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Personal Development for Smart People

The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth

By Steve Pavlina

(7)

| Hardcover | 9781401922757

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2 Reviews

1 person find this helpful

His blog is way better than his book.

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Luca said on Jan 30, 2010 | Add your feedback

Speachless

Steve's writing style and observations have really resonated with my essence.
For starters, Steve is a prolific writer who has written 1000 articles. Nearly all of them are at least 2000 words.
Through writing about his personal experience and challenges, I've found him to be one of the most inspiri ... (continue)

Steve's writing style and observations have really resonated with my essence.
For starters, Steve is a prolific writer who has written 1000 articles. Nearly all of them are at least 2000 words.
Through writing about his personal experience and challenges, I've found him to be one of the most inspiring people in the world. He has motivated me to do many things.
I was totally excited to know he was releasing a book. So I placed a pre-order waiting for the book to arrive, knowing it will be awesome.
And I finally started reading what's inside...
I must say I feel humble beside this book.
I started reading it 2 years ago, but I didn't feel ready to really grasp the content then.
I needed to really live some of the experiences described by Steve to truly understand.
Why this Title? What does “Personal Development for Smart People” mean?
This isn't a self help book.
Don't let the title fool you.
This is a book about something I can call “practical spirituality."
Steve had condensed tons of books, videos and ideas, merging them with his own personal experience. He's the type of guy who has to have a first hand experience, and share it with others, before even talking about it. The result is a book that teaches you higher concepts of spirituality that are down to earth and practical.
I have read and practiced tons of self-help books, but this one stands out. Steve doesn't like to write about the usual stuff you find in most books like goal setting or motivation. He really wants you to look at self help from a different, higher angle. He's direct and honest, spiritually honest. He asks you all the time: are you telling the truth to yourself? Can you really accept fully responsibility of your life and your results?
Do you have the courage to fail and to learn from your mistake, since it's the only way to grow?
Personal development, to Steve, is the conscious pursuit of intelligence. And he defines intelligence as the sum of Love, Truth and Power.
In the first 3 chapters, he delves into the specifics of those principles, sharing stories from his life, making statements that make you think, with good use of quotes.
He talks about goal setting, motivation and the usual stuff you expect in a self help book, but he will offer a new different angle on them, surprising you and expanding your reality model.
Steve is the kind of guy who has really tried everything out there and formed an educated opinion about it. He knows a lot about perception and how we relate to reality. He's been there, and it's easy to relate regardless of your actual level of consciousness evolution.
Truth is the ability to accept full responsibility for your current reality, no matter how bad or good it is. And also to make accurate predictions of your path without lying to yourself.
This means having self awareness, honesty and acceptance of your current level of evolution.
Then we have the principle of love, the ability to choose to connect to something else.
He explores the principle by dissecting love into empathy, oneness, etc.
Then we have power, the most interesting chapter to me.
Here he talks about what it takes to take charge of your power. He addresses deeply the fears and beliefs of the majority of people (you included). Just the session about focus is worth the book's price many times over. He gives his point of view on goals, and his approach is totally different from any self book out there. He really hits me in the core, changing my belief totally on how to stay motivated and how to set a goal. Before reading this book, I used to believe you should set a SMART goal, meaning a goal that is specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time sensitive. Well after reading the session on focus inside the power chapter, I was totally blown away. Steve shared the method he used to build his website, setting a goal that (arguably) isn't smart at all, with no specific outcome, no way to measure it, no actions, totally unrealistic if not impossible, and no deadline. And having no experience before, he made it, and made it so well that you wouldn't believe how quick and how good it is.
The cool thing with Steve is that he's really talking about his personal experience. He used to be one of the top bloggers in self help and made tons of money out of his website. What he has done has been available to everyone's eye.
Also, the session on cowardice and timidity are awesome, worth pondering a lot.
Inside those 3 first chapters, there are exercises that you are expected to do. So please please, please do them!
One exercise really hit home with me: the time machine 3-selves integration. He will share with you a way to integrate your past, present and future self, and then go beyond them to the core of your timeless essence. Powerful stuff!
In the next 3 chapters, he will tell you about Authority, Courage and Oneness.
Authority is truth plus power.
Courage is love plus power.
Oneness is truth plus love.
He will dissect them, giving you more exercises.
Those are more than the sum of the 3 basic core principles.
Finally he will put all of those 6 principles together to give you the principle of intelligence, which is the conscious applications of those principles in your life.
You know you are being intelligent when you can align with those 3 principles in whatever you do, including diet, while working, in loving someone, or anything else.
This is Steve's definition of intelligence, and you are a smart person when you can apply it. It's a simple yet profound definition.
That really impressed me. His principles provides you with a system that's always useful even when you switch focus. The principles remain the same since they are universal.
Also, he really impressed me with the flow of the book. Everything flows in a linear, 'what comes next?' perspective. Steve used to be a computer programmer, so he know how to set things in the right order. What's impressive is that he used those programming principles to set an order to human consciousness.
The second half of the book is called the practical application. Actually everything in this book is practical, and he also gives a lot of exercises to help you integrate those principles in order to develop higher intelligence. But he will do more. He introduces the well of life (a popular exercise in the self-help world) and shows you how to apply the 3 principles and his definition of intelligence to any area of your life, like habits, career, money, relationships, health, spirituality.
You will know what to do if you want to embrace a new diet, or how to find the work that aligns best with your consciousness, or how to really have meaningful relationships - all rooted in honesty, authenticity and empathy.
When you have to make a new decision in your life, you will know what to do. No more reading other self help books and no more material to study. You will learn how to really trust yourself, your intuitions and logic by removing any denials and falsehoods you carry.
If you already read Steve's blog, how much new material is there? Well he took excerpts from his articles, but he's now using them in the framework of love, truth and power. He's has organized the flow of ideas, and shares some new material in this book. So if you like Steve, it's still worth reading this book even if you think you know everything about him.
As you can tell, this book really hit home with me. To me, this is the best self help book out there. This is because Steve is really deep, honest, practical and intelligent.
Like Robert Anton Wilson, he made me think differently and behave differently.
It showed me that the path I was following was right, since I consciously decided to be more direct, honest and responsible for my reality and for the results I get. The quality of my life is improving every day, as is my experience on this planet. People comment on how I am deep, intelligent and able to connect with others and really understand them. This happened when I decided to be more honest and share myself freely.
Since I work in the self help field, I have taught some of the exercises of this book to my clients and friends. The time machine/3-selves exercise got especially impressive results, as people really like it and have started to integrate it to change their directions in life.
Steve also compelled me to teach others how to be honest and truthful and responsible via my own actions, as people pick up on those and mirror me.
This helps them feel it's OK to be themselves around me, since I will create the context for them to be accepting and connect with their true selves.
It did really help me to become a full human being, and to integrate everything I experience from now on from this perspective.
Also, Steve really boosted me to change my life but in a different way than people like Tony Robbins.
Tony is more of an adrenaline drug to give a big start, but in the long run what you do?
Steve is different. He motivated me to change my life from the core and in the long run - motivating me to get out of bed early, to do what I really love, and to really care for the world around me since I know the world at some level is myself.
This is not a book for everyone. Actually, it really for a few people - those who are ready to start this path. But if I have to recommend a book, and only one, I will choice this without a second doubt.
He will not tell you that change is easy, that change is simple, or fast.
It's quite the opposite.
Profound change is hard and painful. You WILL make tons of mistakes, you will fail a lot, and you will suffer since evolution requires one to throw the past out and learn from it for real. But you will become a very different person if you actually align yourself to those principles.
The message of the book can be condensed as: you are a conscious being, you are free to choose your life experiences and to be fully responsible for them. In fact, it's the only real power you have, and that's a gigantic, awesome power. In fact, you are a god to some extent, and the people who are really successful share those same principles. You must decide what to do with your consciousness and your free will, and there's no escape or other way around it. It's either you accept full responsibility for your life or you don't. But you still have to live the results you witness, as you are your own guru and authority. So stop seeking outside yourself for a guide, and take charge of your reality and grow!
Please read this book and follow the principles and do the exercises.
Take care and... Live consciously.

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Jimmi Fascina said on Jan 14, 2011 | Add your feedback