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Summary: How to stay focused on what is most important in your life.
Review: Several years ago, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt and I discovered that we had independently stumbled upon a series of practical strategies that when applied by anyone in any walk of life would actually work to help people create the life they said they wanted -- more success, more money, and more time off to spend with their families and friends. We actually created a seminar that promised to double people's incomes and double their time off in less than two years! Many people achieved the goal in one year! We were so excited that we decided to put the strategies we taught in the seminar into a book, which we eventually titled The Power of Focus. Of all the self-help books I have ever co-authored this is my favorite one because it is full of tested strategies that really work if you will work them. I know this to be true because, when I was doing a booksigning in Seattle after the book was only out for a few weeks, a man attended the signing and told me that he had read the book in two days and had already put many of the ideas into practice and was already seeing results. After only two weeks! I use all of the techniques in my own life and I now have more time off than I ever had before. It's exciting to be able to work less and accomplish more. I have better health, more vacations, more joy and more financial success with our Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I strongly encourage you to read this book, use the strategies we teach, and then write to Mark, Les and I and share the results you get in your life. We are eager to hear from you. Best wishes for a great life -- the one you always dreamed of living!
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Summary: Best self-help book which is acutally useful.
Review: I consider this book as the best self-help book which is actaually useful for me. Most self-help books use Top-down approach. You first set up the goals in your life, and solve the problem of how you may achieve them. While this works most of the time in building software, I do not think that it does in real life. Also, software engineers are trained to design software using top down approach. On the other hand, normal beings like us are not trained to construct our lives in top down approach. I am not saying that this approach is not good. It may work for highly motivated and well deciplined people. The book, Power of Focus, uses bottom up approach. So, the small things, concrete, do-able things first. The authors tell us to find out our bad habits, and change them one by one. Their stories were so convincing that it looked so easy. And it was really easy. One problem I had with other books' top down approach was that I didn't feel comfortable in setting or writing down so-called "great ambitions". But I felt very comfortable with this book's bottom up approach.
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Summary: Lessons From the Masters
Review: Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are absolute masters of focus. In the Power of Focus they share all of steps to making your dreams come true in a simple and easy to understand format. They are living proof that what they teach works!
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Summary: This one puts it all together
Review: Most motivational books concentrate their time and effort on discussing one or two techniques of how to achieve personal and business goals. This one puts it altogether in one package. The book covers in detail 10 focusing strageties. This makes it a real winner from my perspective. At the conclusion of each of the 10 strageties, there are a series of worksheets that help you impliment what you have learned in the previous chapter. These have been invaluable to me in progressing toward my professional, relationship, and financial goals. I plan to purchase numerous copies and give them to all of my young adult children and their spouses. In addition, I will be teaching a professional development class and this will be the TEXTBOOK for the course. The real driver behind this work is Les Hewitt and he has done an excellent job of tying many of the loose ends in this field together in one wonderful bundle. I hope to read more by him in the future.
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Summary: The roadmap to success.
Review: I say that this book is a "Roadmap" to success because the terrain itself is quite familiar. It's all been said before: set goals, replace bad habits with good habits, build a mastermind group, etc. However, unlike other books of this genre, the authors of "The Power of Focus" have charted a course for the reader to follow. Instead of just telling you "what", they also tell you "how." It doesn't get any simpler than this--I'm still waiting for a book that only requires that you read it and then suddenly money just starts appearing out of nowhere. At the end of each chapter, the authors have provided action steps for the reader to take. I personally really needed just this kind of systematic, organized approach to mastering many of these principles--I'm an amazingly creative procrastinator. The book, therefore, is kind of like a personal coach, available at any time. If you truly apply all of the principles--and it will be easier for you to do so if you actually follow the action steps at the end of each chapter--then you will likely succeed in your endeavors.
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Summary: We Control The Focus of Our Lives
Review: Frankly, I loved this book! It is practical, easy to read, and it suits my philosophy that success is based on BALANCE, not on how much money, power or fame we accumulate. I have been a fan of Canfield and Hansen for many years, and I think I have read every book they've written, so you can accuse me of bias if you wish, but these guys are good! They know some stuff about making life work out well, and I appreciate that! I don't recall seeing this phrase in the book, but the theme
is that success is actually quite easy. Success is the logical and predictable result of doing the right things, in the right way, at the right time, and that is curiously EASY if we are focused and paying attention. What is hard is living a chaotic, confused and distracted life while we "hope" for success to jump up and bite us. It just doesn't work that way! This is one you should OWN! Buy and read it. Put it on your shelf or the corner of your desk, and in six months read it again! Give it to your spouse or kids and ask them to read it, then talk about it! The power of this book is that it's so "obvious" - but only if we remember to DO the little things that make the difference. Don't borrow it from the library. Buy it. Read it. Keep it handy and plan to read itagain and again over the years.
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Summary: The Joy of Habits
Review: I'm not a huge fan of Canfield and Hansen's pollyanna "Chicken Soup" series, but I enjoyed "The Power of Focus". Much like Stephen Covey in "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People", they tout the benefits of choosing your habits based on desired long-term results and core values. They do this by mining "7 Habits"-type focus, Tony Robbins/NLP-style programming, W. Clement Stone'-ish old school self-helpism, their own "Chicken Soup" success stories and the cultural wisdom everyone knows but few bother to heed (i.e. work out regularly, eat right, etc.). And they do a pretty good job of making a palatable soup out of it. Like '7 Habits' and Tony Robbin's material, they shamelessly self-promote and offer some sort of 'coaching' opportunity while providing their recipe for getting and staying both focused and in balance. And like the 2 aforementioned authors' work, their info applies to both business and personal improvement. Anyone familiar with self-help books will have heard of much of the material here. I liked several of the action steps they offered (though I'd read many elsewhere) and adopted a few that worked for me. I also thought it was a somewhat inspiring read the 2x I read it and it did help me re-focus on my daily habits (that's why I got the it). As far as these books go, if you're looking for something new, yet familiar-you may very well find it here.
Also recommended: "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"; Tony Robbins' 'Get the Edge' audio program; "The Road Less Traveled : Discipline (Part I/Audio Cassette)".
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Summary: Great book
Review: Too bad our Canadian friend didn't use the book. Page 173 begins the discussion on a winning attitude. There is good in everything and this book is no exception.
Cover to cover the book is well written with concepts to help you get "unstuck" and begin forward motion toward your goals. It's a good read that can be used as a workbook or reference book to help keep you on track and in focus!
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Summary: Broad solid clear advice on wholistic leadership
Review: Canfield and company offer an intelligent, broad, and clear explanation of leadership that can be applied to any setting. Ironically, The Power of Focus was a reading assignment for a seminary course I took, and the concepts work well in the management of a modest parish, just as I am sure they do in a large multinational corporation.
While many of the ideas--the danger of busyness, differing leadership styles, and the need for clarity of vision are longstanding concepts, the author brings them together and fleshes them out with fresh, practical and achievable applications.
Bottom line: Kudos for a broad, yet approachable text surveying modern leadership ideals.
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Summary: what a joke
Review: If you're Homer Simpson, this is a good book for you. The advice is so incredibly obvious, most people have figured out this stuff by age 10. Work hard, exercise and live a balanced life? Duh!
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