Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9330 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Probably the best book ever written on personal growth
In the space of only a few years, Steve Pavlina - the author of this book - experienced more growth than many people do in a lifetime. He went from running a mildly successful independent computer game company to starting a web site that receives millions of hits a month. His site offers hundreds of articles and blog posts on personal growth resulting from Steve's personal development experiments. Early in the author's life, he became addicted to stealing and was eventually scheduled to be tried for felony grand theft. A mistake on the part of the court system meant he was given a sentence of community service rather than several years in prison. Steve recognized this moment as a turning point in his life and went on to graduate college in three semesters while double majoring in computer science and math. He then started a computer game company which experienced some minor successes, but not enough to keep him from going bankrupt.

The author then read hundreds of personal development books in the space of several years and used his life as a testing ground for the material contained in those books. He kept what worked and discarded what didn't, eventually growing his new computer game business into a profitable and widely respected company. At that point, he left the game industry in favor of starting a business to provide others with information on personal growth.

The book itself is divided into two parts. The first part covers the seven principles of personal growth. The second part then applies those principles to a number of areas where most people want to experience change in their lives.

The seven principles of personal growth covered at the start of the book are truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence. They each have sub-principles. Some of the chapters also feature potential blocks that interfere with the expression of each principle. Each chapter on the principles then ends with ways to develop each individual principle.

Here is an overview of the principles, ways they are blocked, and how to develop them further. The book covers each of these points in much greater detail.

The principles are:

Truth: Perception, Prediction, Accuracy, Acceptance, Self-Awareness
Blocks to Truth: Media Conditioning, Social Conditioning, False Beliefs, Emotional Interference, Addictions, Immaturity, Secondary Gain
How to Become More Truthful: Self-Assessment, Journaling, Media Fasting

Love: Connection, Communication, Communion
Blocks to Love: Disconnected Mind-set, Fear of Rejection, Incompatibility, Lack of Social Skills
How to Connect More Deeply: The Connection Exercise, The Time-Travel Meditation, Sharing, Fast-Forwarding, The Direct Approach, Appreciation, Gratitude

Power: Responsibility, Desire, Self-Determination, Focus, Effort, Self-Discipline
Blocks to Power: Timidity, Cowardice, Negative Conditioning
How to Build Your Power: Progressive Training, Master the First Hour, Personal Quotas, Worst First, Competition, Rest

Oneness: Empathy, Compassion, Honesty, Fairness, Contribution, Unity
How to Experience Oneness: Oneness World, Spend Time in Nature, Physical Contact, The Mirror Exercise

Authority: Command, Effectiveness, Persistence, Confidence, Significance
How to Increase Your Authority: Orchestrate Small Rebellions, Triage, Experiment,

Courage: Heart, Initiative, Directness, Honor
How to Build Courage: The Heart Question, Progressive Training, Education, Commit in Advance

Intelligence: Authenticity, Creative Self-Expression, Growth, Flow, Beauty
How to Live Intelligently: Conscious Assessment, Growth Blitzing, Cultivate an Intelligent Microcosm

At first glance, these principles may sound fairly generic, like the stuff that's been covered by hundreds of other self help books. However, the author of this book offers a unique take on each of these principles based on his experiences going from a nobody to a successful entrepreneur and growth-minded individual. Many self-help authors become famous just from writing a book or speaking - without accomplishing anything beforehand. The author of this book, however, started profitable software and web businesses even before he wrote this book.

A major component of "Personal Development for Smart People" involves testing personal development and self-help ideas in your own life. Then, based off the results of this "ready-fire-aim" approach, you refine the techniques further to get closer to your goal. The second half of this book includes ways to apply each of the seven personal growth principles to elements of an individual's life. These life areas include: Habits, Career, Money, Health, Relationships, and Spirituality. This is where the book really shines. Each chapter has concrete guidelines to improve each aspect of your life. I am more interested in the goal-oriented and business-related material on the author's site and in his book (rather than his spiritual writings) but your experience may be different.

Saying something along the lines of "if you buy any personal development book, buy this one" is a worn-out phrase, but it's the truth in this case. This book is based on the author's experience of reading hundreds of personal development books and finding out what worked for him and for the readers of his site. This book easily has over a hundred ideas that can be applied to the life of anyone who wants to grow and live. Everyone who has read self-help books has experienced the disappointment of getting a book and finding it full of fluff with no accurate or actionable ideas. That's not the case here, and I'm glad I read Steve's book.

Interesting and useful, but a little too strange for me!
Steve Pavlina has a very popular personal development website, www.stevepavlina.com, and this is his new book.


In a nutshell

This book takes a new approach to personal development. I've read numerous books on goal-setting, relationships, career, finances, etc. and 99% of them focus on the practical things you can do in order to achieve success in whatever area you'd like to. "Personal Development for Smart People" is unique in that it tries to establish a set of core principles that form a foundation of all personal development, rather than just focusing on what you should try to DO. Steve Pavlina believes that it is acting out of the 7 core principles of Truth, Love, Power, Oneness, Authority, Courage, and Intelligence that guarantees success. Just like how there are universal laws of physics, he believes that he has discovered the universal laws of personal growth.The first half of the book explains the 7 core principles, and the second half of the book discusses how to apply them.


How different is "Personal Development for Smart People" from other personal development books?

It is extremely differernt- sometimes too different for my comfort. Of course, Steve Pavlina is very different from your typical self-help book author. He starts off the book by describing how he was arrested for felony grand theft as a 19 year-old, and subsequently got kicked out of college. He enrolled in another college and graduated in THREE semesters, while double-majoring in computer science and mathematics. Now, he is a vegetarian, and eats only raw food. He is also married to psychic medium/intuitive counselor.

So... you would expect Steve's book to be a little out-of-the-ordinary, yea?

Indeed it is. For example, in illustrating the "connection" principle under his core principle of Love, he asks you to imagine an everday object like a pen. He asks you to feel the connection between you and the object, to imagine that the object is part of you. He asks you to send your love energy toward the object and say "I love you," and "You're beautiful."

I don't know about you, but I didn't do that exercise, and I don't ever plan to! It's far too strange for me!

"Personal Development for Smart People" has many other strange exercises, like "Time-Travel Meditation"... I think that the name would tell you that it's another rather unusual exercise?


How practical is this book?

Despite the many weird things that Steve writes in his book, there are many insightful things that he mentions, too. In the second half of his book, he discusses how you could apply the 7 core principles in the areas of Habits, Career, Money, Health, Relationships, and Spirituality. He has many interesting views on everyday issues. For instance, he says that the 2 components of career are its Medium and its Message. Its Medium is what it is, eg. you're a doctor, a salesman, a teacher, etc. while its Message is what beliefs/values you communicate through your Medium, eg. compassion, love, curiosity, enthusiasm. He says that often, we focus too much on the Medium, when it is the Message that really brings you fulfillment in career. He says that in order to build an authentic career, you must ask yourself 4 questions: 1) What must I do? 2) What can I do? 3) What do I want to do? 4) What should I do? When you find that the answer to the 4 questions is the same, you're on the right path.

He mentions a lot of other practical things you can do to improve your relationships, finances, health, etc. - and his advice is all based on his 7 core principles.

All in all, I would say that "Personal Development for Smart People" is much more belief-centered than action-centered- unlike most other personal development books.


Bottomline

My personal belief is that being should precede doing. I've heard it said before: "Being precedes doing, that's why we're called human beings, not human doings." Steve Pavlina clearly believes this too, which is why he focuses on principles rather than actions.

However, there are just some weird things (spritual and philosophical in a strange sort of way?) that Steve writes in this book that just give me goosebumps. I think this will be the case for the average reader... but there are definitely a lot of interesting perspectives and useful information presented in "Personal Development for Smart People". But I could never fully subscribe to his beliefs/core principles, even though everyone could benefit from a lot of the practical applications he suggests.

An Oustanding Accessible Practical Integrative Framework
There are thousands of books published in the personal development field.

So why should you read this one? Because it's an...

Accessible. Practical. Integrative Framework.

Accessible: This book was not written from a Tibetan monastery or Princeton think-tank-- it was written by a transparent, plain spoken guy who is sharing what he has learned from both extensive reading and analysis and the lab of his own life. You won't need to haul out your dictionary or scratch your head and think, "Now what does he mean by that?"

Practical: This book gives more than just concepts- in each chapter there are practical exercises where you can put the concepts into direct doable action designed to kick-start growth and change in your life. I dare you to read this book and not find a dozen ideas that will REALLY WORK in your life immediately.

Integrative Framework: I've read other books that helped me with organization or work or approach to life or understanding myself. They were helpful, but they dealt with only one component of my life. One the other hand, Personal Development for Smart People gave me an overall framework that let me see a complete picture of my growth as a person, and allowed me to integrate those other good ideas and books into the framework. This allowed me to utilize all my resources more effectively and see where they fit into my life as a whole.

What's inside......

In the introduction, Steve sets out the question,

"What does it mean for us to grow as conscious human beings, and how do we intelligently guide that process?"

He answers that there are three universal principles: truth, love & power. The goal of the book is, "to teach you how to bring all areas of your life into alignment with these universal principles." He starts out with chapters on each principle, its components, common blocks to it, and ways to increase it in your life. Each chapter contains clearly written insights, engaging personal experiences, and practical exercises.

He next devotes chapters to principles he derives from the first three, which include oneness (truth+love), authority (truth+power), and courage (love+power). He caps it off with a chapter on intelligence, which he defines as the integration and mastery of all six principles.

After a discussion of the principles, he moves to application. There are chapters on how to apply each principle to the areas of habits, career, money, health, relationships, and spirituality.

What did I like about this book?

-I love that it is an integrative framework that I can fix in my head and use to structure my insights and actions about personal growth.

-The three basic principles are solid and I was immediately able to apply them to my own life. They echo the three principles that the Apostle Paul once wrote, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

-The book has given me insight and motivation to make some real, substantial changes in my life. I currently am in week 2 of getting up at 5am every morning (even weekends), exercising a half hour a day, and not eating dessert or red meat. I've lost 7 pounds, crafted an effective life purpose statement and feel greater clarity and productivity.

What came up short?

-Steve's principle of "oneness" is not a universally accepted principle in the same category as truth, power, & love. For Steve, this belief serves him because he rejects the idea of a Judeo-Christian Creator God. For me, knowing that I am a loved child of an omnipotent Sovereign works better than thinking I am one with everything else in the world.

-Some of the application chapters were strong (money was especially helpful to me), but others such as relationships, health and spirituality again strayed more into aspects of Steve's personal worldview than universally accepted principles.

Overall, Personal Development for Smart People is a great read and a fantastic resource. There are some parts you will likely not agree with, but there's a lot of gold to be mined and effectively used in your life. I've read it twice in two weeks, and already given two copies to friends. Highly recommended