
How to Get What You Want – a short primer for ambitious people - jasonshen
http://thewantbook.com
======
con-templative
"In 1954, Roger Bannister set a world record, running one mile in 3:59.4. The
4 minute mile had become a white whale, with medical experts arguing that the
human body wasn’t capable of completing it. Prior to Bannister, the previous
one mile record had stood at 4:01 for nine years. Less than a year later,
someone else ran a sub 4 minute mile. Today, hundreds of American runners, and
likely thousands around the world have achieved this feat."

This is often noted as a mental breakthrough, but what isn't told about this
story is that Bannister had the advantage of a better running surface and
pacemakers. Those that broke the 4-min mile after Bannister did it because
they too took advantage of a better running surface and pacemakers.

[http://sportsscientists.com/2014/12/2-hour-marathon-4-min-
mi...](http://sportsscientists.com/2014/12/2-hour-marathon-4-min-mile/) "The
difference that track surface makes is enormous – biomechanists estimate that
modern synthetic tracks are worth 1.5% compared to the cinder tracks that
Bannister and Landy ran on (some cinder being better than others, of course).
And that’s why, as my friend David Esptein so elegantly presented at TED, of
the 1,034 men who have broken 4-min for the mile since 1954, only 530 would
remain if you applied that “correction factor” that predicts that synthetic
tracks are worth about 1.5% per lap compared to the cinder tracks of the 1950.
It means only 10 men per decade have joined the club since Bannister created
it, and that should give you some context to this argument that “Four minutes
used to be impossible, and now it is easy”."

~~~
jasonshen
Really appreciate that link - and definitely a fact I will tuck away.
Pacesetters and track surface... fascinating!

Still, I think the fact that the fastest man in the world at the time had
tried multiple times to beat it and could not definitely puts a damper on
anyone else trying to break a record.

Clearly technology and social forces were at work. Believing you can do
something does not make it so. But NOT believing you can do something sure as
hell isn't going to help you make it happen.

~~~
con-templative
> Still, I think the fact that the fastest man in the world at the time had
> tried multiple times to beat it and could not definitely puts a damper on
> anyone else trying to break a record.

It didn't put a damper on Bannister. In fact, you could argue that the press
coverage around the limit motivated more people to try to break four minutes
for the acclaim. Without that narrative, maybe Bannister wouldn't have been
motivated enough to do it.

> Clearly technology and social forces were at work. Believing you can do
> something does not make it so. But NOT believing you can do something sure
> as hell isn't going to help you make it happen.

You may be right, but the 4-minute-mile anecdote doesn't show this. In Landy's
case, it wasn't new-found belief, but technology and knowledge that pushed him
under four minutes.

------
tunesmith
Just curious, how much detail does the book go into "figuring out what you
want"? Most books like this go into more detail for the second part ("how to
get what you want"), which I've never had as much of a problem with.

~~~
Spearchucker
I used to struggle with is this too. So I started with the basics. Stay alive;
breathe; eat, drink, sleep; get laid ( _with_ someone else in the room); stay
fit; get rich; be happy.

That was my first list, and I just added concrete goals to each as time went
on. Eat now includes a constraint (never again will I eat what I don't like)
with a goal (healthy, balanced). Sex was easy and I now have a son. That in
turn changed other goals. I keep refining. When I don't know I don't push it.
It will come.

------
hawkice
I like the idea of specific action-oriented guides to X (even if X is, in this
case, somewhat general). Non-fiction could be splitting along the axis of
practical-vs-curiosity-exploring, which is great, as it makes room for more
things like this.

The focus on chapter count / selected chapters is kinda odd, considering each
chapter has, on average, less than 300 words. Vocabulary that speaks to the
value of the book more (like "steps"? that might be too late-night-tv-sales,
but "topics" or "subjects"?) might make more sense to people who haven't yet
read the book.

~~~
jasonshen
Hey hawkice - thanks for the feedback. I did aim to write something that was
both generally applicable, but also included specific tactics and relevant
case studies. We'll see if I succeeded.

Agree that chapter count is a little odd, and that's why I also included a
small preview (if you click the cover, you'll get an overlay with 4 of the
chapters). Also the six "Selected Chapter" hopefully also hint at the contents
of the book.

Hope you enjoy it!

------
davidtanner
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't feel like you provide enough sample
content to convince me that this is worth paying money for.

What does this book say that hasn't already been said by various mainstream
self help authors, Steve Pavlina, people in the human potential movement, etc.
?

~~~
jasonshen
I just added another 3 chapters to the book preview that you get from clicking
the cover. That brings the total to 7 chapters, nearly 20% of the 36 chapters
in the book. If you're not excited to get the book at that point, you're
probably not going to like it once you buy. Which is totally cool.

As for your second question, there are 6,000 books in the "Applied Psychology"
category on Amazon, and 28,000 books in the "Success". Between all of them,
I'm sure that none of the ideas I've presented in this book haven't already
been said.

What this book offers is _my_ unique take on those ideas, the personal stories
I've shared, the way I've presented the research, and the voice through which
I've expressed it.

------
obstinate
10000 words in 36 chapters? 300 words per chapter seems a bit short, doesn't
it? This comment is already more than twenty words long, so each chapter would
be just one or two paragraphs.

~~~
jasonshen
One of my favorite bloggers in the world is Seth Godin.

Here's a post he wrote recently:
[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/01/unprepared.h...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/01/unprepared.html)

It's 247 words and 9 paragraphs. I don't think he's worried about the number
of sentences in his paragraphs, nor were the 796 people who liked his post on
Facebook.

~~~
obstinate
I didn't mean it as an attack, nor was I suggesting you _should_ be worried
about the number. But its presence on the marketing page as a selling point
confused me. The fact it's there reads to me as if you're saying, "this is
valuable because it's 10k words long." But 10k words is not long -- it's quite
short. Especially compared to almost any other book of prose you might pay $4
for.

I understand that's probably not what you meant, but that's how I interpreted
it.

------
zinssmeister
Who is Jason Shen and why should I give him $10 for a book with a terribly
silly title?

~~~
obstinate
From the linked page:

"Hey, I’m Jason Shen. I’m a writer, athlete, and lifelong tech geek.

I do marketing and product management at Percolate, an enterprise software
company based in NYC. Previously, I co-founded Ridejoy, a YC-backed
transportation company, and served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the
Smithsonian. Back in the day, I was captain of an NCAA championship gymnastics
team at Stanford.

B.S. + M.S. from Stanford University Author of the Amazon best-seller: Winning
Isn't Normal: Meditations on the Art of Ass-Kicking"

It is an impressive biography, there is no question about that.

------
michalu
Thanks for this book, I enjoyed reading the beta version.

------
brandonb
Congrats Jason!

