This is an inconsistent, feel-good self-help book with some good depth but not much new substance. I found it quite cloying in spots but other spots were surprisingly helpful. "Here’s Our GUARANTEE:

If you study and gradually implement the strategies we are about to share, you’ll not only hit your business, personal and financial targets consistently, you’ll far exceed the results you are currently experiencing. Specifically, we’ll show you how to focus on your strengths, so that you can maximize your income, and at the same time enjoy a healthier, happier, well-balanced lifestyle." When I read the above, I snorted at its global, undefined, impossible to prove assertions and decided to spend some time reading and working the exercises in the book and putting the guarantee to the best test I was able. I set small business, personal and financial targets, pieces of larger goals I hadn’t been able to make much headway with on my own, and started reading.

The first chapter, about habits, surprised me and made me rethink my strategy. One of my goals was to evaluate a web development software package but I couldn’t find many of the papers I needed because my office was such a mess. As a result of reading this chapter, I started the habit of working half an hour each evening to clean up my office and after a week noticed a large improvement. Score one for the book’s side.

Many of the chapters are targeted toward entrepreneurs or business interests and problems and my life doesn’t reflect the examples, experiences or interests. By the middle of the book I noticed that each chapter covered an entire subject that many other self help books cover individually, better. I’ve read better self-help books on habits, starting my own business, setting goals, relationships, etc. However, this book does give a fairly good condensation of the basics of each subject it covers. The trouble with condensation of this sort is that there’s too many subjects covered and the condensation feels like pressure on the reader. I think reading one book about becoming a good entrepreneur and "Building Excellent Relationships" (the actual chapter title) is a bit like trying to become both a business executive and a psychologist, possible but not likely or the norm. The guarantee, insisting I "study and gradually implement the strategies" made me feel any failure would place the blame entirely on me.

At the end of each chapter and referred to throughout the reading of each chapter, is a section titled "Action Steps" which is a series of questions to ask yourself, checklists and projects or practice exercises to perform. Some of these were quite interesting and amusing to do. I spent a couple of hours working on a list of 101 goals I wanted to accomplish in the next ten years and was very surprised that I could finish it. Many of the tools in this book are excellent tools.

All-in-all I found this book rather boring because I’ve read so many self-help books on the subjects covered in this one and what I read wasn’t new or interesting enough to hold my interest. I think this book might be interesting to someone who doesn’t read very much or has time constraints and wants to cover many subjects in one book. Perhaps too, someone who is new to self-help might find this book useful as a starting point to explore where their interests or motives for self-help lie. This is a book about how to do something rather than a support and aide for what you are already doing or thinking of doing. I am still working toward my self-set targets but not moving any faster or better as the result of this book. This book provides scenery, not the train parts.

Categories: SelfHelp, ClientReviews, General