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    It's Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff that Really Matters
    It's Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff that Really Matters
    It's Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff that Really Matters
    Audiobook7 hours

    It's Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff that Really Matters

    Written by Karen Rinaldi

    Narrated by Karen Rinaldi

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Discover how the freedom of sucking at something can help you build resilience, embrace imperfection, and find joy in the pursuit rather than the goal with this “wholly original work that is destined to become a classic” (Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

    When was the last time you tried something new? Something that won’t make you more productive, make you more money, or check anything off your to-do list? Something you’re really, really bad at, but that brought you joy?

    Odds are, not recently. We live in a time of aspirational psychoses. We humblebrag about how hard we work and we prioritize productivity over happiness. Even kids don’t play for the sake of playing anymore: they’re building blocks to build the ideal college application. We’re told to be the best or nothing at all. We’re trapped in an epic and farcical quest for perfection and it’s all making us more anxious and depressed than ever.

    This book provides the antidote. (It’s Great to) Suck at Something “shows how joy and growth come from risking failure and letting go of perfectionism” (The Wall Street Journal). Drawing on her personal experience sucking at surfing (a sport Karen Rinaldi’s dedicated nearly two decades of her life to doing without ever coming close to getting good at it) along with philosophy, literature, and the latest science, Rinaldi explores sucking as a lost art we must reclaim for our health and our sanity and helps us find the way to our own riotous suck-ability. Sucking at something rewires our brain in positive ways, helps us cultivate grit, and inspires us to find joy in the process, without obsessing about the destination. Ultimately, it gives you freedom: the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory.

    Coupling honest, hilarious storytelling with unexpected insights, this “thought-provoking, engaging examination…explains how our lives are more satisfying and rich when we give ourselves the opportunity to experiment, struggle, and play” (Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 7, 2019
    ISBN9781508266792
    Author

    Karen Rinaldi

    Karen Rinaldi has worked in the publishing industry for over two decades. In 2012, she founded the imprint Harper Wave at HarperCollins. The feature film Maggie’s Plan, is based on her novel The End of Men. Karen has been published in The New York Times, Oprah.com, Time, Literary Hub, Glamour.com, and other publications. She lives in New York and New Jersey with her husband and two sons.

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    Reviews for It's Great to Suck at Something

    3.5/5

    16 ratings1 review

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    • 2/5
      This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.---WHAT'S IT'S GREAT TO SUCK AT SOMETHING ABOUT?The Publisher's Description is: When was the last time you tried something new? Something that won’t make you more productive, make you more money, or check anything off your to-do list? Something you’re really, really bad at, but that brought you joy? Odds are, not recently. We live in a time of aspirational psychoses. We humblebrag about how hard we work and we prioritize productivity over happiness. Even kids don’t play for the sake of playing anymore: they’re building blocks to build the ideal college application. We’re told to be the best or nothing at all. We’re trapped in an epic and farcical quest for perfection and it’s all making us more anxious and depressed than ever. This book provides the antidote. (It’s Great to) Suck at Something “shows how joy and growth come from risking failure and letting go of perfectionism” (The Wall Street Journal). Drawing on her personal experience sucking at surfing (a sport Karen Rinaldi’s dedicated nearly two decades of her life to doing without ever coming close to getting good at it) along with philosophy, literature, and the latest science, Rinaldi explores sucking as a lost art we must reclaim for our health and our sanity and helps us find the way to our own riotous suck-ability. Sucking at something rewires our brain in positive ways, helps us cultivate grit, and inspires us to find joy in the process, without obsessing about the destination. Ultimately, it gives you freedom: the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory.My description would be—Rinaldi is a devoted surfer. That doesn't mean that she's a good one—she has witnesses and video evidence to back that up. But she doesn't care—she still loves it. In fact, she's learned a lot about herself—and probably about the way people tick—from being a lousy surfer, and now she has some good advice to share about being lousy at things (and continuing to do them). She weaves this advice with a semi-meandering recounting of her surfing career in the pages of this book.A QUICK WORD ABOUT THE NARRATIONRinaldi's narration on this was really good—I'd listen to her narrate another book easily. Maybe it's easier because it's her book and she knows the emotions she's trying to evoke—but I've heard enough authors not know how to do that for me to really believe it.SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT IT'S GREAT TO SUCK AT SOMETHING?I should start by saying that I'm 100% on board with Rinaldi's central thesis and think it's something that more people need to embrace and practice. I just have problems with most of the rest of the book.We've all been to those "meetings that could've been an email," right?* As I was listening I kept thinking—this is a book that could've been an article. Maybe a series of them. Or a few blog posts. But it had no business being a book.Of course, not at my current job. I'm talking exclusively about previous positions.Or at least not this book. If this had been sold as a "memoir of a lousy but committed surfer with some advice you can apply to your own passions/hobbies." It would've been fine. The book wasn't about the benefits of sucking at things, it was about a big part of Rinaldi's life, and through it she offered some observations on the human condition—some of which she can offer footnotes to.The book really didn't need the turn to spirituality it took toward the end. It was very out of place.Trim the personal anecdotes to anecdotes/illustrations, amp up the advice (and the reasons for it) and you've got a decent, albeit shorter, book. But as it is, it's hard for me to say that a reader or listener isn't wasting their time.