Title : Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
Author : Brian Tracy
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Insightful!
The author grins, distinguished, gray-haired, gray-suited, from the dust jacket of this book, looking like everything a hokey, hustling confidence man should be. The book's subtitle, promising "everything you want," seems designed to provoke skepticism. But, hey, it's the new age: give this the benefit of the doubt - the confidence at stake here is yours. The core recommendation is simple and undeniably effective: define your goals, write them down, make a plan to achieve them and work on the plan every day. How could you fail if you really did this? Whether you would achieve "everything you want" is another matter, but you can't fault the method. Putting it to work is the hard part. To preview the gist of the book or review the meat of it, we recommend the convenient bullet charts that concisely repeat: take charge of your life, set goals, plan, implement and progress. If the message is repeated often enough, you might even write something down and just do it.
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 : Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author : Robert Cialdini
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Invest in Influence
I first read an excerpt of Dr Cialdini's book in a Harvard Business Review article and it was one of the few times I actually bought the book on the same day. The six universal principles of influence and persuasion are superb in their brevity and ability to work in a wide variety of situations. With Dr Cialdini backing up his writings with 50 years of social science research (not to mention his own 3 year investment of time to learn the trade secrets of many organisations, both private sector and public sector) it makes learning and using the principles of persuasion systematic and not dependant on being 'a born sales person or natural influencer'. A fantastic read with plenty of anecdotes (backed up by research) and uses. If you buy one book on the subject of Influence and Persuasion - make it this one!. Also, for reader's interest the book has been translated into a two-day workshop on how to best utilise the 6 principles of influence and persuasion and are run by Dr Cialdini's outfit called Influence At Work - they have a US and UK presence. Good reading!
Title : The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Author : Stephen R Covey
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : filled with important information
Not that I'm an expert in the subject, but I'm guessing that this isn't your typical success book. In many ways it's a general purpose psychology book, dealing with such things as motivation, organizational skills, and how to deal with stress. It's chock full of seemingly unique information, and interesting quotes and tidbits. For example, it states "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." The book isn't boring or repetitive, and is written in a pleasing, conversational manner. Everyone should give this a read, not just those interested in business success. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
Title : Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
Author : Brian Tracy
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : I read it seven times!
I've read about fifty self-help books and this is the best.
Brian Tracy can say in one page what other authors (notably anthony robbins) will spend a whole chapter on.
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