What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America

by Tony Schwartz

At the height of his career as a journalist, Tony Schwartz hit an unexpected wall.  Why did success suddenly feel so empty?  How could he add richer meaning to his everyday life?  What guides could he trust on the road to wisdom?

During the next five years his search for answers took him from a meditation retreat in the mountains of Utah to a biofeedback laboratory in Kansas, from a peak-performance workshop at a tennis academy in Florida to a right-brain drawing course in Boston.  Blending the hunger of a seeker with a journalist's hard-headed inquiry, he discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way.  What he found dramatically changed his life.  It may change yours as well.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Psychology, Self Help, Biography, Personal Growth

480 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Tony Schwartz is a journalist, business book author, professional speaker,and the ghostwriter and credited co-author of Trump: The Art of the Deal. He is the founder and head of the productivity consulting firm, The Energy Project.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have owned this book for many years and have read this book many times; it's one of the few books I reread when I need a lift. I can open it to any page and start reading. As a result, my paperback copy is looking pretty mangy.
What Really Matters introduced me to people that I went on to read more about, especially Ram Dass and Ken Wilber. I enjoyed the chapter on Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain because I owned Betty Edward's book and had already worked through her drawing exercises. Schwartz's drawing chapter, though novel, is not one I go back to.
What Really Matters, published in 1995, predates all the how-to-find-happiness theories that are flooding the bookstores and Internet now. But this old book feels more authentic than a slapped-together manifesto full of tips and tricks.
I am disappointed that Tony Schwartz has created a new career as a "do-better-at-your-job" motivational speaker. The few clips I've watched of him lecturing seem more schlubby than my image of an author who sincerely searched for wisdom as he researched people and paths that purported to have the answers.
Read it; you may find an answer or two.

[CAC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the mid-nineties, so it's quite dated, given how much has been learned about human potential due to technological advances. For example, in one chapter, the author spends quite a bit of time discussing biofeedback as a way to measure the benefits of mindfulness practices, but there's no fMRI technology yet to demonstrate the 'beautiful brains' of devoted meditators.

Nonetheless, you can really appreciate the attempt Schwartz made in his five year odyssey to examine human potential and wisdom. And as a journalist, he writes clearly as tells interesting stories about his extraordinary subjects.

[Kirk Plankey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not expecting what I found in this book. I purchased it on a whim with no research into it at all. I was expecting a more Ben Franklin, American common sense, Apple Pie, type book. What I was pleasantly surprised to find was that it is actually a "New Age" type of book documenting the first forty years or so of the Human Potential Movement. Starting with Ram Dass and the Esalen Institute. The work is very autobiographical as Tony tries almost every form of meditation and self-improvement techniques that he documents in the book. He also does a brief bio and introduction for every thinker that he interviews and includes in the work. At first I was very optimistic but as I came to the end of the work I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices that are out there. His concluding chapter basically summarizes that what is needed is a synthesis and a meshing of different methods and teachers and that no one way is THE WAY. That we need both psychological and spiritual transcendent work to fully grow as human beings. This book is a good starting point if you want to become familiar with a variety of thinkers and systems that were/are part of the New Age/Human Potential Movement. This work will serve well as a launching pad both because of the information imparted as well as the authors own conveyance of his highs and lows and experiences in trying the varied methods involved. We should all be so lucky as to have as many opportunities as he has had.

[Wayne G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwartz gives a good overview of many different traditional and non-traditional spiritual paths... all looked at even-handedly...

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's some great wisdom in this book and some unusual stories about the search for wisdom. A few don't have quite the brilliance of the best, but it's a good resource to have.
Reading about Betty Edwards, who made the breakthrough realization about the skill of drawing works when engaging the right hemisphere of the brain (imagination, intuition), while the left hemisphere (language, rational logic) must be got out of the way for the skill to manifest ( she could teach anyone to draw in a three-day workshop)... it became so clear to me that we are in an era dominated by left-hemisphere mindsets, like those locked into their internet lives. Obviously the pertains in the contemporary artworld, where conceptual art (you have to read the handout before you look at the art) dominates and disdains the work that doesn't adhere to this formula. But use that same frame of reference on the ponzi scheme of crypto currency, or the ascendency of journalism that is aimed at provoking disparagement, and hatred. We're on a left-brain jag.

From the book:
"...(the right-brain mindset) makes it easier to let go of fears and insecurities, negative past experiences, and pressure to meet a certain standard - all aspects of ordinary left hemisphere thinking that interfere with seeing freely and truly. Put another way, the right hemisphere mode is a fragile and elusive state that can be easily overridden be the left hemisphere’s rush to judgement. (the bully!) At the same time, when the left hemisphere faces a challenge that it is ill equipped to meet, …it often simply gives up, instead of turning the job over to the right hemisphere.” (witness the Democratic Party these past few decades) “…What if it turns out we put our eggs in the wrong basket? What if, by spending all these centuries cultivating language, mathematics and technological skills, we put in abeyance another system - visual and nonverbal - that is ultimately more powerful and better-suited to our survival?”

[Rajiv Bais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally! About damn time that I finished this book. I would rather have no time to read it, fall asleep to wait, or go through periods without reading it.

I want to write the phrase “Review to come later,” but all I can say is that after I read each chapter I Felt better even if many of the details seemed in ordinary or kind that would not resonate with me.

This book shows how unconventional theories and the mind can do wonders for a person. It also reveals the Darkside of human nature, especially with the people profiles, and how they get up again in either a state of equanimity or the closest thing to self-actualization one can get to.

[Dana Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

after I read this i was scheduled to move to a meditation retreat but a forest fire broke out and then a newspaper radiohead and i went to high school with the guy whose dad used to own the major world paper.

[Kate]

5books.com interview with TonybSchwarz who sold out and write the art of the deal for Trump and was so horrified with himself that he then went on a seekers odyssey

[Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of the year! A thorough review of human potential with strengths and weaknesses of many of the movements and guru's. There's no one answer and there are different levels.

[Abner Rosenweig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwartz's interviews of some of America's leading figures of wisdom in the 20th century make a compelling subject for a book, and some of his content is first rate. The ideas about health in chapters 3-6 are particularly fascinating, and it's tragic they are not more widely applied in the mainstream. In general, the book opened my mind to many thinkers and traditions that I might have otherwise overlooked. For example, I haven't been able to appreciate Ken Wilber--the image of his giant head on the covers of his books has given me a profound skepticism of the man--yet, the portrait of Wilber that Schwartz paints here piques my curiousity enough that I will now give him a try. What Really Matters is a bit overwritten at times, puffed up with a lot of stuffing about Schwartz's personal journey that does not add much value to the read. The work could have been much leaner and meaner if it lost 100 to 200 pages. Still, I highly recommend pouring through the excess to discover the pearls inside.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent all last Sunday afternoon reading this book. It’s an older book, with a copyright in the 90’s, so some of it comes across as a bit dated. I grimaced here and there, reading about some of the “wisdom” Schwartz sought, using the power of brain waves, for example, acts I’ve always tended to regard as hocus-pocus mumbo jumbo. I carried away a lot of positive scientific evidence for meditation; I will seek more information about that. I also learned that one study found 75% of people have some sort of back problems but experience no pain. Curious. I was especially interested in the chapters that touched on dealing with cancer. A study showed that almost all cancer patients had undergone an exceptionally tramatic event in their lives in the year before they were diagnosed with cancer.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in 1999--a 'travelogue' through America, with the author interviewing major players of spiritual faiths. It was this book that introduced me to Ken Wilbur, a philosopher/
psychologist from Boulder. He is deep "credited with developing a unified field theory of consciousness—a synthesis and interpretation of the world's great psychological, philosophical, and spiritual traditions." His books are heavy reading. I have yet to finish a book of his. Check him out athttp://in.integralinstitute.org/.

[Margy Levine Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nat Kuhn recommended this book during a long car ride when he drove me from Dad’s beach house to the Option Institute in MA/CT in the fall of 2003. I’d mentioned that a new women’s reading group was looking for books that we could read and discuss a chapter at a time, and I chose this one from among his suggestions. Its a survey of the available “paths to wisdom"in the America of the 1980s and 1990s, written by a successful journalist who was finding life empty and meaningless. I gave a copy to Grandma Diane for Christmas 2003.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read carefully only the parts that were interesting for me, as I'm not keen in some lateral thinking, tennis of yoga, but the author made a really good job in researching and the part about the psychotherapy are illuminating.

Ho letto attentamente solo le parti che mi interessavano, anche perché non vado matta per certe specie di pensiero laterale, tennis o yoga, a parte questo l'autore ha svolto un minuzioso lavoro di ricerca e la parte sulla psicoterapia é stata illuminante.

[Lynn Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful chronicle of important consciousness research up to the date of publication.

Schwartz, a bit of a skeptic, used himself as his own research subject. An entertaining and informative read. Especially helpful for those who have little grounding in the human potential movement. It will answer many of your questions.

[Elyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author take the reader on an exciting road trip to meet various people and their belief systems and sources of wisdom.

[Sampath · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
This book should have been named "A brief history of everything"!
No doubt a good read.

[Gwen Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great tour of many aspects of the human potential movement. It was written in 1995 and I wish there was an update or sequel.

[Thinkahol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendously impressive in breadth and depth.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, that truly searches for wisdom.