review of The Nerdist Way
This book resonated with me so much that I couldn’t just review it on goodreads, I wanted to spotlight it here!
I was introduced to Chris Hardwick by searching for podcasts interviews with Wil Wheaton (read his blog!) – later to find out they are great friends in real life! Chris runs Nerdist.com and has a terrific podcast, as well as a recurring series on BBCA. After listening to quite a few eps of his podcast, we found his book. It was a perfect thing to read after Wil’s books.
The Nerdist Way is not just an audiobiography of a geeky person, it is a self-help book! Because nerds tend to be very detail oriented and enjoy controlling their own destiny, this makes sense that a self-help book could focus specifically on how people like me could improve themselves. The book is divided into 3 main sections: Mind, Body, and Time. Throughout the chapters, the reader is encouraged to write a “character tome”, inspired by D&D game design and with bars to fill in as you reach your goals like a video game. Questions throughout lead you to fill out your “tome” are called charactercizes, cleverly enough. There are some reader-submitted tomes on the companion website, nerdist.com/nerdistway
I relate to Chris’s personality so very much. Sometimes when we were reading, I actually thought my husband was making up the examples because they were things I had actually done. For example, Chris got stuck on a web design for months because he couldn’t choose between #666666 and #999999 as the background color. HA! And then the kicker – a section titled “Bread crumb your life with music” starts with this:
“Every year on my birthday, I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year…”
Um, yeah, look at my iTunes under the bday mixes 😉 So my guess is that if I were to compare my personality type with his, we would be very similar!
Funny word definition time – getting what you want can be stressful == Sustress
There are plenty of geeky antidotes throughout, including some history and plans for the Nerdist network. My eyes teared up hearing the “Enjoy Your Burrito” story with Jonah Ray. Oh, and an open letter from Doc Brown to Marty McFly was hilarious.
I should warn you that there is swearing and self-deprecating humor throughout the book in case you are sensitive to that.
If you are geeky and excited about developing yourself to the next level, you should read this book. Make a plan along with Chris and improve your mind, body, and time management. I think that my friends with success on the brain (small business owners, podcasters, etc) would get a lot out of The Nerdist Way. And while you are at it, follow @nerdist on twitter and download a few episodes of the Nerdist podcast to make you laugh out loud!
