Steve Pavlina has written a book entitled 'Personal Development for Smart People'. I was provided an advance copy of the book, with the agreement that I would provide a review of what I thought of it. Well, here it is.

It was an interesting read, and I would say would be beneficial to people who have not read a self-help book before, and a refresher of principles to live by for those that have. Although I would say that a lot of the core principles and ideas have already been covered in many other books, he does offer a unique approach in how he presents them.

Part One:

In the first half of the book, he organizes what he believes the core principles of life to be into my analogy of a 'color chart of mixing primary colors'. Individually the principles have their own unique shades of color, and combined (which incidentally in a color chart for white which actually represents purity), coincidentally join together to what he believes the most important principle to be, intelligence. Some of the ideas, or rather the format in which they are presented, may be difficult for some people to accept (i.e., when he discusses oneness and talks about birds being a part of him, it might seem rather 'out' there, although he is essentially saying the old adage that 'a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet', or that 'everyone is interconnected') . However, other areas are easy for people to accept (i.e., when he discusses 'authority' of one's life, essentially saying that you need to take control of your life, or someone else is more than happy to, which is just plain common sense, although some may choose to ignore that, and this books helps to remind them of that fact.)

Part Two:

In the second half of the book, he offers suggestions on guidelines on how to incorporate these principles into daily life, from 30 day trials, to stacking accomplishments progressively. He then discusses money, health, and relationships, which are three of the most important things to live a fulfilling life. For those people who have a biased view of these three items, whether through distorted media influence, inaccurate information, or the like, he offers his point of view after having cleared a lot of the muck off his lens in his life, so to speak, and suggests steps people can take to obtain a similar viewpoint.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, the book is basically saying that you should live your life to the fullest, and live it in the most honorable, truthful fashion that you can, and that you will then reap the subsquent rewards. I would recommend this book for those looking to improve their overall living conditions and experiences, or even those that are already aware of a lot of the principles, but perhaps just need a refresher course.

Johnathan