Audiotbook Review: Work the System by Sam Carpenter & Josh Fonger

About:

Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter & Josh Fonger in which the author explains his system for running several successful businesses. Mr. Carpenter is a successful businessman.

• 9 hours and 17 minutes
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B08W86DKK6

My rating for Work the System– 3
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More Books by Sam Carpenter *

Thoughts:

Reading business books primarily gives me at least one good tidbit for my work life and/or personal life. Somethings which I never realized, or by the same token, never thought about that makes a difference. Working for small and big businesses, in both public and private sectors have allowed different view points. Some of the author’s points rang bells which I found to be very true based on my experience. For example: either run a business or be a key employee, but not both.

Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter & Josh Fonger hasn’t added anything new to my knowledge. The premise is simple: cut down complex jobs to manageable tasks and work those. Something us computer programmers have been doing for decades. Granted, it is applicable to almost every industry, and life itself.

The author gives real life examples from his business and others. Curiously, one of the examples he gives is a checklist for his company that must be filled when they hire someone. All items have to be checked for a person to get the job.
Why curious?
One of the items is that the person can’t be fat. They won’t be hired even if they check all other boxes.
Nonetheless,there is prejudice against fat people (but even so, certainly not against any laws), it takes some balls though to put in writing. Incidentally, it’s not “exactly” what he says, but that’s the way it is being interpreted.

With this in mind, are preachy parts in the books (don’t drink coffee, etc.), that felt strange. Indeed, in a book that preaches “what works for you”, it was certainly out of scope. That being the case, it goes hand-in-hand with the “fat” point above, I have no issues with either being included in the book, but I found it strange from a business perspective.

There was nothing new, for me at least, in this book. Certainly it was worth a listen, but keep in mind that the author wants to sell the services of his consulting company (not a hard sell though, which is good). For others hearing, or reading, his ideas might be enlightening and worth the trip. Tim Underwood’s narration was professional and clear.

Buy Work the System from Amazon.com*
More Books by Sam Carpenter *

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account