publication. It's not fair to the authors of the study.

Thank you to NetGalley and PublicAffairs for the opportunity to access this free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.