Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've read so many self help books over the years, and I can't say any of them have been very helpful. Interesting, definitely - but nothing that got me closer to feeling the way I've dreamed about for so long: happy, confident, & relaxed. I've gotten so skeptical. Thank God there was still enough of a spark of desperate hope buried in me to get me to pick up this wonderful book.
A thousand "Thank You!"'s to Dan Baker who has shown me the light and allowed me to embark upon a whole new journey as I actually begin to enjoy my life and succeed at everything I try the way I never thought I could. Everything in this book now seems so obvious to me, now that I have worked many of Mr. Baker's brilliantly simple ideas into my thinking and my daily life and things are becoming 2nd nature. I wonder why so many of us drag ourselves through our miserable lives for so long, never coming to the conclusions represented in this book.
Some of the key ideas in this book include understanding the relationship between fear and appreciation, taking power over our emotions, finding good in everything, and seeing the pitfalls of money and possesions. The terrible VERB's (victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame). Dan Baker spits liquor in the face of traditional psychotherapy with all its failings. (Ever been to a shrink who said, "How does that make you feel?," "and how does that make you feel?," "and how does that make you feel?...." - all a bunch of crap, just as you probably suspected.
There's no way for me to explain the content of this book, and there's no need to. This book is an easy and enjoyable read. Get this book! I wish I had found it 20 years ago. I have wasted so much time and energy wandering through life miserable, exhausted, moody, anxious, fearful, angry, irritable, overwhelmed, and sometimes very depressed - with my eyes and my heart closed. When I think about this, for just a second I feel sadness and loss about all that wasted time, but I am so excited about the future that it doesn't even matter. The future is all that matters now. This book holds enormous implications for parents. Worried your kids are picking up your negativity, your worry, your moods - they are - do something about it - read this book.
Some quotes from Dan Baker:
"When you focus on problems...you become bogged down in you own negativity and fear. It's much smarter to focus on possibilities."
"Life hurts. If it doesn't hurt some of the time, it's not life. But you can't allow yourself to get wrapped up in this hurt, constantly reliving it, fearing the futre and grieving the past. That's victimization."
"I often see this [entitlement] happen to rich kids. They grow up in the condition that I call "enriched deprivation." They have so much that everything becomes meaningless. There's nothing left to yearn for, so they lose their power to grow and grasp. They feel entitled to luxury and come to expect it - but expectations, as you may recall, are one of the worst enemies of happiness. These kids become weak, jaded, and ungrateful... They not only lack of self esteem, they lack a sense of self."
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