Photo: courtesy Flickr, Kazze
Review by Mitch W. Steel
“Enjoy your incredible human journey. Accept the highs and the lows as equally valuable. Recognize that your deepest sorrows reveal your greatest joys. Share your stories with others, and know that you’re not alone. Be grateful for your time on earth. Live consciously.”
– Steve Pavlina (excerpt from Afterword)
Personal Development for Smart People.
I’d like to thank Steve Pavlina and Hayhouse for the kind invitation and opportunity they’ve extended to me and SUCCCESS.org to review Personal Development for Smart People, The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth.
If you are searching for a personal development resource that is rich in both strategic information and tactical techniques to improve your SELF and, therefore, your life PDfSP is the answer!
As promised by Steve, PDfSP delivers a great deal of original content, both in terms of his own personal ideas and philosophies as well as specific application techniques he has used. His writing style (as you may know from his blog) is personable and easy to read. And, as with his blog, his greatest strength is not only his personal application of these many self improvement techniques but his personal story; how he went from a confused thief, lucky to receive community service to a new-age, thought-leader and owner of the #1 personal development website and blog. www.stevepavlina.com.
And, since Steve is a Toastmaster, I figured I’d frame this review in the context of Toastmaster’s formula for critique called, “The Sandwich Method”. The formula is positive praise, followed by constructive and hopefully useful critique then, in closing, more positive encouragement and sincere commentary.
The Top Slice…
As mentioned previously and not to be overlooked, Steve’s work is easy to read. His ‘voice’ is candid, authentic and you are likely to sense a deep sincerity in his desire to help you – the reader. His work reminds me somewhat of the great Dr. Norman Vincent Peale – refreshing, unpretentious, very candid and genuine. (Read the all-time classic, The Power of Positive Thinking).
Similarly, Steve shares his findings in the context of his own self-discovery and that makes his advice extremely credible. Additionally, the proof of his techniques lies in his own realization of ’success’ (matches nicely with our definition here) and the effectiveness of his present life. While I believe the core or gut of the book- the application sections are likely to be the readership’s bread and butter- the principles and philosophies could take years to sink in. In fact, Steve urges you not to skip ahead to the application section, and admits as much in the introduction.