"Personality Isn't Permanent" by Benjamin Hardy

I bought this on spec.  It was just mentioned somewhere and when I came across it, I was intrigued.  The first third is very interesting.  Mr. Hardy talks about how we limit ourselves with socially-accepted parameters.  He ditches the idea that there are set types of personalities and makes a compelling case that most of the personality tests we use to pigeon-hole people are completely bogus.  One of the most memorable arguments was a long-term study.  A group of people took a personality test in their 20s.  In their 60s, they took the same test and their scores were completely different.  Even something as simple as "extrovert" and "introvert" can be much more subtle than we might presume.  Introverts can learn to speak in front of crowds, extroverts sometimes like the quiet of down-time.  There are homework questions, of a sort.  Designed to take the learning of each section and make it personal.  I initially dove in, and enjoyed writing out responses to questions about how other's perceptions of me created a structure within which I operated.  After the first third or so of the book, however, it takes a turn.  Mr. Hardy goes all Tony Robbins.  He insists that people don't succeed because they are essentially lazy.  We should pick a single goal (not multiple goals) and go for it like running a race in the Olympics.  We need to get up early, eschew the foods which make us fat, and go-go-go.  The message got old, fast.  He gave a good number of examples of people who followed his advice and rose to great heights.  I couldn't pretend that this was all a result of effort.  Most were white, affluent, young, and well-educated.  Not to mention Christian.  I didn't like the tone that failing was your fault, not a factor of being poor, or a person of color, or up against overwhelming odds.  Yes, some of those people succeed.  But for every one who makes it out, there are a thousand who didn't.  Mr. Hardy also has his priorities, in my humble opinion, all messed up.  The goal, according to him, is money.  He asks -- how far up the ladder do you want to go?  How much money do you want to make?  When do you want to retire and how much money do you want to have then?  He becomes a modern-day Scrooge, counting his gold in the dark of night.  The paradigm he offers isn't a good fit for me.  If I were about money I wouldn't have gone into education, where I had a lot of personal satisfaction but not a lot of income.  If I really wanted to be an actor or a writer or whatever maybe I would have been more successful in those careers if I had been laser-focused, but I don't write to sell books and I act because I enjoy it and I think I'm good at it.  I've never believed I would be, or even wanted to be "Hollywood".  Mr. Hardy wrote this book when he was 27.  He became a parent after writing this book, and is now in his 30s.  I would love to hear his take on life some 30 years later.  I wonder if he will see the world in the same way.