motivational

This website is about motivational theorists, and also contains resources about motivational speach , motivational stories , and funny motivational quotes .

Title : It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be
Author : Paul Arden
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Motivational?

This book by Paul Arden has been dubbed by many to be a fantastic motivational book that is capable of turning people into super human geniuses. In reality this book takes only an hour or less to read through and unless you really attempt to apply any new ideas will be a waste of your time.

Much of the book to me was useless and some of it I already knew, however it is still a good book for getting you thinking in another way. Really the author is telling you to throw out everything you think you know and listen to his ideas of what made him successful, and some of the ideas are very good.

I have found a few of the ideas in this book very useful and have used the ideas such as 'Do not seek praise seek criticism' are simple but good. Many people are unable to open up and be wrong and make mistakes and learn from them, especially people in positions such as management who feel they have to be seen as always correct in front of their staff.

This book really is an individual thing, It may be of massive help to you or you may completely disagree with the ideas put forward. Either way you have to look at this book as one mans ideas and decide for yourself whether to apply them or take them onboard in your life. Worth a look at the price being asked for it.

Title : Be Your Own Life Coach: How to Take Control of Your Life and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams
Author : Fiona Harrold
Rating : 1 Stars out of 5.
Summary : ok but not great

typivcal fiona harrold. shes better on paper than in person. she's very much the businesswoman. self promotion first. some of this book may help you. but i wouldnt bother attending her seminars. waste of time.

Title : Self-esteem Affirmations: Motivational Affirmations for Building Confidence and Recognizing Self-worth
Author : Louise L. Hay
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : uplifting it heals you

if you want to feel good about yourself it helps you let go of built in past tramas,your tears will surface, but it clears you out,
[Great for healing your life if you are going through emotions],
I am starting to love myself which i never looked at before listing to this cd
I also recommend a book i bought just after, this will awaken you to who you are she is a medium and reiki master of healing and it will help you understand why we are here
both this cd and the book [the calling of your true self] will help heal your life great cd great book both recommended highly

Title : Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author : Robert Cialdini
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Excellent content somewhat marred by impractical conclusions

3rd edition/publication (2007), Collins Business Essentials, 320 pages (of which 280 pages for actual book)

Influence is another of the twenty books Charlie Munger recommends in the second edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack. Its content is excellent (and sometimes even hair-raisingly remarkable - as when he shows that media reporting of suicides actually causes more of them via the social proof bias) but I think Cialdini could have done a much better job of turning the research evidence into useful/practical advice. (The same problem manifests itself in Gilbert's book `Stumbling on Happiness' - though Cialdini's is the better book.)

I was discussing this book with a friend who had also read it and I thought he put it very well: Cialdini is one of those clever people who is not very wise. That is also why Poor Charlie's Almanack is so good and unusual: Munger is both clever and has deliberately attempted to distil a lifetime's worth of reading over a broad subject matter area into practical advice on how to live a successful/useful life.

In particular, Cialdini shows us clearly that a significant number of our psychological biases work completely unconsciously. (By that I mean it can be demonstrated that a certain bias has affected a group of individual's actions/conclusions whilst they strenuously deny they have paid any attention to or are even totally unaware of the biasing factor.) For example, Cialdini quotes one study where "men who saw a new-car ad that included a seductive young woman model rated the car as faster, more appealing, more expensive-looking, and better designed than did men who saw the same ad without the model. Yet when asked later, the men refused to believe that the presence of the young woman had influenced their judgements."

He then goes on to suggest various complicated ways to try to monitor ourselves to see if we are being affected by some of these biases - in order that we can attempt to limit the damage from faulty decisions (often in situations deliberately set up to cause our faulty decisions to be detrimental to us and advantageous to some other). For example, he highlights the "extreme caution" needed in auction situations where one encounters the "devilish construction of scarcity plus rivalry" - and suggests that we watch ourselves for signs of arousal so that we can stop short.

Well, I think Munger and his partner Warren Buffett have a much more practical and simpler way of dealing with that problem, based on the wisdom of the rustic that Munger likes to quote: "all I want to know is where I'm going to die so can avoid going there." The whole thrust of Cialdini's book is that these biases are often unconscious and are in any case often very strong (and usually much stronger that we believe/expect) - which is another way of saying you're unlikely to have good results fighting against them.

Much better to simply bypass the problem where possible and do as Buffett does and refuse to get involved in auction situations. Using rules like this, to paraphrase Munger on a different subject (tax shelters): if you always avoid auction situations you might miss out on the odd good deal, but overall your life is likely to be better.

This is also why I consider Taleb (Fooled by Randomness) to be much wiser than Cialdini: he understands that being aware of biases doesn't make them go away. You need tricks and methods to live successfully with them.

I also think the advice in Cialdini's epilogue is very poor. He suggests that we rise up to fight people/organisations who misuse our psychological biases for their own ends: "In short, we should be willing to use boycott, threat, confrontation, censure, tirade, nearly anything, to retaliate."

This is crazy advice: the effort and time required to do it would leave little for anything else and would also guarantee a miserable life focussed on negativity. It also shows Cialdini's lack of familiarity with good training principles (an excellent book on the subject is Karen Pryor's `Don't Shoot The Dog'). Plenty of research now shows that positive reinforcement (rewarding behaviour you like) is at least as effective as negative reinforcement and much more so than punishment. It also has the huge benefit of leading to a much more pleasant life.

However, even with those caveats (essentially that you have to do your own thinking about how to cope with the biases that Cialdini does an excellent job of laying out) it is still a very useful book.

Title : S.U.M.O. (Shut Up, Move On): The Straight-Talking Guide to Creating and Enjoying a Brilliant Life
Author : Paul McGee
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Asolutely fantastic

this book is absolutley fantastic it is easy to read and easy to understand. i agree wiv the last reviewr the best self book i have ever read

Title : The Four Agreements: Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Toltec Wisdom)
Author : Don Miguel Ruiz
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : great inspirational book

A really good read! a self help book that is true and believable. it made me think!