I have purchased and read (or listened to the audio-book) probably around 30 books on self-improvement (self help) and motivation. I’ve told you the common messages in a previous post. And, I’ve told you what works and what doesn’t. But what if you want to read (or listen to) these yourself? Which ones should you pick? Below are my recommendations.
Category Archives: Lifestyle Design
Self-help Motivational Reading List
Busy vs. Productive
People admire others for being active and doing things, and not sitting around and thinking about doing things. I think that’s why people have been conditioned to be “busy.”
But is this really a good thing?
Work – Life Balance
Probably one of the most-asked questions in the workplace is about how to achieve a balance between work and the rest of your life. Almost nobody seems to be able to actually do it any more. Why? I think the problem is not trying to achieve the balance, but it is in the question itself. Maybe if we stopped asking how to achieve the balance between work and life, and started looking at and changing our assumptions, we could figure this out! Continue reading
How to Know More But Read Less
Hear of a lot of good books but don’t have the time to read them? Not into listening to audio books in your car? eBooks not for you? There’s an easy way to get a book’s knowledge into your head. It’s called a book summary.
Modeling
According to Anthony Robbins
If I see success in someone or something, I want it too! The best and fastest way to achieve success is to model myself or my product after something that is already successful.
Here’s what I did. Continue reading
Flow
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in his book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
It turns out that the state of flow comes more naturally to some people. Some people are Autotelic and this means that they have self-motivation and are internally driven. This quality of their personality makes them “gifted” when it comes to being able to achieve the state of flow. But others can achieve this state as well if they know what to do to achieve it.
How do you achieve it? There are certain factors that allow the state of flow, and they are…
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is necessary for any individual to succeed. In 100% of every case where someone has succeeded at anything, they have had intrinsic motivation. Do you?
First, I’ll describe the two types of motivations, and how they occur in my life and yours every day.
Working with Foreign Cultures – Changing Speech and Writing
When working with foreign cultures, it can influence the way you speak and write to the point where your speaking and writing with your home country colleagues can change – for the worse!
I’ve noticed this because I have worked with foreign cultures for years now and have adjusted my writing style in emails to foreign contacts in order to accommodate their limited understanding of my English language and grammar. How, you ask?
Does driving over the speed limit really get you there that much faster?
Maybe it’s time you slowed down. Now that 5 mph over the limit is not an “accepted” amount by law enforcement, I took a hard look at just how much time I save by speeding:
Easy Ways to Practice Writing
I’ve been wanting to write a book for awhile and trying to figure out how to make time has been difficult. Practice makes perfect, I know, but how can I write my book if I can’t find the time? Finding the time is only one part of the problem – where and what to write are other issues. When do I write and why?
I studied myself and found that if I had an interest, I would write. For example, email at work. I am forced to use email at work and have to write it. However, email-writing is not the same as book-writing. It just isn’t because the style isn’t right. Continue reading
Try Until – A Debrouillard Strategy
First, a definition of the French word, debrouillard…
debrouillard: [de-broo-yar]
- adjective
1. skilled at adapting to any situation;
resourceful.- noun
2. a resourceful person who can act
independently or cope with any development.
One of the things that this word means to me is that I must “try until.” This “try until” attitude is a hallmark of great people and it is a system of thinking that will make you extraordinary! Who would not want someone on their team that embodies the debrouillard mindset? Who wouldn’t want to know someone like this? They don’t give up.
Continue reading
How to Listen to Audio Books While Driving
Because I have a long commute (1+ hours), I use my time in the car to listen to audio books. This allows me to make use of that drive time that would otherwise be wasted in listening to the radio, cursing other drivers, etc. But there are a few things that I have learned that are absolutely essential to getting the most out of any audio book while driving: Continue reading
Print Screen Revisited
Most people know the print screen command on their PC computers and use it to copy a “screen shot” of their screen to the clipboard.
If not, here’s how: To save a “screen shot” of your screen to the clipboard, you press the “Prt Scr” button on the upper right of the keyboard. Doing this, you get a print of the screen, saved to the clipboard where you can paste it into another program’s screen (like PowerPoint, Word, Writer, Excel, etc.).
But wait. There’s more. Continue reading
Zoom Your Browser
When using the Firefox browser, I found a neat trick! If you are becoming nearsighted (as I am), then for any page you are viewing, you can zoom in on it and make it larger very easily: Continue reading
Too Good to be True – Too Bad to be True
I’ve been told that “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” This is a great saying and almost always right! I avoid getting my hopes up if something just seems implausible (couldn’t happen) or improbable (probably won’t happen) because it seems just “too good.”.
But how often have you heard “if it seems too bad to be true, it probably is?” I turned the other (“good”) saying around and got this one. And why not – it’s the same thing really!
Bypass Email – Communicate Effectively
Email is over-used for communication in business and personal life. It has its place, but has become the lazy person’s alternative communication strategy.
For non-confrontational people and organizations, it has become the standard way to communicate. I think this is wrong for a few reasons.
- Some people studied it and found that a small percentage of communication effectiveness is via the written word. The remaining (>80%) is through the spoken word, expressions, gestures, and other body language. So email is not very effective at getting a message across.
- You can easily be misunderstood when communicating via email, especially if the recipient has never met you or “know what you mean” when you say what you say. There are no visual or auditory cues that help state your message – only what you wrote. We all know that words and phrases can be taken different ways.
- It is not constrained by time. By this I mean that if I am talking directly with someone, they respond immediately. If via email, the response will be delayed. This creates anxiety for the sender if they think of email as immediate (as many people seem to do). Anxiety makes communication worse.
The solutions? Simple. Continue reading
Setting Goals
I would say that every self-help or motivational book that I have ever read has said one common thing:
You must set goals!
But how? What do goals look like? How should they be written? How many should there be? How do I stick with my goals? Do I just write them and leave them for later? What do I do with them?
The answers are in very few books, but I’ve found them:
“The Four Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss
“Ultimate Power” by Tony Robbins
“Unleash the Giant Within” by Tony Robbins
“Ultimate Goals Program” by Brian Tracy
“The Magic of Thinking Big” by David Schwartz
In order for the information in these books to really work, I had to take bits and pieces from several different books and combine them into one coherent message. I tried it to see if it would work for me, and it does. It can work for you as well. Here are the steps you’ll need: Continue reading
Self-help – What works and what doesn’t?
You’ve seen my list of self-help lessons I have learned from reading lots of books on the subject of personal development, and my self-help book reading lists. But what really works?
Here again is my list of lessons learned from reading self-help and motivational texts, but this time with notation to tell you what works and what doesn’t, and what is supported by scientific evidence, and what just seems to work without science to back it.
Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn: Two of the most effective personal development gurus available.
My List:
A Chronology of Motivational Writers and Speakers
Updated 2-August-2011
This concept map shown here is the linkage and chronology (upper people are older or were born earlier) of motivational and self-help writers and speakers throughout history, based on how they attributed who taught or influenced them. Continue reading
Self-help’s Common Messages
I have read a lot of “self-help” and “motivational” books lately. They certainly work. They all have the same things in common. Here they are: Continue reading
Practice Makes Perfect
Practice makes perfect. Heard it a million times, huh? You think you know what it means, but do you really?
No. You don’t. Continue reading
Assertiveness
Here is a cheap, easy and effective life-enhancing technique that you can begin and see immediate results whether you fit any of the criteria or not. I highly recommend that you do this because it is simple, effective, and it works immediately. You will see results.
I have learned that many people, including me, are not very assertive. They get “ran over’ by everyone else and do not stand up for themselves. They get frustrated at how things are going. Discouraged. Upset. Maybe they even live in constant anxiety and fear. Fear of losing their job. Fear of failure. Anxious to please others. Sound even a little bit familiar to you?
If so, there’s good news. You can change this. I have started this process myself, and it is making a huge difference in how I feel and how I deal with others. Keep in mind here that I didn’t have to do it. I didn’t have to change anything. I was acceptably effective at dealing with situations and people, but I wanted more. That is the key. I wanted to be better.
Also, if you are the other way – too assertive. Too angry all the time. Too demanding. This can help.
Doesn’t sound familiar? Do it anyway. You will be surprised! No matter who you are, you have to deal with people – probably daily. Deal with them better. Interact with them better. Feel better about what you do. Reduce your anxiety.
Enough of me talking, o.k. here it is. It’s easy: Continue reading
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Lars Lentz
