Title : Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons in Life (Quick Reads)
Author : Sir Richard Branson
Rating : 1 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Screw it, let's not bother...
While the contents of this book are all well and good (it's basically a VERY thin fillet of the branson autobiography) I have to award it only one star for the following reasons:
1. This book is so short the publishers have had to print it in granny size 20 point linotype.
2. With a cover price of £2.99 that's nearly a penny for every two words.
3.While the book is clearly trying to sell itself as one of those crossover popular psycholgy/ business books of aphorisms, it isn't. It's a short series of vignettes.
Don't waste your hard earned money on this shoddy cash in little volume. Get the full biog instead.
Title : A Lifetime of Secrets: A Postsecret Book
Author : Frank Warren
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : What's Your Secret?
This book is filled with the dark unspoken, underbellies of fellow human beings; it will prod you to consider your own secrets and perhaps, to be more human. For anyone who seeks solace in the company of others fortune or misery, or for those of you who'd sneak a peek under the diary's cover if given the chance -- this one as well as the other three Post Secret books by Frank Warren are for you. I also highly recommend the book "Understanding: Train of Thought".
Title : Psycho-cybernetics
Author : Maxwell Maltz
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Full of Techniques to
Psycho-cybernetics is THE definitive self-help book. I read Maxwell Maltz's original book and benefited immensely. I was a little wary about reading an update. But I'm glad I did. The information is clearly presented, easy to read and there are practical suggestions for putting the advice into practice. If you have to overcome any bad habit, from shyness, lack of confidence, procrastination, chronic lateness, nail-biting, or anything else, you can do it with psycho-cybernetics. Although this version of the book was written 15 years after Maxwell Maltz's death, it is all in the first-person, as though Maltz himself had written it. Gives a new meaning to the term "ghost written"! But if you can live with that, it's a very enlightening book.
Title : Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in Charge
Author : Roger Fisher
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Indispensable
Packed with useful advice, techniques and plans for collaborative working and altering the way your colleagues and organisation works. Useful section on analytical thinking: how to make those unstructured, going nowhere meetings more productive. They're also willing to say when trying to change your colleagues' attitudes you won't get it right or be successful all the time, but they make a great case for sticking at it. Very useful, I'll be referring to this for some time to come.
Title : The Four Agreements: Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Toltec Wisdom)
Author : Don Miguel Ruiz
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : 4 pointers to show us fallen angels back to paradise lost.
I've come to believe that the achievement and maintenance of happiness is a day-to-day, moment-to-moment discipline, due to the heavy conditioning we have all received to wallow in and maintain each other in suffering. This book proposes 4 deceptively simple 'agreements' to live by in order to free ourselves of that conditioning. If followed, I believe they can radically transform our lives and the lives of those around us. I say this on the basis of how I feel and the changes I have observed in my transactions with other people only 4 days after reading this book and of putting these agreements into practice. Also on the basis of the changes I've seen in the people I know who have read and been touched by this book as I have. I don't think it's possible not to be touched by it and struck by the sheer basic sense and simplicity of these agreements. All one needs to do is keep them in mind! Stick them on the fridge, beside the loo, in your diary... until they become a natural reflex.
Title : Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More
Author : Joe Vitale
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Written proof and instruction on how to wipe out all problems easily and enjoyably
In this amazing book Joe Vitale describes his encounters with Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len, the Hawaiian psychologist and healer, where they tell us about many different applications of the Hawaiian method Ho'oponopono.
These examples cover areas like
* violent inmates in a prison hospital who become calm,
* a room that needed to be acknowledged before allowing a large dinner party to occupy it or
* the innocence of hamburgers because the real enemy is what you think about the food
Dr Hew Len teaches that we alone, each one of us, are responsible for everything outside ourselves.
Joe describes the steps through the book's many examples. Many of us would have some difficulty in recognising the situations where we could apply the extremely easy and simple steps to heal the situation by healing ourselves. Joe's examples make it much easier to recognise where we can use this method.
Trusting in gratitude, love and forgiveness enables us to lead healed lives in a healed society.
Try it for a few days and you'll see.
Title : Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments
Author : Muriel James
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Possibly the best Self-Help book ever!
Transactional Analysis and Gestalt may seem old hat these days but the basic priniples have stood the test of time. This book formed the basis of my own study of TA in the seventies and also enabled me to beat a long standing history of recurrent depression and stress-related illness. I now teach TA to medical professionals and, 30 years on, this is still the best book available! Last updated and revised on its 25th birthday in 1996 this really is a "must buy" for anyone interested in digging through the "psychobabble" to the core of what makes people, including you, tick.
Other Related Resources:
1: http://5thirtyone.com/archives/883
2: http://briankim.net/blog/2007/02/the-dangers-of-motivational-hype/
3: http://www.fendy.org/learned/buy-a-domain-and-point-it-to-your-home-pc-part-1/
4: http://www.inspiredm.com/2009/04/07/the-revolution-will-be-twitterised-pman/
5: http://www.lumethemad.com/?attachment_id=72
