motivational

This website is about motivational skills, and also contains resources about motivational wallpapers , motivational interviewing , and motivational seminars .

Title : Positive Thinking, Positive Action: Essential Steps to Achieve Your Potential (Personal Development)
Author : Douglas Miller
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Voyage into your new future with confidence

In addition to the other POSITIVE contribution below this book is broken down into nice short easy to digest paragraphs chapters. This book is a no hype no frills book that gets to the point the basics of what it is to be "truly" successful, including many valuable and do-able tips exercises on how to achieve "REAL" success.

It's written in a very clear style, language typeset, the lessons and techniques are easy to read, understand digest, thus allowing one to get through the book without having to wade through pages of American Psychobabble slang. Nor does it languish on the "I knew a man once who bla bla bla ....." typical of most of the ancient PMA (Positive Mental Thinking" books about success positive thinking.

Douglas' reputation credentials must have been quite remarkable to have his book published by the BBC World Learning!

Take yourself out of the of Carnegie, Covey Hill et al dark ages read this modern thoroughly well researched course that will propel you to your own success.

No luck needed.....just read it!

Title : Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author : Robert Cialdini
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Good, but not totally convincing or that useful

I bought this book for two reasons - one to make myself more alert to sales techniques, and two to see if there are any useful insights to glean that could be applied to other areas of life.

On both counts the book delivers. Having recently been pitched to at work by a media tracking agency and nearly taken the bait (didn't in the end) I immediately recognised the use of reciprocity and scarcity to try and harry me into signing up. That alone was worth buying the book for, and I will definitely use that insight in future.

In addition, the chapter on consistency is also very useful. I've been involved in trying (and failing) to get people behind certain campaigns in the past. As such the discussion about getting people to make small commitments to establish a self image which they then feel the need to act consistently with both rang true on a personal level, and seems like something worth trying out in future.

So why only three stars? For one I did not find elements of the book convincing. The section dealing with newspaper coverage of suicides is the bit that really troubles me. Some of the data seems both to be limited and have been interpreted quite loosely. I would need a lot more convincing that the stats are being interpreted reasonably, it looks far too rough and ready. Given that this book is really about behavioural biases surely it should be extra careful about interpretaion of data as this is something we humans tend to be very bad at, always looking for patterns that aren't there and so on. That then leads me to query the hypothesis built on top of the data and to be honest I find myself not buying it. That also makes me query whether other chapters suffer from similar flaws.

Secondly, the book isn't actually that useful once you get your head around the key techniques because, as a previous reviewer says, simply having the knowledge that you have biases doesn't make them go away. To be really useful the book should have spent as much time reinforcing ways to resist the influence of biases as it does explaining what they are.

That said it is very readable, and I got what I wanted from it, but it could have been better.

Title : Lessons in Mastery: 5 Spoken Word Cds, 6 Hours
Author : Anthony Robbins
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Good for the price, but leaves you wanting more

I've been a massive fan of Tony Robbins for a few years now. He's one of the most successful people in the US and has made it his life's work to motivate people to act in the way he has.
Through this set of CD's, he explains why people don't change, and lays down the steps to actively improving your life through determined focus and motivation. Why can't you quit smoking? Why isn't your diet successful? Why does your job suck? Why am I so unhappy?
These are questions everyone asks at some point, and by changing your beliefs and feelings towards given situations, you can become instantly motivated to act and improve.
Although nowhere near as thorough as his Personal Power or Get The Edge series, these CD's offer good pointers on why we shouldn't settle for second best.

Title : The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide
Author : Sean Covey
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A truly wicked book...

I picked up this book merely because I had heard a lot about the seven habits of highly effective people. I don't think I really expected to learn anything from it. I guess I was, and still am really, the archetypal know it all teenager who doesn't need any help with anything. However, this book shows you life strategies that really do work. Some of the things in it are so simple that you wonder why you never thought like that before. This is a great book for teenagers, because we are often probably more likely to listen to a book than to a person.

Title : The Richest Man in Babylon: Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
Author : George S. Clason
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Want to Learn how to get wealth ?

This should be a must read especially for young people. Anyone who wants to get on the road to financial freedom needs to read this book.

Title : Think and Grow Rich
Author : Napoleon Hill
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Classic career wisdom accessibly explained

Napoleon Hill, author of this 1920s classic, will remind you of an older, wiser, slightly wacky uncle who advises you about careers, life and love. This book is a wonderful collection of tips - many based on the ideas of Hill's mentor Andrew Carnegie - that range from the practical (how to prepare a resume) to surprisingly New Age-like mystical talk about the infinite powers of the universe. Of course, like an old uncle, Hill can get long-winded and repetitive at times, but since he packs so much wisdom into his slender book, you will want to reread it over and over again, repetitions and all. We recommend his classic compendium to everyone who is dangling from the career ladder and wondering how to prosper.