Personal Development for Smart People (Book Review)This book review was done by Gerard
Personal Development for Smart People Who is Steve Pavlina?For those who don’t know who the author is, he runs a highly successful blog which receives millions of readers each month.In his book he provides a brief history of himself almost getting sentenced for stealing- he was only 19 at that time. Just before he thought he had wrecked his bright future (he had been a top student in school) but a little mistake caused him to serve 60 hours community service instead of 1-2 years jail. After this Steve took the opportunity to turn his life around and got himself involved in personal development, and some of his successes were evident when he graduated after 3 semesters at college and also started a profitable computer games business. His bigger success was creating his highly successful blog which he shares his experience throughout his book. My ReviewBrief overview of the bookWhen I first saw the table of contents, the book looked like it was going to cover the topics shallowly. However it’s actually quite the opposite. The first part of the book covers: Truth, Love, Power, Oneness, Authority, Courage and Intelligence. He gets into the details of each one of these principles, and also writes how you can further improve each area. Then the second part of the book covers habits, career, money, health, relationships and spirituality (The titles sound simplistic but he certainly covers the topic in extreme depth). In short the first part covers the 7 principles of growth, and the second part shows you how to apply them into your life. All in all it's a rather complete personal development guide which will help you improve every area of your life. What I liked about this book is that throughout the book, Steve recommends some exercises for you to test and apply in your life. The advice was practical and immediately applicable. For those who are looking for time management advice, he offers good advice like building momentum, forming habits and how to keep your focus on projects and tasks. Apart from self growth, I particularly like his advice on business and career, where he shares how he started his highly successful blog and his own experience in personal development. Truth- Removing self denial will help people perceive their current situation more realistically and respond correctly, instead of just cheating themselves. Love- What he mainly writes about here is the connections you make in your life. Are you connecting to positive things or negative things? Power- This is the part where he asks you to be more proactive and responsible. He teaches you how to move closer to your desires by applying the principles. This is perfect for those who are not really reaching your goal in life. I like the way he writes because it gives you clear steps to follow. What caught my attention…One thing that caught my attention was his goal setting advice. It wasn’t the usual advice on goal setting. Pay attention to what he writes here:“Many people set goals and then assume the path to reach them will require suffering and sacrifice. This is a recipe for failure” When I think of it, I had been guilty of doing this. Have you visualized your goals and inserted discouraging thoughts to your goals? Steve gave an example of setting a business goal. First you imagine yourself doing what you love and enjoying a huge stream of income, and then you place negative thoughts like the risk you have to face or how much effort it will take. Some people delude themselves with negative thoughts and Steve tells you to remove this when you set your goals. But these negative circumstances have not occurred yet! You have to bring yourself back to reality and stop dwelling on things you don’t want. Any criticisms? If there is a minor complaint with this book is the chapter on spirituality, it didn’t really interest me much, but this is just my personal opinion. I liked his career and business advice. "Is this book for me?"People who are looking for quick-fix solutions may not like this book. To quote him on persistence and success, “The honest truth is that it’s very difficult – nearly impossible – to succeed at something you’ve never done before”So this book may not be suitable for those who are not willing to take action and applying each of the principles in your life. You can choose to follow the advice or develop your own style of achieving success in each area through experimenting. If you are looking for a way to be successful in personal development Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People is a good guide to embark on your personal development journey. I highly recommend this book- every page is food for thought and there is no fluff. The price is $24.95 or you can get it at a discount at Amazon.com. Here is the link for the book on Amazon.com for those who are interested:
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