This book, which I have spead-read really told me the very worst about the self-help industry. It really is like one of those works written by one of the inmates. You have to remember that the author has NO background at all in psychology or therapy. Well we live in a free society and anybody can write a book, but why trust a pseudo-academic book with no references, clearly very little research has gone into this book. What it really is is an excuse to write an autobiography and then get people to read it by saying that it is actually a book that can help others. It is about as helpful as that old classic 'Sexploitation & The Media'. The ideas contained in this book are shallow, vague, commonplace and actually expose a lack of reading, a lack of contact with people who do very ordinary jobs every day of their working lives for the whole of their lives. What is wrong with working in a steel works or shop for your entire career? Without a lot of people doing a lot of mundane boring jobs all their lives our society would actually implode. Williams fails to understand what the capitalist miracle is, we don't die of old age at 32 in a mud hut, but because of a co-operative effort called society most of us actually muddle along quite well. The danger of this book is that a kind of elitism is being peddled in the guise of a meritocractic option. The reality is that most people cannot transcend their day-to-day lives and that trying to opt out because one finds drudgery disagreeable and one would rather have creative and profitable experiences is actually a little lazy. I do wonder what the author would make of the artist starving in a garret but compelled to produce great art which would be unrecognised until after their death. I do not think that this book would have helped a valid creative such as Van Gogh in the slightest. I think the author needs to read a little sociology and a little economics before advising others to opt out of society. The wealth test is a complete fabrication in my opinion, based on a yuppie ideal and NO research. The author needs to do some field work, getting a little dirty, in the footsteps of Engels, London and Orwell because he clearly has spent little time in the world most ordinary people inhabit.