Steve Pavlina "Personal Development for Smart People" book review

As a long time fan of Steve Pavlina's blog, I have grown to enjoy and admire Steve's outlook and wit from article-to-article. So last October when Steve published his first book Personal Development for Smart People, I was excited to acquire a copy. In an effort to give back to the blogosphere, Steve offered free advanced copies of his book for bloggers to review. I applied and was lucky enough to be chosen.

A few weeks later, Steve's book showed up in the mail, much to my delight. The next few months were a difficult time for me, as my Grandmother passed away at the age of 92. Steve's book was an uplifting, positive experience which helped me as I went along It is now my pleasure to share some of what Steve wrote with others through this review.

Steve's book discusses the fundamentals of personal development. Steve believes that analyzing our life on 7 basic ideals truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence, we can learn to more easily identify the paths to personal success. Part 1 of the book examines each of those principles in detail and the way in which we think about it, while part 2 discusses the application of those principles.

Truth is the first principle Steve discusses, and the ways in which we can more correctly align and connect ourselves with reality. Our ability to identify truth comes from our perception, prediction, accuracy, acceptance, and self-awareness. The better we become at these aspects of truth, the more capable and successful we can become. Often times, we can find blocks to truth in such things as media conditioning, social conditioning, false beliefs, emotional interference, addictions, immaturity, and secondary gain. Steve offers suggestions on ways we can become more truthful through such exercises as self-assessment, journaling, and media fasting.

The second principle, love, can be consciously grown when we begin to identify the major aspects of connection, communication, communion. It is our ability to make connections, express our feelings, and to fully embrace those connections which lead us to experience love. Certain blocks to love include a disconnected mind-set, fear of rejection, incompatibility, and lack of social skills. We can connect more deeply through recognizing beauty in all things, meditating with our past and future selves, sharing, fast-forwarding to imagine what your relationships will grow to become in a couple years, verbally and directly acknowledging your feelings about another person, and by actively expressing appreciation and gratitude.

Power, or your ability to consciously and deliberately create the world around you, is the third principle. Power comes from accepting responsibility for your life, desire, self-determination, focus, effort, self-discipline. We often fall short of achieving power because of timidity, cowardice, and negative conditioning. You can build your power through progressive training, mastering the first hour of each day, find strength through personal quotes, doing the most difficult activity first, friendly competition with others, and adequate rest.

The fourth principle, oneness, results from combining truth and love. Where as love is choosing to be connected, oneness can be seen in knowing you are always at a naturally connected state. Oneness can be expressed through empathy, compassion, honesty, fairness, contribution, unity with the global consciousness. We can experience oneness more often through imagining a utopia where everyone expressed kindness, spend some time in nature, engage in physical contact, and by consider the things you like and don't like in others relative to yourself.

Authority, the fifth principle, is truth plus power. Authority, or the way in which you express your knowledge, has several aspects such as the ability to take command, illustrate effectiveness, show persistence, confidence, and believe that what you're doing is significant. Ways to increase your authority include orchestrate small rebellions, applying triage to identify which projects will have significant impact only if you do them, and experimenting to find out what works best for you.

The sixth principle, courage, or love plus power, can be seen in our ability to go after long-term gain in the face of short-term obstacles. Courage is derived from heart, taking initiative, being direct, and maintaining your honor. You can build courage through identifying which paths have heart, progressive training, educating yourself to eliminate your fears, and committing yourself in advance so that you follow through.

The seventh and final principle, intelligence is achieved when truth, love, and power all work in harmony. Intelligence can be most accurately expressed through authenticity, creative self-expression, continual growth, active energy flow, and beauty. Practices towards living more intelligently include conscious assessment, setting specific growth targets, and cultivating an intelligent microcosm.

Part 2 of the book looks at practical applications of those principles to produce the desired results in our life in areas of our lives such as habits, career, money, health, relationships and spirituality.

First Steve looks at how habits can be relative to our personal development. He explains habits as memorized solutions your mind saves on how to get things done.  He offers a many helpful suggestions on good habits we can adopt such as identifying your peak cycles of productivity, setting mini-milestones, sending thank-you cards, turning off the TV, and running errands at unpopular times to avoid crowds.

Next we take a look at how career is grown through truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence.  Career is our primary outlet for self-expression, and to become successful we must identify both what message we want to express and the medium we want to express it through.  Ask yourself, what is your true purpose in life?  That is your core message.  Steve identifies to build a positively authentic career that is aligned with truth, love, and power, one must ask themselves what must I do? what can I do? what do I want to do? and what should I do?

Money is considered next, addressing the polarizing idea of whether money is a good or a harm, how it will give you solutions yet create problems, whether it is better to give or receive, the basic goods you can acquire with it yet the social barriers it creates.  Steve explains that in order to align yourself intelligently with money you must base your pursuits upon the fairness principle.  If you're making a valuable social contribution, then you should be paid for it.  And it is important not to err on the either side of self-sacrificing or greed.

Health is another essential area in which we can apply the fundamental principles of personal growth.  Steve asks such questions as: Are you honest with yourself about your health?  Do you make natural food choices?  Do you take responsibility to set physical goals?  Do you exercise with others?  Have you identified what works best for your own health?  Can you stick with an exercise routine?  Are your health habits establishing long-term sustainability so your mind is free to dwell on intellectual pursuits?

Relationships come in many forms such as family members, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, life-partners, adversaries and we can apply the fundamental principles in many ways.  Steve suggests being honest with yourself, pursuing intimate connections, and allowing good relationships to empower you.  Learn to communicate using first-person sentences like "I feel... I believe... I'm concerned that..." rather than "You said... You made me... You always..." in order to create less resistance in the other person.  Allow yourself to be friendly and smile so you can be open to the oneness we all share as humans.  This will better lead you to make good connections and meet great friends you will love for life.

Spirituality, or your collection of beliefs and personal philosophy, arise from many things such as intuition, emotions, and logic.  In trying to answer the essential questions such as Who am I? Why am I here? although there may be no right or wrong answers you may also apply intelligent practices as well.  When you can learn to perceive reality through multiple lenses, you will become greater aligned with the truth.  By building sound practices such as considering accuracy, ethic, congruency your other beliefs, and flexibility you open yourself up to a deeper understanding of reality.

This book was an uplifting pleasure and I am sincerely grateful to Mr. Pavlina for having the chance to write a review. I highly recommend this book to all my friends as it is truly a great read. Best of luck to all who seek to better themselves and improve upon their own personal development through this guide!