Stop Chasing Carrots: Healing Self-Help Deceptions With a Scientific Philosophy of Life

by Chris Masi

Librarian Note: Alternate Cover and Title Edition of ASIN: B014BU81DM.

Every year, Americans spend more than $10 billion on self-help products. Yet psychologists and philosophers agree that these commonplace approaches to creating happiness, success, and fulfillment make critical mistakes. Stop Chasing Carrots reveals how these mistakes begin with misconceptions about happiness and then presents a philosophy of life to achieve better results.

Here is the rare book that creates a philosophy of life based on scientific evidence. Replacing self-help materialism, Eastern spiritualism/minimalism, and complex but insightful psychological studies with an accessible, balanced, and realistic concept, Stop Chasing Carrots empowers readers to lead lives based on proven ideas.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction

187 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 6, 2015

About the author

Chris Masi is a German political scientist, historian, and philosopher. Born in East Germany in 1987, he grew up in the wake of the collapsed socialist system formerly known as the GDR. Shocked by the crimes the regime committed, Chris has spent most of his adult life analyzing why good people sometimes do horrible things in the pursuit of allegedly higher ideals. In his books, Masi shares the results of this quest.

Learn more by reading Masi's book.

Reviews

[James Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of Stop Chasing Carrots

I'm sure some of the advice is useful, however the book is loaded with humanism and evolutionary teachings. Read with open mind.

[Sasha Estefania · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an amazing and honest book, as a Sociologist, I can truly say that for a long time ago I have not read it something similar, it has open my eyes and I love the academic references he does from sociological studies, great and amazing book it worth every minute you read, of course, it is quiet notable some biases from the author but I belive you need to understand the context of the author, this, however, do not rest significance to the book!

[Ognjena Iršević · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Emperor is nude! Finally.
With scientific precision, the author challenges the popular ideas presented in majority of popular self-help books and reveals the dangerous lacks in them. There is an alternative, however, and it is no mumbo-jumbo, one-size-fits-all formula, but rather a process of getting to know and accepting oneself to be able to live in accordance to that reality.
An insightful and powerful read that will significantly improve your quality of life.

[Boryana Blazheva · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my view the book is brilliant. While reading I have captured a good number of insights and liked the references, the author is making at the end of each chapter, to other further readings, books and articles. Definitely 5 stars to me.

[Trenchologist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good takeaway for self-help without the veneer of ~power of positive thinking~ claptrap. Also a book I only snagged as it was a freebie. Packed with a lot of what the author needed to come to his conclusions--good research if you aren't familiar with the topics but that's how it reads--as research. I am familiar, thus skimmed a lot, but no biggie. Glad for the bullet point chapter conclusions & final 'rules' listed at the end.

[Brandie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't really know what I expected from this book. Clearly, there is no secret code to happiness, but I do know this book wasn't all that helpful.

Masi basically takes some of the common things that self-help books teach and tells us why they aren't true and not to do it.

Well.

I mean, that's helpful. But I think at the core, most people know it's not as simple as the books say.

The book isn't awful. And most of what Masi wrote about I agreed with. But it didn't seem so much a creating your own guide but rather a here's what not to do.

Which can be helpful, it's just not what I expected.

[Cindy Crocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost a 5 star book

On Kindle this book is titled 'Stop Chasing Carrots' which is a much better title and, in my opinion, should be the only title. The author has obviously read enough bad self-help books to be irritated. If you read very many, that will happen to most people. The author has also spent years researching happiness in a scientific manner and has great insights. Instead of being focused on proving other books and theories wrong, I wish he focused on simply presenting his material. This is a book I would recommend with the caveat that the reader skip over why other theories don't work and read what he has discovered in his research.

[Hesham Bekeat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good but readers should be careful in dealing with some of the mentioned ideas.

Good book to learn something from however readers should be careful in dealing with some of the mentioned ideas by the writer.

[Siri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have enjoyed and learned from this book more if half of it wasn't spent trying to debunk the views of other self help books. Requires some paying attention and more of a school text read than enjoyable, but did bring up a few good points.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Wish the author were not so biased against religion.

[Penny Tunnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging fresh ideas

I liked this book well enough to highlight a lot of great insights. The book is an excellent addition to Kindle Unlimited! Worth your time!