Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli (born July 15, 1966 in Luzern, Switzerland[1]) is a Swiss author and businessman. He began his writing career as a novelist in 2002, but he is best known internationally for his bestselling non-fiction The Art of Thinking Clearly (2011, English 2013), for which The Times has called him "the self-help guru the Germans love".[2]

Rolf Dobelli
Dobelli's promotional portrait in 2010
Born (1966-07-15) July 15, 1966
Luzern, Switzerland
OccupationAuthor, businessman

Born in 1966 in Lucerne, Switzerland, he obtained an MBA in 1991 from the University of St. Gallen and a PhD in economic philosophy in 1995. In 1999, he co-founded getAbstract, a publisher of book summaries and article abstracts.

Dobelli is a member of Edge Foundation, Inc., an association of intellectuals,[3] PEN International, Royal Society of Arts and founder of the "World Minds" foundation.

Life

Dobelli studied philosophy and business administration at the University of St. Gallen where he graduated with a doctorate on the "Deconstruction of Economic Discourse". He then went to work as the CFO and Managing Director in various Swissair subsidiaries. In 1999 he co-founded "getAbstract".

From 2001 to 2009 Dobelli hosted a weekly television show "Seitenweise Wirtschaft" for the Swiss newspaper and media company, NZZ. He also wrote a weekly column on the Art of Thinking Clearly[4].

He resigned from getAbstract in 2011 so that he could dedicate himself to writing. Dobelli's increasing dissatisfaction with the world of pure business was already reflected in his 2003 novel titled "35 - A Midlife Story". this was followed by his 2004 book, "And what do you do for a living" and his 2007 book "Who am I? 777 indiscreet questions."

Avoid News Consumption

Dobelli advises his readers to "avoid news consumption" [5][6]. He cites "fifteen reasons to avoid news" in a 2013 blog post.[7]. It is the subject of a forthcoming book in English titled, "Stop Reading the News: How to cope with the information overload and think more clearly".[8]. Dobelli's writings are sometimes controversial. The Guardian newspaper columnist Madeleine Bunting has even gone so far as accusing his ideas on news of being "dangerous"[9].

WORLD.MINDS

Dobelli founded WORLD.MINDS in 2008 to create a bridge between the science, business and cultural communities. The annual meeting, held in the city of Zurich has attracted world-class speakers including: Nassim Taleb[10], Gerhard Schröder, F. W. de Klerk, Matt Ridley and others.

Books

In 2003, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland) published his first novel, Fünfunddreissig ("Thirty-five"), followed by Und was machen Sie beruflich? ("And What Do You Do for a Living?") in 2004, Himmelreich (The Heavens) in 2006, Wer bin ich? ("Who am I?") and Turbulenzen ("Turbulence") in 2007 and Massimo Marini in 2010. The major themes in Dobelli's novels are the meaning of success and the role of randomness in business and in life.

Dobelli is the author of The Art of Thinking Clearly (Die Kunst des klaren Denkens), originally published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2011, which was an instant success, entering Germany's Der Spiegel Bestseller list as number 1.[11] It was the bestselling non-fiction book in Germany and Switzerland in 2012.[12] It was translated into English in 2013 and hit the top ten bestseller lists in the U.K,[13][14] South Korea, India,[15] Ireland,[16] Hong Kong and Singapore.[17]

In 2013, Nassim Nicholas Taleb published a piece on his website in which he accused Dobelli of plagiarism [18][19]. This piece was published concurrently with a number of personal attacks launched by Taleb[20]. This, and other personal attacks have lead commentators to question Taleb's motives[21]. Later, Christopher Chabris also published what he claimed to be an example in Dobelli's book that is referenced but does not have quotation marks.[22]. While Dobelli never claimed that the ideas were his he has acknowledged their concerns and has updated subsequent editions[23]. Claims of plagiarism have been disputed by Claudius Seidl, the cultural editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.[24]".

In 2020 Dobelli's published "Stop Reading the News, A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life"[25]. Martin Newman, reviewing the book for the Financial Review wrote, "Stop Reading the News" explores the explosion of opinion-based news, the elevation of mediocrity over substance (The Kardashians!!), the way news creates the illusion of empathy, can elevate stress levels and builds a mindset that reinforces negativity"[26].


in German
  • Fünfunddreissig (Thirty-five), 2003
  • Und was machen Sie beruflich? (And What Do You Do for a Living?), 2004
  • Himmelreich (The Heavens), 2006
  • Wer bin ich? (Who Am I?), 2007
  • Turbulenzen (Turbulence), 2007
  • Massimo Marini, 2010
  • Die Kunst des klaren Denkens (The Art of Thinking Clearly), 2011
  • Die Kunst des klugen Handelns (The Art of Acting Clearly), 2012
  • Fragen an das Leben, 2014
  • Die Kunst des guten Lebens, 2017
  • Die Kunst des digitalen Lebens, 2019

in English
  • The art of thinking clearly, 2013
  • The art of the good life, Sceptre, 2017
gollark: Brotlipython™ is much better because it's Definitely Turing Complete™.
gollark: Yep!
gollark: > Coincidentally, these two programs implement exactly the functionality that PPCG consensus has decided qualifies a language as being a real programming language. Therefore, it is definitely a real programming language. hmmmm.
gollark: Brotlipython™ uses a better compression algorithm too (for short data, anyway).
gollark: It's only for "Kolmogorov complexity code golf competitions".

References
  1. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/695505.Rolf_Dobelli
  2. The Times, June 2013
  3. "Rolf Dobelli". Edge.org. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  4. Fuchs, Helmut. "Klarer Kenken".
  5. Avoid News - Towards a healthy news diet Archived 2013-01-17 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Guardian News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier print and online edition of 13 April 2013
  7. "All in the Mind" on BBC Radio 30 April 2013, starting at 15:00 min. Why you should stay away from news - published online. The Huffington Post "Danny Rubin: News Is Bad for You? Here Are 9 Reasons Why That Idea Is Flat Wrong". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2013-08-12.. News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier - Essay in English published by the Guardian
  8. Stop Reading the News: How to cope with the information overload and think more clearly
  9. "Rolf Dobelli's ideas about not needing news are dangerous".
  10. "Nassim Nicholas Taleb ZURICH.MINDS. Talk with Rolf Dobelli".
  11. Der Spiegel Bestseller List, 12 Jan 2012 Archived 2008-07-31 at the Wayback Machine
  12. Der Spiegel print edition 1/2013 p. 121
  13. The Times bestseller list hardback non-fiction, 21 April 2013
  14. The Sunday Times bestseller list 7 July 2013 (rank number 4)
  15. [Crossword book retailer's bestseller list June 2013]
  16. Writing.IE Bestseller List, 14 June 2013
  17. The Straits Times bestseller list non-fiction, 28 April 2013
  18. Guido Kalberer, [www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/buecher/Nassim-Taleb-attackiert-Rolf-Dobelli/story/11573752 Nassim Taleb attackiert Rolf Dobelli], Tages-Anzeiger, 12 September 2013.
  19. Nassim, Taleb. "Rolf Dobelli's Serial Plagiarism of N. N. Taleb's Incerto". Fooled by Randomness.
  20. Boesler, Matthew (April 24, 2013). "Nassim Taleb Gets Into Historic Twitter Brawl, Shows Everyone How ANTIFRAGILE He Is". Business Insider.
  21. Kloor, Keith (November 1, 2014). "Why is Nassim Taleb So Venomous on Twitter?". Discover Magazine.
  22. Christpoher, Chabris. "Similarities Between Rolf Dobelli's Book and Ours".
  23. Dobelli, Rolf. "Book Corrections".
  24. Seidl, Claudius. "Plagiatstreit um Rolf Dobelli". September 26, 2013. Frankfurter Algemeiner Zeitung.
  25. Humphrey, Joe. "Journalism has become "ridiculous": The case for turning off the news". The Irish Times.
  26. Newman, Martin (February 15, 2020). "Don't read this story! (You may have news overload)". Financial Review.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.