Book Review – Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE

By dougnau on Oct 17, 2008 in Book Reviews

Background

Steve Pavlina is one of the most recognized bloggers in the field of personal growth and development. I’ve got no hesitation admitting that when I began to develop the i-grow.net blog and website at the end of 2007 that his was one of the most influential as I considered websites to model for a starting point. His success blogging has been widely noted and Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE is his introduction into the world of being a published author. Steve is also an accomplished speaker.

Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE was officially released in October 2008 and I’ve been very fortunate to be one of the first round of recipients of the book. Steve, I know you are a strong presence on the blogosphere, so if you get a chance to provide a comment to this entry – that would be fantastic!

Book Review & Commentary

Personal Development for SMART people is organized around three fundamental principles of personal development. These are Truth, Power and Love. Steve also presents what he considers to be derivatives of these three fundamental principles, those of oneness, courage, authority and intelligence. Each of these principles has been dedicated a chapter of explanation and Steve really focuses on providing a number of personal examples relevant to the topics mentioned. If you are not a reader of Steve’s blog (which I encourage you to check out at www.stevepavlina.com), by the time you complete this book you’ll get a good background on who he is along with the framework for personal development he provides in this book. The book is intended for a reader of any level of experience in the field of personal growth.

As someone that reads numerous books on the topics of self help, personal growth, life coaching and development, I am always looking to get something ‘new’ out of the materials that I am reading. For the most part, the work that Steve presents is written in piecemeal by much of the literature currently found in self help and personal development section of your local Barnes and Nobles. It is however, packaged uniquely in a very clean manner manner which is presented well and easy to read. His guidance is based on spiritual principles that provide sound tips and coaching towards living a happy, healthy, and bountiful life. In fact, his writing is very well aligned with materials provided on this website – a testament to the principle he writes about at length of ‘oneness’.

Now, I mentioned that much of the material, while uniquely packaged, discusses principles widely delivered in other media. I do this not to discount the value of this book, but rather to emphasize that there are very precise ways in which to bring wealth and abundance into your life (and I am speaking of wealth in a much greater sense than monetary wealth), and that if you become a student of life, you’ll begin to see that the great minds of self growth think and act in a very common way. The labels for the framework that leaders in this field present may be different (ie: truth, power and love might be called something else in another spiritual model – and as I mentioned I write on a number of these topics under different headings), but the underlying principles are indeed quite similar and in fact easy to understand at an intellectual level. Steve Pavlina offers an intellectual understanding of these principles in a way that is very easy to understand, the challenge in life comes at the application of these principles rather than the comprehension of them. I do appreciate that Steve acts as a coach rather than a mentor, and asks you to explore your own application of these principles yourself.

Something New with Goal Setting – Have I been wrong all along?

As I mentioned, I always like to pull new ideas out of any material I read or listen to. While reading his book, Steve got me thinking about articles I’ve written on goal setting. Specifically Developing Lifestyle Change Goals , 10 Steps to Success - Step 4 Set Goals and Striving But Never Arriving – Creating Long Term Goals. When I went through my life coach training program, a model for setting SMART goals was pounded into my head. I shared this model in my blog article Developing Lifestyle Change Goals, but if you’ve read my progression of articles on the topic, you’ll note that Striving But Never Arriving – Creating Long Term Goals discusses the problems with SMART goals. Steve talks about goal setting, and how a goal need not be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time based, but rather something empowering that drives you to action. Essentially he’s taken the SMAT out and left the relevance as the driving factor for setting goals.

As I pondered this writing I looked for examples in my own life where I’ve made strides as a human being physically, spiritually, intellectually, with relationships, career and finance, and how my life coaching and wellness coaching clients have done the same without necessarily having a SMART goal developed. What’s driven action? It was a burning desire to do something which may not have necessarily had a SMART goal attached to it. Having a vision towards which you are headed is an element I feel is key – and that vision is typically the same driver which inspires you to take action.

While there are numerous other aspects of the book that got me thinking (ie: what type of 30 day trial could enhance my life), this was one that struck me as particularly insightful and has been seldom written in such a way on in the past (at least, I’ve not come across a lot of people that present it this way).

Who is this book for?

The book is written for anyone of any experience in the field of personal development. Its a great book to get started if you are a newbie, and it frames many ever-living concepts in a new way if you are an old hat in this arena. The simple writing style lends itself to any reader. For people that come from a technology background that are looking for a starting point in this type of self help literature, this would be a particularly fun book for you. While I am quite certain Steve does not want his message to be spread only to those with a background in IT, I suspect that those with this background will appreciate the anecdotal stories of personal change that Steve shares.