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Summary: Magic Book!
Review: This fairy book has an amazing impact on me.
I think this was the best book that i've read in whole my life.
I found it full of beneficial guidance and influent contents that
its operative instructions would be usefull for my future life.I'll be so grateful if I would be able to have contact with the
honored author of this glory book. Thanks a lot for your attention.
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Summary: When you read it you see yourself
Review: Even if you are a very successful man you will see your bad sides and how to eliminate them. This book can change your life.
Rating: 
Summary: Miniature edition warning!
Review: Be sure you are not buying the miniature edition, unless that is what you want. I thought I was buying the regular book and was surprised to receive a miniature edition.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype!!!
Review: A boring book. If I would have known that he had an MBA from Harvard I would have reconsidered buying this book. I could have written this book in 20 pages, not to mention in a more entertaining fashion!!! Do not buy this book. I would recommend a book written by Rick Pitino or another coach/successful athlete.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: For all the hype this program generates I must say that I am truely disappointed by the quality of this CD. In this CD (with the blue cover) you are constantly interrupted during Covey's interesting seminar, by a woman narrator who talks about what Covey is getting ready to talk about. I felt like I was back in grade school having the book deciphered into "potato head" talk. I will try another version of this book in hopes that it was put together in a better, easier flowing manner.
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Summary: This should get 7 stars
Review: I have the cd rom version of this book and it is truly amazing. What he says isn't all that new. It's just that we forgot. His laws are eqaul to the laws of the universe. For example, win/win. His Idea that we don't have to compete and make our peers our rivals. In fact, successful people have a tendency to make everything win/win rather than win/lose. Someone doesn't have to lose in order for us to win. In fact, if we both help each other we both will win. There is plenty of success to go around. In essence, the golden rule applied to living. This is just one example of his seven laws. Great book. Another self help book I would like to recommend that I absolutely love is called, "The Little Guide To Happiness".
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Summary: Interesting at times, but often pompous and self-satisfied
Review: I am not a big fan of self-help books but I can understand their appeal. Covey is very POSITIVE, his endless encouragement to go out and "quit whining and do something about it" can be infectious (of course this message involves plenty of diagrams and long, tedious passages). If he could keep the book pitched at this level I would be an enthusiast, unfortunately he does not...This book is interesting - partly because so many people swear by it - but I did not find it GREAT and remain slightly puzzled by all those converts.
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Summary: In-Depth Exploration of Yourself
Review: I think this is a good book to read. Not everything in this book works for me but I can use some of the things mentioned in this book. The book teaches me how to have a good relationship with my friends, family, and co-workers. As you know, habit, according to psychology, is a conditioned response to stimuli. This means that it can be learned through repetition or reinforcement. Unlike Pavlov's dogs, people are highly complex and dynamic and each reacting differently to the same or different situations. According to Stephen Covey the 7 habits are:
1) be proactive,
2) begin with the end in mind,
3) put first thing first,
4) think win/win,
5) seek to understand, then to be understand,
6) synergize,
7) sharpen the saw. It has a high level of abstraction. Also, part of this book sounds more like philosophy or even religion, which will not sit well with everyone. It is also important to reread this book because it will talk to you in different ways at different stages in your life.
Rating:
Summary: Mindblowing book Do get it !
Review: Purpose in life is very essential. I have always believed that short cut approaches are no solution to leading ones life effectively. Covey's approach is bang on target. It makes you think deeply and change your paradigm first. His ideas on the circle of influence and circle of concern are really superb. We spend a lot of time worrying about factors over, which we have absolutely no control. This books brings a whole different perspective to Life. Its a must buy !!
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Summary: rhetoric combats rhetoric
Review: We live in a society that teaches us to be passive and rely on experts for our decision making. All our media is based on noninteractive mediums often supplemented by laugh tracks to tell us when we are happy and creepy music to tell us when we are scared. Fear and confusion are the tools by which people are turned into sheep with a checkbook. It begins in compulsory education systems where we are given a question and the answer and then asked the question (how many of those answers have you later found to be lies). Your thoughts are not required but your complacency is demanded. We have our issues framed in such a way that we debate only a list of sanctioned and approved alternatives with no discussion of that which has been deemed counter-revolutionary by the powers that be, and dissent will not be tolerated. Once we were told what to think, now we are simply told not to. The news comes complete with analysis of how it will impact your life so all you need to do is sit back offer blind faith in the mega-corporations that bring you the 5-oclock news and the Seven Habits of Highly Deceptive People.
The motive behind this learned helplessness is to homogenize us into targetable markets and prepare us for the sales pitch offering what we have just been told we need in order to bring fulfillment to our unsatisfying and tame lifestyles of servitude to others. The media has told us what is attractive, what is just and what the good-life is, which avails a new market of telling us how to cope with the frustration of having our thoughts dictated by external profit seekers...Enter the Oprah-Covey-Dr. Phill solution. Tell me I have problems, tell me what they are, tell me how to fix them and I will pretend I believe you care about me more than another ivory back-scratcher you can spend my 3 easy payments on.
We spend millions on infomercial products telling us how to increase our IQ 30 points, reduce cellulite, and make a fortune in real-estate, all by devoting ten minutes a week and sending our check or money order to address on the screen without ever leaving the sofa.
As we watch talk shows bring in the so called 'specialists', we remove ourselves from real problems that cause us real stress and focus on masters of rhetoric peddling easy answers to indirect questions. Do we need to follow the 'correct map', or do we need involve ourselves in direct action and reaction to events and circumstances of our life as is best judged by our own undiluted thoughts. As any good marketing class will teach you, repetition creates truth. The incessant references to ambiguous entities of inner power and paradigm maps along with blurred calls to action involving centering one's self and shifting paradigms offer little certainty when action is called for in our lives.
Eventually a person gets tired of hearing all the ways we are told how to cope and that it's gonna be alright and, only then, real change can happen. It does not require shifting a paradigm map but it might require unleashing the harness we are bound by and going down to city hall. It may require you to develop distrust of the mainstream mass media and question the motives behind those trying to influence you. You might need to make tangible changes to your lifestyle and remove yourself from situations where you are powerless, you might need to question your involvement in systems of exploitation, and you may need to be much less tame.
The most important thing is to believe change in your life will come from yourself and not the expert. The painful truth is that the expert doesn't care about you or your unsatisfying life. They have no idea how to solve your problems and no motivation to do so, particularly when they have a new self help cook-book coming out next spring and have already added your name to their marketing list.
If your life needs change, you need to change it yourself. You are not helpless, and you have everything you need to do it already. If it is self-help you seek, Covey-help will get you nowhere. Everyone has an agenda and most of them need your credit card number. It can be dangerous to believe that this rhetoric will bring you more than the temporary illusion that you have taken control of your life when all you have done is tightened the shackles that bind you the source of dissatisfaction you sought to free yourself from.
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