"GOODBYE BUTTERFLIES: THE 5-DAY STAGE-FRIGHT SOLUTION" By Dr. David Lee Fish
Posted by Matt McAvoy on Monday, March 26, 2018 Under: Book Reviews
This
is a very interesting and surprisingly entertaining self-help book,
by an articulate and highly qualified author. Dr. Fish is not, as
you might think from reading this book, a psychology professional,
but, instead, a music industry one. Still, if reading this book
assured me of one thing, it is that he more than possesses the
credentials to write it. The book is touted as a “stage-fright
solution”, and it certainly does offer this, but I feel a more
appropriate title for this book would have been “A Brief
Introduction to Mindfulness, Using Stage Fright as an Example”.
Mindfulness features incredibly heavily in this book, and is, in
fact, the basis of the entire solution, and the core of David’s
whole approach. Alternative methods are presented, later in the
book, but they are set up to fail miserably in comparison to
mindfulness. Still, the focus on mindfulness, in my opinion, is no
bad thing: obviously, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of
any self-help method, without having put it into practice; as
somebody quite acquainted with the concept, I would argue that it
certainly does seem, comprehensively and organically, the most
effective of these solutions, and I in no way felt that David was
fudging his observations. He instils faith in his plausible method,
his inspirational charisma makes you believe in it, and it becomes
very difficult to disagree with the abundant good points he makes.
Although
David is a stage-fright professional, his mindfulness technique is
apparently pretty generic, and its scope much broader; due to his
background, he has chosen to pigeonhole it for this book. The long
questionnaire in the book’s middle may initially seem a little
frivolous, but as you work through it, it does start to emerge as his
cleverly directing you to structure your mindfulness approach. This
separates the book’s two halves, the second of which is presented
as a “Bonus Section”, and is primarily additional material on
performance anxiety generally. It leans toward motivational pep, and
does tend to repeat, a touch, much of the first half material. Yet
this section, in some respects, is actually wherein lies the real
substance of the book. While the entire last few pages – on
celebrities who suffer debilitating stage fright – may seem like
filler, it is, in fact, mesmerizing, due in no small part to David’s
delivery of it; the horror and tragedy of some of these famous
figures’ stories is haunting. But, because there is so much
interesting material in the second half, I found myself, to some
extent, forgetting the training of the first. I wonder if perhaps it
would have been better presented the other way round, transposing its
two halves, to ensure it ended on a more relevant note.
Dr.
Fish has a broad spectrum of expertise, and the book is extensively
researched – he is high quality and I wish him success. “Goodbye
Butterflies...” is well-constructed, well-structured and incredibly
well-written, by a clearly educated and eloquent author. An
aesthetically pleasing reference guide, in the style of the “For
Dummies...”
books, with some nice imagery, and a great little Dr. Fish avatar,
which pops up frequently to highlight useful key points. All this
said, I did find a little concerning the number of grammatical errors
which have been missed in this book; I don’t think it can be deemed
ready quite yet, until that final polish,
though I do have a tendency to nit-pick.
All
in all, this is a hard-worked, comprehensive and credential-rich
self-help reference guide, which, rather than an evening’s light
reading, should be taken time over, as a project – albeit a hugely
entertaining one. A great success of a book, with something for
everyone.
BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON >
BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON >
In : Book Reviews
Tags: david-lee-fish self-help stage-fright psychology self-confidence anxiety mind reference non-fiction
