The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success

The Power of One More follows the conventions of traditional self-help books. The tone is colloquial, using first-person singular (“I”), first-person plural (“we”), and second-person (“you”) pronouns to address the audience. The effect of this tone is to encourage a closeness between the author and readers, helping readers feel they are receiving advice from a trusted friend.

Mylett writes short chapters with concise and simple sentences designed to make the text accessible to all readers. Bolded type and bulleted/numbered lists allow readers to remember Mylett’s recommendations to become “one more” thinkers. Despite the length of the book (272 pages), The Power of One More moves at a quick pace. Another contributor to this reading style is large spacing and font to encourage readers to turn the pages at a fast pace.

Within the self-help genre, The Power of One More fits with the work of past authors, like Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill, as well as current ones, such as Tim Ferris, Simon Sinek, and Jocko Willink. Like these authors, Mylett addresses concepts such as leadership, discipline, and intrinsic motivation. In line with the self-help canon, The Power of One More provides advice meant to change readers’ thoughts and actions. Mylett provides skills that readers can practice daily, but he mostly conveys his recommendations as mindset shifts. The emphasis on mindset is a convention of the self-help genre, which intends to enable the readers to help themselves. Mylett follows this tradition of empowering readers to change rather than explicitly directing their actions. The readers of the book may be individuals who want to turn their hobbies into lucrative careers or entrepreneurs who need a jumpstart on their intrinsic motivation. Mylett affirms his authority as a thought leader in business and performance by saying he uses his techniques to train professional athletes, C-suite executives, and elite performers, even though he doesn’t explicitly name any of these high-profile individuals. Mylett’s personal background, his wealth, and his success also serve as appeals to his authority.

Mylett also makes comparisons to the advances in modern science, specifically neuroscience, to support his claim that readers can change their mindsets willingly. Mylett’s engagement with the scientific research is surface level in his attempt to make the complex topics understandable for laypeople. To keep the text accessible, Mylett avoids critical discussion of the scientific research, and the book contains no references for the research he cites. This is a common strategy in most self-help books, which often rely on the author’s persuasiveness rather than empirical facts to support the book’s authority.

Unlike other self-help books, Mylett champions his religious faith instead of maintaining a secular tone. Mylett takes a risk by emphasizing the importance of faith in self-development because the emphasis on religion may alienate some audience, such as atheists or agnostics. On the other hand, Mylett may endear himself to the religious segment of his readership with this technique. Mylett doesn’t preach to readers that his own faith (Christianity) is preferred. In fact, Mylett writes with an open and accepting tone that welcomes people of all religions to practice his advice.