No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life
Well, based on the evidence presented in this book, I have been a Nice Guy for much of my adult life. Not everything applies, but enough to tip the scales in favour of appreciating this work and the strategies needed to overcome the Nice Guy Syndrome which is founded in early life experiences. Interestingly, some of the personal development books I have been reading, which are centred more on performance and business skills, have also suggested that a lot of our limiting beliefs around success and money are conditioned into us in our early lives through the people around us whose main goal is to protect us. These protection mechanisms…
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny
Another excellent book. The more I read books designed to help us lead a better, more fulfilled and thus successful life, the more I see the same patterns emerging. The patterns (or tenets) are at the core of 99% of all the personal development courses and underly everything that the majority of high profile (et al) trainers deliver. However, if you’re like me, you won’t get it all from a single book. You might not get it from 100 books. But, if you’re like me, reading different perspectives on the same fundamental principles helps cement the truth of those core building blocks. Each of the stories in this book (and…
Stealing Fire
Mind. Blown. The book shed some light onto altered states and how they seem to play an evolutionary role in our species. It investigated the role these states play in organisations ranging from Google to the SEALs, along with its pioneers and more mainstream applications through events such as Burning Man. It was enlightening and documented the risks and rewards of ‘getting out of your head’ (so to speak). If you have watched the Fringe TV show, much of the content of this book won’t be new to you but it will be put into context. Although the book did discuss the role of pharmaceutically induced altered states, it also…
High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way
Excellent work that puts performance into context based on research performed on thousands of high performers over many years. This book distils the key actions you should review and take if you want to be a high(er) achiever. If you have read any of the founders of personal development (like Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, et al) you will recognise some of the same principles, but this updates the ‘founding fathers’ and delves deeper into specific actions you should take and do. A great template which should be studied and applied. I have worked through the book in audio format and it highlighted areas I needed to work on. It added…
A Rebel’s Guide to the Best Self Journal
I have been trying to find a good system that works for me to achieve better results day in, day out. In this post, I look at the Best Self Journal from the point of view of my character traits – a Rebel personality (according to Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz). Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. They want to do what they want to do, in their own way and in their own time. If someone asks or tells them to do something, they resist. They don’t even want to tell themselves what to do. They resist internal expectations with the same fervour as those imposed from without.…