Update 1 May 2024: Laido Dittmar issued DMCA take down requests for this review to both Microsoft and CloudFlare. My use of quotes from the book was approximately 100 words and constitutes fair use. Regardless, I have redacted any direct quotes from the book. You can draw your own conclusions from this.
TL;DR: Don’t waste your money on this book. It is shallow, short and poorly written. The useful information in it would fit on a napkin. It concludes with a legal threat against copying, though it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to.
Dittmar capitalises on his reputation as a Cirque Du Soleil performer, which initially drew me in, given their extensive practice and expertise.
It’s troubling when you spend USD$36.99 + shipping (AUD$75.37) on a book, only to discover it’s a mere 98 pages with large text. If you’re as stupid as me and bought this book, you’ll find this pearler on page 37 (and believe me, getting to page 37 was an effort): ” [ 37 Word quote removed due to DMCA take down request from Laido Dittmar. The original quote was Dittmar saying words to the effect that he didn’t want to waste any more of your time and begin. ]“. At least Laido honestly admits that the first ~40% of the book was a waste of time.
The ostensible message from this book is Laido Dittmar recounting his life from a failed circus performer to being a successful circus performer by finding <insert amazing secrets here, buy my online course> method enabling time to make AmAzINg PrOgReSs. There’s scant evidence to support his assertions. On page 26 he almost sounded like he was going to do something empirical by asking experts a series of structured questions: “[as many of] [ five word quote removed due to DMCA take down request from Laido Dittmar ] [five questions]” only to quickly conclude with “[ ten word quote removed due to DMCA take down request from Laido Dittmar ]“
[ 42 word quote removed due to DMCA take down request from Laido Dittmar ]
The Art of Practice and Speaking like a Valley Girl by Laido Dittmar (might even be an insult to Valley Girls)
The entire book can be summarised by the advice I am sure you’ve never heard of before:
- Practice according to the 80/20 principle.
- Do the hardest parts of your practice while you’re fresh.
At the end of the day, this is an MVP (Minimum Viable Publication) to shill his “master class”. Check out the cringe material here: https://thebookofpractice.com/masterclass – the enticement to subscribe is right at the end of the book just before the legal threat, which contains:
- [ Summary of the legal threats in the book removed due to DMCA take down request from Laido Dittmar ]
A great closing note for your paying customers.
The book is useless, and its high-gloss finish even prevents it from being useful as BBQ kindling. You’ll get a more instructive, to the point, and satisfying learning experience by talking to ChatGPT.
Go read this instead: The Talent Code and The Little Book of Talent
Thank you for this review. My impression without reading the book is that this was as shallow as you indicate. Not sold on Amazon, and when I asked the author why on his FB ad page he replied with nothing tangable and noted I was the one “missing out” when I said I would not buy without an independent review. Classic hucksterism by degrading my decision to not buy withiut being informed.
It really was a waste of my time and money and I’m glad I’ve saved you both. The other ones I recommended at the end by Dan Coyle are absolutely worth checking out – they’re brilliant! Review here if you haven’t read it already: https://www.davidconnors.com/book-reviews-the-talent-code-and-the-little-book-of-talent/
Thank you! I had my suspicions because of the marketing of this book — almost had me because it is a topic I am quite interested in. I’ll spend my money on the other books.
No worries. Make sure you check out the Dan Coyle books I mentioned at the end of the post. They transformed my outlook on how careful and considered repetition affects the brain.
Thank you for providing honesty in a world where money & marketing wins and real value is chucked at the bottom of the pile to be ignored and forgotten.
No problems at all Will.
Luckily for me I managed to find a free ebook copy of this book and was equally disappointed, mainly because of the time wasted reading it. As you say, the first half of the book contains no information at all, and the second half just a few things most people know already. Adverts for it keep appearing in my social media feeds, and they suggest that it’s revolutionary. It’s not.
I keep getting ads for it in my Facebook feed where it has a video of him holding a hard cover book with an art of practice dust cover on it but the book in the video is 3x the number of pages as the real thing. He says in the comments that he won’t put it on Amazon because of Amazon’s sales commission but the reality is if he put it on Amazon it would just end up with endless one star reviews he can’t delete. The author has not threatened or harassed me in over a week so that’s a positive.