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I recently accepted an invitation from Steve Pavlina, creator of the number-one personal development website and blog, http://www.StevePavlina.com, to review his new book: “Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth.”

Is the Author Brilliant… or a Nut?

I’ve visited Steve’s website, blog and forum off and on for several years. While I’ve enjoyed, agreed with and/or learned from most of his articles and posts, some (such as one story about his dead friend encouraging him to gamble) have made me wonder if he’s a nut. On the whole, I believe Steve is a brilliant man who has done more to help others than anyone I know.

I’m happy to report that Steve’s book offers more of his brilliance with none of his nuttiness. As he put it, “The concepts in the book are universal, there’s nothing inherently new agey or woo-woo about them.”

What I found particularly refreshing is that Steve doesn’t regurgitate other self-help gurus’ advice. As a matter of fact, in most cases he contradicts them!

Universal Concepts: Truth, Love, Power = Intelligence

Steve’s personal development advice is based on universal principles, which means they are applicable to anyone, anywhere, in any situation. Think about that. It’s powerful stuff. But just as important to me, Steve’s concepts are practical and generate intelligent real-world results.

The three universal principles are Truth, Love and Power. Intelligence is the alignment of those three principles.

Here are just a few the many ideas in his book that resonated with me:

• By embracing new experiences that are unlike anything you’ve previously encountered, you’ll literally become more intelligent.
• Excessive routine is the enemy of intelligence.
• Think about where you’re headed and ask yourself: How do I honestly expect my life to turn out?
• When you accept the inherent uncertainty of life, your decisions will increase in accuracy. The key is to intelligently manage risks instead of denying their existence.
• One of the most important skills to develop in the area of personal growth is the ability to admit the whole truth to yourself, even if you don’t like what you see and even if you feel powerless to change it.
• True power exists only in the present. There is no power in the past; the past is over and done with. There is no power in the future; the future exists only in your imagination. Focus your attention on the current moment, since it’s the only place you have any real power.
• Set goals that make you feel powerful, motivated, and driven when you focus on them, long before the final outcome is actually achieved. Instead of going after goals you think will make you happy in the distant future, focus on goals that make you happy right now.
• Instead of merely learning from others, go out and create your own knowledge. Don’t blindly follow the advice of experts. Find out what works best for you by conducting personal experiments.
• Your greatest regrets in life won’t be the mistakes you made; they’ll be the opportunities you let slip through your fingers by failing to act.

An Eye-Opening Self-Assessment Exercise

Steve includes a Self-Assessment exercise in the chapter on Truth. If you’ve read other self-improvement books, you’ve probably seen similar exercises. It lists various areas of your life, such as habits & daily routine, career & work, money & finances, Healthy & fitness, etc. You assign a numerical rating to each area using a scale of 1-10 (1 means you’re not getting what you want, 10 mean’s you’re absolutely experiencing what you desire).

Most other self-help gurus will tell you that a rating of 7 is pretty good. They want you to feel good about yourself. Not Steve. He wants you to face the truth. Here’s his advice: “Take every rating that isn’t a 9 or 10, cross it off, and replace it with a 1. A 7 is what you get when you allow too much falsehood and denial to creep into your life. It’s a phony rating to begin with, a 1 in disguise. When you rate some part of your life a 7, it means you’re on the wrong path but don’t want to accept it.”

In Summary

There’s a huge amount of information and insights crammed into this book. To benefit from all it provides, you’ll need to read it more than once. But this is something you’ll enjoy doing.

I cannot imagine anyone not improving his or her life after reading this book. It will require more than just reading, though. As Steve says, “Applying what you learn from this book won’t be easy for you. Real conscious growth is seldom undemanding, but it’s always worthwhile.”

Read my more detailed review of Personal Development for Smart People (including what I didn’t like about it) at BestInterviewStrategies.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bonnie_Lowe

As an addition to the above, I wanted to point you in the direction of the Game of Life Book which I think you will find is very complimentary to the above post.

In addition, you are obviously someone commited to learning more, and improving your own life, and I invite you to look closely at the Self Help Database membership site.  We have free as well  as paid membership levels, where you can access a wide variety of ebooks and software, some for free, and others at reasonable prices.

Are you as successful as you want to be?

Are you receiving the results you want and desire?

From experience, practicing specific strategies, and skills, in a few minutes per day, can make all the difference to your Success Outcomes.

I encourage you to check this out today, while it’s on your mind!  Act today. This is a key success ingredient too.