Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Changes I can make, January 17, 2000
The best thing about this book is that the authors suggestions not only sound good on paper, but envisioning doing them doesnt seem either daunting nor ludicrous, but in fact, feasible and even, gads, smart. This book is not idiotic pap about 'have a positive attitude' but actually provides manageable steps any human being can take to, at the very least, make living easier and more manageable. The author's advice can be applied at work and at home, and, while it's still too early to tell for sure, I believe some of those quick, easy changes have already made my life easier. On the whole I hate self-help career books because they provide too many platitudes followed by suggestions that my boss would not be pleased to see in his office. TM's suggestions are real-world ideas, for actual human beings with actual jobs and Dilbert bosses. She makes sense on a rational level as well as a functional one. I don't see this book sitting gathering dust on my shelf anytime soon. I see myself rereading it a few pages a day for the next ten years. Thanks, TM, for this useful tool.
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81 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Less than I hoped for..., April 1, 2001
I have read many, many self help books over the past decade. Some of these books are classics, others are not. This book (for me at least) falls in the "not classic" category: just too much fluff for me. Normally I would have just donated this book to a local charity and moved on to another book. However, I feel that I must add my comments about this book, to add more balance to the other reviews found here. Many of Talane's tips are common sense, and would be helpful to someone just starting out on the road to self improvement. Some of the tips are just plain wacky. For example, in tip 20: Feng Shui Your Home and Office, we are invited to make sure the front entrance door of our house never opens to face a bathroom. If it does, we are advised to keep the door closed. Great tip, for modesty reasons as well as for Feng Shui. We also learn that we should "never design or buy a house with a bathroom in the center of the house; it will drain out all the energy." She doesn't know why she does these things, she does just does these things because they "work". One of the other tips that struck me as strange was the advice to identify our needs. As an example, she mentiones that some people are compulsive shoppers because they want to feel needed. If this is our need, we are invited to ask people to let us know how cherished we are for 4 to 6 weeks... that should be enough to stop the compulsive shopping. Much of the book seemed a bit too simplistic for me. One other personal issue: each tip is prefaced with a quote from some great thinkers... however, some are dialog clips from TV episodes like Rossanne and Mamma's Family. Those types of quotes are not untelling of the level of content you will find in this book. Like I said, if this is the first self improvement book you purchase, you will find a fairly shallow treatment of many wide ranging topics... most of which should help you begin your self improvement path. Personally, I could not force myself to finish the book: I only made it to page 174. If you do purchase this book, don't stop with this one, keep going on to deeper, more comprehensive works.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You can change your life with this book!!!, December 9, 2002
I picked up the book because I was interested in life coaching as a career as well as in useful self-help/life improvement tips. Well, taking the author's words and advice to heart, I also got a better, happier life! The book is divided into chapters of steps to take in order to move towards your ideal life - personal organization, self-care, career, relationships, money management, etc. Although you are supposed to do the actions as you read them, I read the book through cover to cover first (which I recommend). Knowing all of the steps from the outset really helped to get started on the right foot when I went back the second time and started doing the steps. Plus it's exciting to see all that you will be working on and how it will change your life! Besides an overall excellent program, the author's writing is conversational and very easy to read; the success stories are motivational and really hit home the points the author conveys. Beware - the life changes don't happen overnight. It takes belief in the system, hard work, and consistency. But my life has not been the same since reading this book. I've become a lot healthier physically and mentally, improved on all of my relationships including my marriage, moved to where I really want to live, and am pursuing the career of my dreams. I don't think I would have had the tools and the courage to do all of it without this book, and I can't imagine where I'd be now without it. This is a book to keep in your library, to return to time and again, to reference, and to give to your family and friends. Read it, believe it, do it, and change your life!
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