Product Description

Empowering advice and anecdotes from one of America's leading motivational speakers aims at inspiring readers to create a truly happy and successful lives. 200,000 first printing. $175,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #962713 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 271 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The television personality and motivational speaker's guide was on PW 's audio bestseller list.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Brown, an up-and-coming motivational speaker, a.k.a. The Motivator, here offers his personal growth message in print. Once labeled educationally mentally retarded, he has been a sanitation worker, disk jockey, activist, state legislator, and night club emcee. Through his "Nine Principles of Life Enrichment," he proposes that anyone can succeed by stoking the fires of hunger for a dream. Brown's belief in our responsibility for our own success at times suggests a Pygmalion complex. Some of what Brown says can be found in a slightly different arrangement in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People ( LJ 3/15/90), Richard Gillett's Change Your Mind, Change Your World ( LJ 7/92), and Gilbert Brim's Ambition ( LJ 2/15/92). Having participated in four PBS specials, Brown may be familiar to many patrons. Public libraries should have this title in their self-help sections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/92.
-Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Les Brown came up the hard way. He and his brother were adopted at the age of six weeks by a single woman and raised in the Liberty City section of Miami, Florida. In the fifth grade, Les was mistakenly declared "educably mentally retarded." In spite of these conditions, he became a disc jockey, a community activist, and later served three terms in the Ohio State Legislature, becoming chairman of its Human Resources Committee. He is an internationally acclaimed speaker and has had five PBS television specials.

Customer Reviews

Give your life a boost!
This is a great book for anyone who is feeling down or unmotivated and need a good boost. I've read many motivational books, this is probably the best one. Les Brown is not only a talented speaker but a very good writer as well. You won't be bored for a second while reading this book. What makes it an interesting read is that he always incorporate some of his personal stories with each lesson he preaches.

Here are some memorable teachings I treasure:

-Always set goals. For today. For this week. For this month. For 3 months. For this year. For 5 years...

-The only thing that can really stop you from living your dreams is you.

-Whatever you have done up to this point is a reflection of what you believe you deserve and what you believe is possible for your life.

-People with limited visions of themselves can not possibly have a larger vision of you.

-Don't operate on the basis of what you see. Operate on the basis of the possibilities you envisioned.

I saved the best ones for last:

-Rule #1: Don't sweat the small stuff, Rule #2: It is all small stuff

-More important than anything else is the choice of our attitude. Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

-In the end, it is the person you become not the things you achieve, that is most important.

LIVE YOUR DREAMS - Les Brown
Whether by the written word, by voice (audio tape), video, or live presentation, few people can truly stir the human spirit to action in the maner that only Les Brown can do. Some people may truly get his message the first read - I don't care if I must read it over and over the rest of my life ... may I never get enough, and I wish the same for the next reader.

if you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it...
this book was outstanding when les first handed it (signed) to me back at a motivational speaking/business seminar many many years ago that i was also speaking at...and it is just as grande and effective now. the ditty 'if you want a thing bad enough...' became a personal motto. i have learned to 'be unreasonable' in my expectations of myself...knowing that 'no matter how many times life knocks you down...if you can look up, you can get up!' i managed at 35 to get into the army, and then to surpass not only what was expected of my age group in fitness (APFTs)...but also of better than half of those 10 years my junior! it has very much become this soldiers credo...and too now is effecting others as i continue to preach it.
i would highly recommend this book to just about anyone.