No comments about Minority Rules: Turn Your Ethnicity Into a Competitive Edge.

5 comments about First Things First.

1. Stephen Covey unveils a powerful time management systems here that really works. I bought the book and went ahead and bought the cd-audio program as well. I am now getting more done in half the time. Thank you Dr. Covey!



2. If you have ever said to yourself:
   
   I have too much to do and not enough time to do it
   
   OR
   
   I can't find the balance between my personal life and work. When I take time from one to the other, it just makes matters worse.
   
   OR
   
   There's simply too little of me to go around
   
   OR
   
   I don't feel in control of my life
   
   OR
   
   Way down inside I have this empty feeling. It's like the song, "Is that all there is?"
   
   First Things First is not just another time management program. Rather, this is a program that connects the investment of time to our deeper priorities in life. The concepts espoused by Dr. Covey are profound, powerful and pragmatic.
   
   Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass. While other programs teach you harder, faster, and smarter First Things First teaches you direction and priorities because where you are heading is more important than how fast you are going.
   
   Keeping with Dr. Covey's tradition, this program is about effectiveness not just efficiency. But not just effectiveness in your business life, but in your personal life as well.
   
   Great program and highly recommended.



3. Covey stands tall above the rest in a world rife with self-improvement seminars. His practical wisdom can be applied to the workplace, marriage and parenting and truly enhance your life! Covey's strong Christian faith and commitment to family are evident in his philosophies and can only enrich every aspect of the whole person - which is what his 7 Habits are all about. This book touches on his "Begin with the end in mind" and shows you how. Highly recommend!



4. If you think you'd find a lot of unrelated platitudes interesting, then you'll enjoy this book.



5. I have read and attended many time management programs. Steven Covey really gets you with this 3rd of his 7 Habits of Highly Successful People (another good buy - do that one first).
   Understand your principles and goals as this is not about your time, but the time in your life.
   On the audio version he is humourus and entertaining.

1 comments about A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service.

1. This is a great collection of positive Peace Corps stories. No need to buy it here for any amount since you can get these free from any Peace Corps recruiter/office.

5 comments about Success! The Glenn Bland Method.

1. Glenn Bland had a method way before Stephen Covey ever thought of the 7 habits! In this simple but powerful book, Bland focuses on the areas of life which are important-Financial, Spiritual, Educational and Recreational- and emphasizes the need for balance. Bland shows the reader how to be truthful with themselves and make goals and plans which are both practical and powerful! The reader to this book will find useful information for understanding the need for planning for success and the method for getting on the path to its achievement. Highly recommended to all of my friends and business associates! You can't go wrong with this one folks!



2. This is really a handbook for how to be a good Christian and get rich. If that's what you're looking for, here's your book.

   If what you want is good, practical, scientifically-rooted tools for improving your life, look elsewhere.




3. I make my living in the world of sales. This is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of self-starting and goal setting in order to explode the potential that lies within each of us. Even a person whom does not share the same spiritual truths as Mr. Bland and I, can learn volumes from his insight and wisdom in all the areas that are covered in this wonderful book. Even if all you want to do is get rich, then you still should read this information. Maybe some of the values that are touched on can even help you.



4. This book is a fabulously helpful tool for achieving in life. It was highly recommended by one of my mentors and I'm better off for having read it.



5. Outstanding book by a man who threw away the word can't and the phrase can't be done.On page 17, Glenn Bland talks about all of the "can'ts" and "impossibles" that became possible. For example, in 1926 a scientist said, " This foolish idea of sending a man to the moon is utterly impossible." Glenn Bland also knows something about how to accomplish the impossible. Starting from scratch, Mr. Bland created one of the largest insurance companies in America in under five years, producing more sales than companies that have been in business for over half a century.His system works.Try it. You'll love it.

1 comments about Magic of Conflict: Turning a Life of Work Into a Work of Art.

1. If you are ready to turn your life into a work of art, this is the book for you. This book will help give you a new perspective on the term 'conflict.' It helps you understand that conflict is not a negative thing, it just is...and the sooner we learn what options we have to deal with conflict, the happier and fuller our lives can be.

5 comments about Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life.

1. This book is a strange hybrid: part informal discussion of flaws in intelligence testing, part autobiography, part self-help manual. Many of Professor Sternberg's criticisms of IQ testing are right on target, but his argument is diffuse and interlarded with the same personal anecdotes told over and over. We hear a great deal about his own poor IQ scores in elementary school, how his son Seth exhibits creative intelligence, how his talented grad students' careers were hobbled by poor test scores. It concludes with his definition of true intelligence (what he calls "successful intelligence"), which is basically a catch-all category for common sense or street smarts (what Howard Gardner calls "interpersonal intelligence") and self-discipline. The traits of successful intelligence turn out to be rather obvious: Successfully intelligent people know when to perservere; successfully intelligent people seek to surmount personal difficulties; successfully intelligent people are self-confident but not cocky and can delay gratification in order to achieve long-term goals; etc., etc. All very true, and all very old.

   Still, the book has enough interesting remarks on the history and errors of intelligence testing to make it worth reading. If Professor Sternberg had organized the book a little better and eliminated some of the redundancies, I would have given it four or five stars. As it is, I give it three.




2. First, I should mention something of my own background. My academic background is in psychometrics and also neurobiology, where I did my master's and doctoral work. Sternberg is mostly preaching to the choir with me, as I agree with many of his criticisms about the deficiencies of current and past I.Q. tests.

   That having been said, I am mostly okay current psychometric, statistical, and mathematical theory and practice here, as long as one understands the strengths and limitations of the various approaches. I understand those very well, but most people don't and tend to get hung up on one or another aspect of it without having a systematic grasp of all the psychometric issues. If it weren't for that, books like Sternberg's wouldn't be necessary.

   Sternberg's definition of successful intelligence is pretty common-sensical, although more difficult to quantify than the abilities typical I.Q. tests measure, but I'm okay with that.

   However, the bottom line is that the real answers about intelligence are eventually going to come from the brain research areas, which was my main field. The neurobiology doesn't contradict the psychometric approach but does complement it and provides a more rigorous basis for the idea of intelligence and what it consists of. To give you just a brief example of the neurological picture, the human brain contains 60 trillion nerve cells organized into 14,000 major and minor brain centers and pathways, and each nerve cell is connected to between 3,000 and 100,000 other neurons, producing a neural network and web of almost unbelievable compexity. And in the past 50 years, neuroscientists have made considerable progress in understanding the neural basis of intelligence and of higher cognitive abilities, such as language processing and spatial ability, which have been found to be located in the temporal lobe in the case of language processing, and in the right hemisphere in the case of left-hemispheric dominant people (which is most of us).

   But getting back to Sternberg's concerns, the most egregious and widespread problem with I.Q. testing, of course, is that people hung up on a single I.Q. high or low test score, which might not mean much in isolation, and the system doesn't help that situation since it attaches too much credence to them without understanding the other factors, qualifications, and exceptions to a single I.Q. score that must be taken into account.

   Sternberg also spends a lot of time discussing examples of people (such as himself), who don't do very well on standard I.Q. tests and about the baleful effect such scores had on their lives. Appropos of that, I can give two much more glaring examples than Sternberg himself, notwithstanding his being a Yale professor, which I am perfectly willing to concede is pretty impressive.

   In the late teens and 1920s an important Stanford psychologist, Lewis Terman, tested thousands of California schoolchildren to identify those with high I.Q.'s and then to follow them throughout their lives, to see of the early promise of their intelligence was fulfilled. Terman ended up with a group of 1300 children, who he followed from their early years until their deaths. I would suspect many if not all would be dead by now. Until they had passed away, their files remained sealed, and only Terman and his group knew their actual identities.

   Anyway, many did have impressive careers as writers, scientists, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals. Despite most of them growing up during the depression in the last century, many more of them went to college and onto professional and graduate school than the overall population. That having been said, the test had two major faults or oversights in terms of the selection process: the test, which was the Stanford-Binet, an important and widely used I.Q. test, missed the two Nobel Laureates in physics, Luis Alvarez, and William Shockley. Shockley is familiar to many as the famous inventor of the transistor. Both were tested but fell below the minimum of 140 or a score of 135 for a sibling to be included. And none of the other 1300 children won a Nobel Prize. Hence, the test missed the only two Nobel Laureates in the entire group.

   Also, James Watson, of Watson and Crick fame, only has an I.Q. of 115, if I remember right, and is the co-discoverer of DNA, for which they shared a Nobel Prize back in the 50's.

   So obviously, I.Q isn't the whole story. I have many stories myself of people who had much lower test scores than I on any of the standardized tests, whether I.Q., the SAT, the GRE, or whatever, who did just fine in college and grad school and who often got higher grades than I, and who went on to become more successful in real life too. So as I said, Sternberg is sort of preaching to the choir in my case, and overall, I tend to agree with him that I.Q. should not be the overriding determinant in the selection and educational process that it often is, at least not without taking into consideration other factors such as special aptitudes and talents, creative abilities, grades, work and real world experience, self-discipline and willingness to work hard, and so on.




3. Successful Intelligence (1996) purports to be a self-help book, but is actually a polemic on public policy in education and employment. This book explains much about the weaknesses of psychological tests and thus can dispel the conditioned esteem problems of those who have done poorly on such tests. It also provides advice on methods of developing effective techniques for solving various vocational and personal problems. However, this book is primarily aimed at the pernicious influence of psychological testing in our society.
   
   The author outlines the development of psychological testing from the time of Sir Francis Galton, one of the first to attempt to measure a wide variety of human characteristics. Although the field of Astronomy had a well established tradition of measuring reaction times to improve the accuracy of observations, Galton began measuring just about anything measurable in human beings. He used the tools developed by the astronomers to calculate group statistics and begin comparing these results between different groups. While these statistics generated a great deal of interest in human differences, they also led to a number of spurious pseudoscientific ideas.
   
   Later, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon were asked to develop a means of distinguishing between truly mental deficient children and children who had other problems within the Parisian school system. They produced a set of tests that could be administered by trained personnel to provide a measure of mental age. This Binet-Simon test set was used by Lewis Terman at Stanford University to design an American version, the Stanford-Binet. Later, a number of other similar tests were developed to measure intelligence and other psychological characteristics.
   
   Such tests were individually administered and so were more useful as diagnostic tools than for screening. However, during World War I, the Army Alpha, a paper and pencil test, was developed to check mental capabilities. Afterwards, the Otis tests, civilian versions of the Army Alpha, and other group tests gained widespread usage for pre-acceptance screening in education and employment.
   
   While some tests are labeled "intelligence" tests and others are called "aptitude" test, all of them are highly correlated with each other and have similar strengths and weaknesses. All these test are useful predictors of success in the academic environment up through the first year of graduate school. They also are fairly good predictors of certain types of vocations that are very similar to the academic environment.
   
   However, the basic weakness of such tests is, strangely enough, the relatively low correlation between these tests and other independent measures of "intelligence". Another is the dependence of these tests on prior learning; all such tests are basically achievement tests for skills that are presumed to have been learned much earlier and thus are very inaccurate for persons from other cultures and environments. Even the so-called "culture fair" tests are not totally culture free and may have hidden problems that strongly impact the results.
   
   The author points out that successful living requires more than the narrow mental abilities measured by most selection tests. He calls the abilities measured by such tests "analytical intelligence", but also makes a case for "creative intelligence" and "practical intelligence". These terms are his own and not necessarily used by anyone else other that his students; normally, these terms would be called "abilities" rather than "intelligence".
   
   Intelligence tests mostly test analytical abilities -- associated with deduction or convergent production -- but the author has shown that creative abilities -- associated with induction or divergent production -- can also be measured. Moreover, he has also found ways to evaluate practical abilities -- i.e., wisdom or common sense -- to some degree.
   
   My only problem with this book is the semantics of the title. The author is misusing the word intelligence. This mental attribute has been studied for millennia and has been a subject of experimental investigation for over a century. However, I believe his misuse of this term is a matter of "practical intelligence", for such usage attracts more popular attention than an unfamiliar term which happens to be more technically correct.
   
   The author also defines success in very narrow terms, much like the Hollywood or Madison Avenue stereotype. While addressing the importance of cultural influences and social criteria, he fails to mention examples that do not meet the popular criterion of success. He also assumes success is the result of high achievement. Maybe not so strange a viewpoint from a Yale academic.
   
   The author provides an extensive explanation of the problems caused by the widespread usage of such tests. Anyone who has children or aspires to higher education or certain types of jobs should read this book. It will open your eyes to the political effects of such dependency on an incomplete and flawed approach to educational and employment testing.
   
   Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in intelligence, psychological testing, and the effects of testing on education and business. This book can also be an eye-opener for anyone who has had difficulties on standardized tests and may have problems in gaining admission to schools or obtaining jobs.
   
   -Bill Jordin



4. The "theory" expressed here is really nothing new, and seems like repackaged emotional intelligence and other ideas. The author continually uses personal stories and anecdotal evidence as proof of many of his ideas. While I agree that IQ does not tell the whole story, this book doesn't add anything new or unique to the discussion.



5. Quite a few years ago - at least ten - I read another book by Yale pyschologist Robert Sternberg on intelligence, entitled "The Triarchic Mind". It was excellent, as he criticized standard IQ testing and put forth his own broader definition of intelligence, which he defined as "mental self-management."
   
   So I was looking forward to this follow-up book, "Successful Intelligence." Unfortunately it was not near as good as his first book.
   
   The book is too long - it's almost as if his publisher told him to flesh it out with discussion of the defects of intelligence tests and personal anecdotes from his own life and that of his children. There are too many of these analyses and anecdotes. He could have cut the book by at least a third. And at times the book is more of a self-help manual - focus on goals, be persistent, identify problems. As another reviewer on Amazon said, perhaps he should have titled the book "Successful Abilities."
   
   Certainly his theory that there are three components of intelligence - the analytic, the creative, and the practical makes lots of sense. And too much emphasis may be put on the analytic element, because it is most easily tested in so-called intelligence tests. Sternberg makes a good case for that, showing that there is not much correlation between the ability to score highly on these types of tests, and ultimate success in business and professional areas (some correlation, but it's pretty underwhelming).
   
   All in all, if you are interested in a good book on intelligence, I recommend Sternberg's first book "The Triarchic Mind" and give this one a miss.

5 comments about The Message of a Master.

1. I have read many books that reveal the essential truths. This book, however has both a simplcity and a new insight that has not only provided me with new insights, it works when placed into action. It does not require years of learning, rather you can begin to experience a change imeediately.



2. If the process of manifestation suggested in this book were to be sincerely followed, you can manifest your own reality.
   
   As someone who has read innumerable 'secret of success ' books , I hold very high regard for this book because I have had
   practical demonstrations of its truths.
   
   The one point that the master does not dwell upon is while visualizing the desired situation , one has to pour deep feelings
   of joy and gratitude to 'Infinite Intelligence' , 'Intelligent substance ' or God according to your predisposition.
   
   If the appropriate visual blends with your thoughts and feelings and if you can sustain the mental image along with the
   thoughts and feelings about the desired manifestation you will see that what was once in your consciousness is now in your
   surroundings ( 'As it is within , so it is without ').
   
   I want to quote Swami Vivekananda here -- " Imagination properly employed is our greatest friend ; it goes beyond reason and
   is the only light that takes us everywhere ".
   
   It is natural to be skeptical about these topics, but all a person needs is one specific ( be very specific ) manifestation.
   
   I also suggest you to read " The Way Out " by Anonymous , " Door of Everything " by Ruby Nelson , " It Works " by RHJ. Proper
   study of these books will help you gain deeper understanding and help you manifest your own reality.
   
   
   Truth is way stranger than fiction. Have patience and strong will to manifest.
   
   You can create your own miracles.
   
   Good luck.



3. This book gives you an approach very similar to the Soka Gakkai Buddhism, same idea, different wording. This is a very simple book, that will blow your mind. that book changed my life, in a very deep way. I'm telling you, just do it, believe in it, it works!



4. If you like "The Secret", you will love this book. It is very small and deceivingly very simple but I found it very profound. I couldn't find anything about the author which intriqued me. There seems to be alot of books out like this really talking about the same "Laws of Attraction", with a different way of presenting the material. This book struck a chord with me.



5. This is a short book with a wonderful story. I love this book, I have read it many times. It is very inspiring, sometimes you see it in the bookstores but it's hard to find. I loved it so much I bought if for a friend. The message is short and simple, the best books are the ones that get to the point quickly. Very good book.

5 comments about 100 Way$ to Create Wealth.

1. "100 Ways to Create Wealth" is the third in Steve Chandler's "100 Ways Triology." Steve and Sam Beckford collaborate again to provide the reader with inspiration, wit, and motivation. They draw on experience from their own careers for stories as well as using illustrations from their clients and from those who have coached them along their journey to success.
   
   The book is packed with action steps to take to think like an entrepreneur, ways to invest your energy, providing transformative direction. These steps will help you, whether you are on your own way to your first million dollar success story, or well along that journey to becoming a multimillionaire. I personally gained new creative insights that will help me put into practice Steve and Sam's powerful principles.
   
   The format of the book lends itself to a quick perusal, reading for specific personal application. It is a book I want to keep as a ready reference, available as a stimulating resource. This is must reading for anyone wanting to produce and benefit from the advantages of wealth. "100 Ways to Create Wealth" is a very positive reading experience.



2. The typical Steve Chandler book takes some things you already know and expresses them in a pithy and effective manner, and takes a few that you don't know and amplifies them in the same pithy and succinct manner. Those new thoughts invariably make you sit up, wrinkle your brow, and evaluate carefully. Dale Carnegie said "The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?" Well Steve does the same thing, which sounds simple, but is really quite difficult. He looks carefully at the world and offers you some ideas about how you can do better in whatever piece of it you are in.
   
   I am not an entrepreneur, nor am I in a business where I can be promoted or hope to advance my career. I'm staying where I am, and happily doing so. Yet even for me there are many useful tidbits scattered around, little provokers to make me say "Hmmm, that's interesting." I'll focus on one tale which captures the spirit of their thinking. Sam Beckford is the owner of a string of music and dance studios. He was at a conference where the other participants were mostly martial arts studio owners. As they mentioned the size of their student bodies, the answers came "100," "175," "200." When Sam's turn came, he said "3000." Now every one there was at this conference looking for ways to increase their enrollment. Yet though they had a guy who had done precisely what they were hoping to do, no one came up to Sam and asked him what the heck he was doing. Their resource was the official program, the thing they had paid for. Staring them in the face was a resource that they knew had accomplished something, yet they ignored it. How often do we look at the established, designated, or approved sources, and not open our eyes to the data available to us?
   
   I always enjoy Steve's mix of autobiography and humor peppered with quotes from innumerable great thinkers. And I like how he and Sam break the ideas presented into concrete pieces. I truly believe that nearly every problem, no matter how enormous, is just a collection of small problems, and solving the big one means solving the small ones in the proper sequence. Nice discrete ideas, small, implementable, and tidy, make this a book well worth reading.



3. Business consultant Steve Chandler and self-made millionaire Sam Beckford present 100 Ways to Create Wealth, a self-improvement guide to mastering the emotional and personal aspects of earning a respectable living. 100 Ways to Create Wealth lives up to its title by offering valuable tips, tricks, techniques, and attitudes to adopt; all suggestions are quite general and applicable to individuals enacting any business plan or enterprise. The recommendations, each of which is spared a few pages of discussion, include "Don't be a Wealth Wannabe", a warning against getting sucked into false moneymaking schemes such as pyramid scandals or dubious popular real estate trends; "Know Your Customer Better", an encouragement to focus on what the customer needs and stay in a positive mindframe rather than focus on one's own shortcomings; and "Open an Easy-Earned Money Account", which suggests creating a bank account solely for the money one didn't have to sweat bullets to obtain, and use that money to pay for guilt-free luxuries. An excellent supplemental guide for anyone going into business for themselves or otherwise looking to get ahead, without leaving principles or quality of life behind.



4. Don't let the amateur graphics on the book cover fool you.
   
   I have ready most self-improvement books for entrepreneurs on the market, and this one stands out. Truly.
   
   The chapters are short, so it's an easy read. Some very unique concepts in here that I've enacted already. This book runs circles around every other book for entrepreneurs. It's a combination of Donald Trump, Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, and John Maxwell.
   
   Best $25 I've spent in years.



5. This book is a compilation of clichès about making money that serves no purpose. Even if you want self-help literature you might find this too basic. Nothing to see here...

5 comments about Career of Gold: Defeat Age Bias by Re-Careering for the Second Half of Your Life.

1. A wonderful resource guide for anyone looking to create a sense of job security. Although titled for the 'second half of your life' this book is suitable for the younger generation as well. BIG thumbs up!



2. My first reaction while reading this book was one of surprise. I'd been expecting just feel-good inspirational stuff, but was pleased to find it dealing with the nuts and bolts of our changing world and the struggle it can sometimes be to survive in the new reality.
   
   I'm a fan of various financial advice columns and shows; one of the topics that never fail to appear is how much longer people live today --- and the associated costs of doing so. CAREER OF GOLD addresses this issue head-on, as well as the taboo topic of age bias encountered when trying to finance a longer life, later in life.
   
   It offers advice on how to deal with this mountain of a problem: climb it while you can. People will be surprised to discover that it's possible for the average person to function --- and thrive --- in the new world of global opportunities. I was fascinated to see how you can develop a new business, and tap into the tremendous growth potential of emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil. It's shown that the online world of the internet can be harnessed to create your second career.



3. The idea of using your experience and knowledge to start a new career doing something you really like sounds too good to be true - which is probably what stops most of us from ever trying. Yet this book proves that we should try. Career of Gold provides down to earth advice on how to identify core skills which are very much in demand in today's changing world. The book then provides the tools and information to turn these valuable skills into real opportunities. It isn't easy but it's easier than you think. The book provides numerous examples of people who have tried and shows how using these techniques gave them the power to reorganize their careers successfully.
   
   People are living longer and the quality of life is continuously improving in that extended life. The Career of Gold is not a get rich quick scheme.
   However, most people will find it provides the information necessary to use their knowledge to find a career which suits their lifestyle and which they can enjoy and at the same time bring in extra income. The book deals head on with issues like age bias, gaining recognition for the knowledge you possess and using the internet as a gateway to the global marketplace.
   
   Career of Gold is a valuable resource for everyone over the age of fifty looking to restart or supplement their career. It also provides many useful links to resources which most people probably don't know exist.



4. The author provides the reader with support and encouragement in an easy to read and practical guide. His excitement and positive attitude jump out from the first page and carry you through to the step by step fulfillment of self-directed employment. Bracken provides examples, inspiration and concrete advice in defining your assets, determining a market, developing your "product", utilizing computer technology and more. This book is a great resource for baby boomers who want to follow the dream of making money doing what they love.



5. Easy to read. Chock full of practical information and resources as well as real-life examples that are as entertaining as they are inspiring. Would make an excellent gift for a new retiree, someone contemplating a career change, celebrating a 50th birthday, a college graduate...

No comments about Be The Difference.