
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.

Title : The Life You Were Born to Live: Finding Your Life Purpose
Author : Dan Millman
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : frighteningly accurate
I would not normally even approach such a book, if it were not lent to me by someone whom I trust and admire so much.
I consider myself a skeptic, but found the information given incredibly accurate, and specific.
This book is a little unsettling as it does not fit with my understanding of the universe. I deny neither the rational nor the mystical, yet this book's placing between the two was uncomfortable for me. It is beyond my understanding that what seem such arbritary divisions of people can be so squarely and accurately categorized. But if the universe fitted entirely with my dull and tiny understanding, there would be no life either.

Title : Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in Charge
Author : Roger Fisher
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Stirring and self-developing book
I read and read this book as an IT professional and really learnt about most of the problems I've been encountering. I hence moved from complaint to contributive proposition and got self-confident in any further action taken since. Moreover, most of the examples produced are common to major enterprises. I am convinced things could be better in some enterprises, had the management read this sort of best-practice-minded book. I have started disseminating the book around me and hope it'll help go ahead solving problems and sharing knowledge. It's clear problems mostly arise due to a lack of managerial culture.

Title : Unleash the Warrior Within: Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals
Author : Richard Machowicz
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Some good ideas here, worth a read
It's not that easy to evaluate and review `self-help' books, as what I find useful is probably not at all useful to someone else. I guess it depends on what your perceived `problem' is, or more positively, what is `your area of desired improvement'.
I liked this book, I found it very helpful. This book deals with fears that are preventing you from becoming the person you wish or be or attaining a target that you are aiming for in your life.
The approach is very aggressive as you would expect from the title and front cover. Machowicz encourages you to `live life aggressively'. Machowicz draws on his experience as a Navy SEAL, and tells us about how he went through some very extreme situations that inevitably lead to fear and how he developed mechanisms to cope with and conquer that fear. It is a macho approach and in some places reads very much like the true to life novel by Andy McNab, `Bravo Two Zero'. However, I don't think that should put readers off, there is some very useful insights here. Take the CARVER matrix for example. This is a target evaluation method of military origin. Machowicz applies it to everyday life. If you enter `Waging Project Management Warfare' into a search engine you will find an article where an attendee of one of Machowicz classes applies the principle to software development!
There is definitely as much value in reading this as in relying solely on the works of desk bound psychologists.
I also liked the fact that it was written relatively recently, 2002. The context is relevant. I have read seminal works that were written nearer the turn of the last century, and although the content of these is beyond reproach they are very dated and increasingly hard to relate to the present and the type of problems encountered in today's world.
Some of the author's quotes come from such diverse works as Dune, by Frank Herbert. He refers to the training of Paul Atreides where he is taught that `fear is the mindkiller'. As a part-time Sci-Fi fan, I am encouraged to read a self-help book that values some of my favourite literature.
Throughout the book Machowicz refers to his self-defence style called Bukido. This comes across as a bit of a blatant sales pitch, but does nonetheless encourage the curious to enter `Bukido' into a search engine to see what it is all about. You might want to do that before you buy the book! Machowicz seems to be aggressively following his own advice, and is also now a TV star I believe hosting `Future Weapons' on the Discovery channel. Maybe that in itself should suggest that there is something of value in this book. However, reading the output of famous people telling us `how to become successful' does not always work. I'm thinking of the book by Noel Edmunds, `Positively Happy'. It is also very hard to determine if you should take the cynical, and possibly accurate viewpoint, that the author is more interested in selling his product, in this case his book and his training courses, than he is in the altruistic intent of making you a better person.
The author's intentions and motivations aside, I picked some ideas from this book that I liked and am actively making use of them. Although I have completed the book I still want to review some of the sections at a later date. So for me there was some useful ideas here and so I give it a four star rating.

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.
Other Related Resources:
1: http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/?page_id=73
2: http://www.aspiringspirit.com/2006/03/03/hassleme/
3: http://www.gentrystyle.com/sport/fat-attack-how-to-lose-weight-and-influence-people/
4: http://www.tgdarkly.com/blog/?p=755
5: http://www.themillionairesecrets.net/how-to-stay-motivated-all-the-time/