Rolf Dobelli 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, for which The Times has called him "the self-help guru the Germans love". 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, 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 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". He cites "fifteen reasons to avoid news" in a 2013 blog post.. 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".. 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"..
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 ofZurich has attracted world-class speakers including: Nassim Taleb, Gerhard Schröder, F. W. de Klerk, Matt Ridley and others.
Books
In 2003, Diogenes Verlag published his first novel, Fünfunddreissig, followed by Und was machen Sie beruflich? in 2004, Himmelreich in 2006, Wer bin ich? and Turbulenzen 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, originally published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2011, which was an instant success, entering Germany's Der Spiegel Bestseller list as number 1. It was the bestselling non-fiction book in Germany and Switzerland in 2012. It was translated into English in 2013 and hit the top ten bestseller lists in the U.K, South Korea, India, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore. In 2013, Nassim Nicholas Taleb published a piece on his website in which he accused Dobelli of plagiarism. This piece was published concurrently with a number of personal attacks launched by Taleb. This, and other personal attacks have lead commentators to question Taleb's motives. 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.. While Dobelli never claimed that the ideas were his he has acknowledged their concerns and has updated subsequent editions. Claims of plagiarism have been disputed by Claudius Seidl, the cultural editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.". In 2020 Dobelli's published "Stop Reading the News, A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life". 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 way news creates the illusion of empathy, can elevate stress levels and builds a mindset that reinforces negativity".
