motivational

This website is about anti motivational, and also contains resources about motivational comments , motivational book , and motivational thoughts .

Title : The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Author : Stephen R Covey
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Thought-provoking

This is a thought-provoking book based on clear principles that can guide us in managing our time. There are many wise ideas contained in the pages of this book.

As an example, I learned that efficiency is something that is appropriate with tasks but with people especially family members you can't be efficient and slot people in as you think best. Instead it is about effectiveness. So you have to give family members the time they need.

Another gem is that you can't balance life at times you have to prioritize according to your values. So a mother (or father) who wants to stay home with their kids when they are young, may need to focus on home instead of career until the kids are older. The goal of balance would be inappropriate for that situation. Mr. Covey also makes it clear the importance of following the compass instead of the clock.

This is an excellent book that people need to read because it gives business direction but from a higher perspective that you rarely find in most literature out there. I also recommend the "8th Insight" also by Covey, "Your Erroneous Zones" by Wayne Dyer, "Nexus" by Deborah Morrison Arvind Singh and "Lateral Thinking" by Edward De Bono. All these book offer unique insights.

Title : Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More
Author : Joe Vitale
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Highly Purifying Stuff in a Toxic World

I had first come across Dr. Hew Len's work in healing a ward full of criminally insane patients on the Disappearance of the Universe discussion group. The amazing thing about his healing technique was that he never actually met these people, he would instead look within himself to whatever it was that was causing this outward manifestation of illness and negativity, knowing that everyone and everything is ultimately One and connected (as any spiritual guru will tell you). He knew he was, at some level, ultimately responsible for the issue.

He used an ancient Hawaiin technique called Ho'oponopono to cleanse the negative feelings that came up in him as he thought about these people by using the same 4 phrases over and over ("I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you"). As he did so, he was evoking his higher Self, or Divinity, to remove the negative feelings, and replace them with its Self (namely Pure Love). This had the effect of removing the negative programs that were running in these 'criminally insane' people so that gradually they were able to live normal lives again.

This book then is a great coverage of this remarkably simple technique, and the fact that all it boils down to in life is to cleanse, cleanse, cleanse our negative memories, feelings and data so that we can become one with the Divine and inspired by It/Him (as opposed to dictated by decisions formed by our fretful conscious minds). We are a sum total of our memories, and bound by interhuman programs handed down to us over millenia, so to clear and cleanse these means unbounded joy and freedom, and Oneness with the Divine, our ultimate goal in life!

This is a MUST READ by even the most hardened and skeptical of souls!!!! Do yourself a favour: go release yourself!!

Title : Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author : Robert Cialdini
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Priceless

I have been entertaining my friends at dinner parties with this book. Cialdini, who admits to being a bit of a sucker himself, shows all the ways we've been manipulated over the years by small gestures and situations contrived by salesmen.

There are so many good stories. The one about Joe Girard, a car salesman who sends out each month 13,000 cards every month to former customers with a card saying, "I like you". Surely people wouldn't fall for that? Yes they do, he made more than $200,000 a year selling cars. He's in the Guinness Book of Records.

There's the story of how the Chinese got the American prisoners in the Korean War to betray their country by setting them essay questions. There's accounts of the trouble we can get into when we insist on being consistent or make a vague commitment to supporting a cause.

Cialdini exposes loads of sales techniques and has some fascinating insights into what motivates us.

As a self-employed person I'm really grateful for this knowledge. This is a book that everyone should read.

Title : Think and Grow Rich
Author : Napoleon Hill
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : One of the best self-improvement books ever

I was originally recommended this book by a colleague who I saw reading it. His copy was well-used and creased to bits - he mentioned that he always kept in in his briefcase for any journies etc when he could pick it up. After starting to read myself, I was amazed at the lessons in the book - it really starts you thinking about what you want in life, and more importantly, how you are actually going to make it happen. A lot of the book is also commonsense, but I guess that is why I found it so appealing and easy to read. I also particularly liked the case-studies, and I found the author very easy to read.

One slight downside for me was the ties towards the end of the book to the authors own religious beliefs. While I have an open mind on these things, the way it was put over wasn't really for me, and I lost a bit of interest in these parts.

In summary though, its a book I have gone back to time and time again when I need a bit of inspiration or focus. Its also great for getting your positive thinking together both inside and outside of work.

Title : The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
Author : Stephen R. Covey
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Valuable Synthesis Presented Abstractly and Ponderously

If you haven't read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I suggest you read that one before this book.

Dr. Covey obviously pulled out all of the stops in trying to make this book as helpful as possible to his readers. The book contains summaries of the material in his other books, repeats many stories from those books, reconciles the material with most of the business book best sellers in recent years, contains a DVD full of inspiring videos, provides references to many free materials on his web site, has extensive appendices and contains many thoughtful sections on questions and answers. As a result, the book comes across like an encyclopedia of his teachings . . . rather than as the simple communication that is so delightful in his other books. I suspect that Dr. Covey changed ghostwriters for this one (at least I assume that the other books were ghostwritten because they avoid the ponderous communications style that Dr. Covey uses in person).

So what is the 8th habit? Allow me to paraphrase. It'll be quicker that way. You act with integrity as an individual and help others to do the same.

In Covey-speak, it's the overlap of personal greatness (applying the 7 habits in the forms of vision, discipline, passion and conscience), leadership greatness (applying the 4 roles of leadership (modeling the 7 habits, path finding, aligning and Empowering), and organizational greatness (turned into a vision, mission and values that bring clarity, commitment, translation, synergy, enabling and accountability). See Figure 14.3 on page 280 for the simplest expression of the 8th habit in Covey-speak.

Can you make a book out of that point? Well, if you put in lots of examples, you can . . . which Dr. Covey did. But the basic point is about a magazine article's worth. Most people will come to that realization when they see the entire book's concepts summarized in chapters 14 and 15. If you want to check this book out, read those two chapters and see if you need more at that point.

Why do millions of people read his books? Well, the earlier ones were beautifully written. This one isn't. All of his books show unadulterated respect for the reader and a belief in the reader's unlimited potential to improve. So it's inspiring to read someone's high opinion of you. Dr. Covey obviously cares that we live moral and positive lives. He's a sort of secular priest expressing moral values that most will agree with. Would we all like to work for Dr. Covey? Sure!

How well will this book translate in the workplace? It'll be a tough row. You can have a company that's good at the 8th habit, but doesn't build the necessary skills to succeed with using the 8th habit. That's because this book is heavy on concepts . . . and light on the practical details. Dr. Covey starts up at about 100,000 feet in the air with his abstract thinking and discussions, and rarely gets any closer. So think of the 8th habit book as helpful . . . but not sufficient in and of itself . . . for creating superior performance. Perhaps it will work better if you employ Dr. Covey's firm to help you (which is abundantly pitched in the book).

Dr. Covey humbly points out that his conclusions are aimed at dealing with the problems of poor communication, lousy alignment, misunderstandings about what to do next, lacks of tools and training, and dumbed-down workplaces . . . but is not supported by research (other than anecdotes from his clients) to support that this actually works better. But you'll agree, I'm sure, that even failure would feel a lot better in such an organization. So it's very humanistic, which is a good thing.

Few will disagree with the point of this book, and most wonder what this adds to Dr. Covey's work on Principle-Centered Leadership. "Not very much" is my impression.

I suspect that this book would have worked a lot better if the material had been simplified and added to the 7 habits book . . . and renamed as "The 8 Habits of Highly Effective People."

May God bless you, Dr. Covey! Keep inspiring us to be our best!