Steve Pavlina Smart Person

I snapped up the opportunity to review Steve Pavlina’s book “Personal Development for Smart People“.  When the book arrived, I left it on the nightstand for a few days before actually opening it up and reading.  During that time, my wife took the liberty of glancing over the book.  And by glancing, I mean she took one look at the title and decided that the book was too pretentious.

Once she let me know her feelings about the book – based on reading the title and deciding that the “Smart People” part of the title was over the top, “who is this Steve Pavlina guy, anyway?” – I was a little taken back by her opinion.

Of course, I had to educate her on who this Steve guy is and why I was reading his book.

Not sure exactly how I found out about Steve, but I was hooked from the start.  I recall reading what he wrote on this blog and nodding my head in agreement and actually thinking about what was being said.  Here is a guy living with a purpose and he wasn’t afraid to share it.

As far as I am concerned, his book takes it even further.  Not only is he unafraid to share what his purpose is, he is also willing and able to make you stop and think about your life.  And when I say stop, I mean full stop like “did he just really say that”.

There is no way I can give an accurate summary about what this book is about – you can read the summary at Amazon for that.  I’m not a reviewer, I don’t have the analytical eye or the critical thinking to tear part the book and extract all the meaning that runs deep through this work.  I can only tell you what it did for me.  How it made me feel, what I decided to do about it, how it inspired me to question what I do and discuss with with my wife.

Here’s one example (I won’t spoil the surprise for you), on page 20, that is a self assessment which starts off innocently enough, you rate yourself in different areas of your life on a scale of 1 to 10.  The assessment covers all areas of your life; daily habits, your career, money, mental health, social life, family, emotion health. Once you score yourself, then the fun starts.

Steve instructions for evaluating your results leaves no doubt about living a life of purpose – no doubt at all.

For me it was a humbling experience – yes, grading myself on how I am living was a humbling experience.  My scoring took a “cautious” approach … and Steve’s instructions called out my “cautiousness”.

This led to some late night, pillow talk with my wife.  I had her take the same assessment and tell me her score in each area before going on to read Steve’s instructions for evaluating.  Then I watched her eyes for that “look”, that look of …

I think I’ll leave it at that.  If you’re willing to examine your life, then get a copy of this book now while you are interested.  It is easy enough to say, “tomorrow I’ll do it …”

I hope enjoy the book as much as I have.

By the way, I have not finished the book.  Like I said, the book makes you stop and think.

Dave