Whenever I pick up an advice book, be it a book on self help, business, productivity, or whatever, the first thing I do is read the introduction carefully.  A lot of people skip the introduction to books; this was once my bad habit, as well.  But I have learned that you can find out almost everything you need to know about a book just by reading the introduction.  The introduction sets the tone and parameters, and lets you know what kind of ride you're in for.

I didn't know anything about this book when I picked it up, except that Amazon kept saying I would like it.  Amazon's recommendation engine can be a little wacky at times, and I'm not generally that interested in straight up self help books.  But I noticed that I was seeing the book on bestseller lists and book store end caps as well, and thought it was worth having a look.

So you can imagine my surprise, not knowing anything about the book or the author, when he opened with the story of his birth.  He was born with every single bone in his body broken from the contractions of labor.  The doctors quickly diagnosed Stephenson with a brittle bone disorder called Osteogenesis Imperfecta.  He spent his first months of life in a head-to-toe body cast, and the first eighteen years of his life suffering from constant excruciating pain.

Stephenson has lived adversity in a way most of us cannot conceive.  He not only lived it, he survived it, and found a way to thrive.  That's the kind of authority that's hard to dismiss.

With self help books that place the burden so firmly upon the reader, I get a little itchy about "blame the victim."  This problem hit its height with The Secret/The Law of Attraction, where you are literally to blame for everything, including your own illnesses.  Stephenson doesn't go that far, thank goodness, and he acknowledges that bad things happen to people.  But how you deal with those bad things, what you take from it, and where you go next, he feels is 100% up to you to carve out.  This is the "But" of the title.  "I would have a happier marriage, but…"  "I would be more successful at work, but…"

Stephenson spends the book laying out a five-point plan for turning your life around.  And I have to say, jaded as I am, I was intrigued.  His first step is "Start Connecting," which I thought was an interesting choice to say the least.  But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

The other five steps are:
1.    Watch what you say to yourself
2.    Master your physical confidence
3.    Focus your focus
4.    Choose your friends wisely
5.    Take full responsibility

For each step, Stephenson offers concrete suggestions, as well as plenty of those anecdotal illustrations so beloved by the self help industry.  But despite having the trappings of every other self help book - despite being "written in dialect," as it were - this is a very different kind of book, from a very different kind of author.