Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina (review) - Chapter #39
by Miguel on 23/11/09 at 4:06 am
Share the goodness!To Win a Free SIGNED Copy by Steve Pavlina:
1 Watch the video above
2 Leave a comment explaining which principle you need more alignment with: Truth, Love or Power.
I will pick the best TWO comments and declare the winners in 10 days. First place gets a signed copy, second place a regular copy.
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Steve Pavlina is the leading Personal Development expert on the Web.
His book serves as a guide for personal growth. He distils the principles for a holistic approach to human growth.
Miguel shares his view on Steve’s materials and two insights he has gained from the book’s theory.
00:00 Intro to the Personal Development field
1:30 About Steve Pavlina
2:50 An underlying pattern for human growth
4:15 Truth, Love and Power
5:11 The 2 parts of the book
6:55 Insight #1: Giving your power away
8:32 Insight #2: Connect with who & what you love
12:25 Check out his site before you buy the book
13:00 The principle Miguel needs more alignment with
Score: 8/10
Mindmap:
To download a pdf version right click here and select Save as.
 by Steve Pavlina.jpg "PDFSP by Steve Pavlina")
Books mentioned:
Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
Tweets that mention Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina (review) - Chapter #39 | BookVIM.com -- Topsy.com
Nov 23rd, 2009
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Miguel Mayher, Miguel Mayher. Miguel Mayher said: New Chapter! Full book review -> http://bit.ly/PAVLINA + Free signed book by Steve Pavlina + massive mindmap [...]
Fiona Russell
Nov 23rd, 2009
LOVE the mind map — fantastic work, Miguel!
Julia
Nov 23rd, 2009
First of all, way to go here. I have been following Steve for 3 years myself and I just love hearing others sing his praises. He’s a great ‘guru’ and has very positive, mind expanding things to say. And he is not clouded by the money he could make doing what he does. You’re right in that his site is totally free, which shows he genuinely wants to help people.
BUT I never could find his book in my local stores so I’d love to win a copy! With that, I personally feel I need to align more with love. I tend to be a creature of solitude. And so while I’ve been working on reconditioning into truth, and understand where my power is too easily misplaced and how to reclaim it, but where to put it… And I live very remotely which makes it easy to be overly introverted with my connections with other people. Its like I have all the tools and power I need, I just need to connect with my calling and like u said, more people of the same ‘cell type’ to move forward.
Thanks again for sharing Steve’s work. I agree he’s a gem in an overcrowded section of literature.
Hunter Nuttall
Nov 24th, 2009
I’d definitely say that love is the principle I need the most alignment with. And that’s simply because truth and power came naturally to me, and they were further developed by work and school.
It seems to me that love is not something you automatically learn from society. You learn the truth of organic chemistry, you learn the power of doing your taxes on time, but you don’t really learn love. Watch how people drive in traffic and you’ll see what I mean.
Here’s a tip for practicing love that I got from @akemigaines. It’s called Radical Gratitude. Every day for 7 days, name 100 things you’re thankful for. But don’t just give lip service to it - really feel it. It’s much harder than it seems, at least if you’re out of alignment with love.
Miguel
Nov 24th, 2009
@Fiona: Thrilled you like it!
@Julia: Thanks for sharing that. On the isolated bit - I feel like I have a lot of online great connections currently, but because of traveling I haven’t developed as many deep links with people face to face as I have back home. Some notable exceptions, but not the abundance I have home.
It’s about giving first though, isn’t it?
@Hunter: I think you make a massive point about love not being easily learned from society.
In my case I feel fortunate of getting plenty of love growing up, it’s given me a natural disposition to care for others. I wonder if it would have been the same had I not been in such a family environment.
Power is much more revered in society. I don’t know about truth though, but if I had to put an order based on social conditioning Love would certainly not take first place.
Thanks for that tip on Gratitude and sharing your take!
Alvin
Nov 24th, 2009
Found this article yesterday and figured I’d put some thought into my response, as when I first asked myself where I need to focus the answer was not immediately apparent. Power, without a doubt is where my alignment is most lacking, most noticeably in giving my power away to finances and limitations that seem real while working within them and then disappear when confronting them.
Seems so simple when writing out like that, similar to challenging any box that you have placed yourself within, when you are in the box seeing anything beyond the walls seems unrealistic at best. Then IF you give yourself permission to step outside it for a moment and examine the belief/rule/situation/idea it begins to seem silly that such a thing could prevent accomplishing a goal. My biggest drawback to alignment has been follow-through I will make a change for 30 days (thank you for the idea Steve) see improvement and decide to hold it, then a few weeks to a few months later when I complete another self assessment I see that area beginning to slip back.
While this pattern has gone on for with different changes the exercise I’ve found working best for me is breaking down changes I want to make into smaller pieces and adopting them ONE at a time. While this means that change takes longer, it has a much greater stickiness to it, where I do not need to exert effort each morning to maintain the change. A small thing at first glance but the bigger result is that it does not matter if I miss a day, I’m not building myself based on sheer will power but a combination of conscious choice and biology (there are large amounts of data about the power of single tasking and by extension changing single habits).
Again I’d like to say thank you for posting this question since review forced me to make an honest self assessment which seemed a little overdue, and revealed a number of things I was happy to notice and a few others that I will be chunking down to tackle in time.
Free Signed Copy of Steve's book
Nov 25th, 2009
[...] regular copy. Just check out the latest Chapter of BookVIM and leave a comment as indicated here: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina (review) - Chapter #39*|*BookVIM.com Apart from the video review you will find a Free Mindmap of the first half of the book: the [...]
Nish
Nov 28th, 2009
I think the order that the chapters are arranged, reflect how my personal journey has unfolded, Right now I feel greatly aligned with truth. Love is the principle I need alignment with, I feel I have a disconnected heart and block myself off to true connection either it be concepts or people. I would like to be able to align with love and contribute, contributing from not being aligned with love will be like adding bitterness even if it might seem good in appearance.
Good luck, I hope you all find alignment.
Trilogyhealth
Dec 2nd, 2009
Miguel,
Finally got through the video although the feed was still stop and go either way I tried.
Power is my alignment need. I am constantly giving my power away or simply denying it. The worst thing about it is that I am so aware I have it, but still afraid to use it.
Most of my life I have let other people’s power control me, is why perhaps. Knowing they used their power in such a negative way!
Failure is not an option. I am certain with my awareness of truth and love that I will get there.
Thanks for making me think about that one.
Enjoy, press on and keep making bold moves. You have the power.
Miguel
Dec 4th, 2009
All,
I´m debating on the final winners and don´t want to rush the decision, I´ve been travelling non-stop lately so apologies for the delay.
This weekend at the latest I will point out the winners.
Thank you!
Miguel
Dec 5th, 2009
Here are the winners…
Winner of a singed copy by Steve of PDFSP: Alvin.
Winner of a normal copy of PDFSP: Hunter Nuttall.
CONGRATULATIONS!
My reasoning behind the election was among other things the thought they seem to have put behind their answer and their willingness to share value by providing practical tips that are helping them re-align.
Please send me your postal address by email to miguel AT bookvim DOT com (change AT & DOT accordingly) and I will mail to you the books.
Thank you very much to all participants, including those I haven’t mentioned yet like Nish and TrilogyHealth.
Subscribe for free in the top right corner of this page to be warned of new prizes like this one.
More to come!
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Dec 14th, 2009
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Guido
Jan 2nd, 2010
Hi, great review here, which software did you use to make that beautiful mind map?
Miguel
Jan 3rd, 2010
Thanks Guido. I use Tony Buzan´s official software, it works pretty well: http://www.iMindMap.com/bookVIM (that´s an affiliate link).