Rating: 
Summary: Very Abridged Version of a Library on Personal Success
Review: This book will mainly be valuable to people who love to read books about personal success, and want to have one brief volume that reminds them of everything they have read on the subject. For those who do not know much about achieving success, the lessons here are usually presented in such a simplified way (without explaining much about why they work) that the meaning will be elusive. Also, these rules "maximize" the opportunity for those who are truly obsessed about success and/or money. If you are interested in love, happiness, relationships, or having a great family, I think this book will put you out of balance and cost you in those areas. Mr. Tracy is a very admirable man, and someone from whom we can learn. He is a self-made millionaire. In his comments here, I got one new idea for why. He grew up in Pomona, California. Every person I knew of his age who grew up in that town became extremely eager to overcome their childhood poverty. You may not be so obsessed. Two things, however, annoy me (as usual) about Mr. Tracy's book. First, he doesn't ever choose to credit anyone whose work he draws on in another book. A great deal of this material (almost verbatim) comes directly from Anthony Robbins' books and courses. Second, the book is often an advertisement for Mr. Tracy's many tapes, seminars, and other books. I get 90 pages-long advertising paperbacks in the mail all the time that are written much like this book. The main difference is that I don't have to pay for those. I think that this advertising is out of place in a book that people purchase. I graded the book down two stars for these flaws. The strength of this book is that it contains many brief exercises that will help you begin to develop more useful habits. I hope you will do them. If you do the exercises, you can virtually ignore the text, except for where you want a little insight into why you are doing the exercise. Without the exercises, I would have graded the book down to two stars to reflect the overly minimal exposition in the 21 essays. A fundamental weakness of the book is that the 21 rules here could have been boiled down into about 9 points. Many of the concepts overlap one another more than they differ. Rather than give you the list of the 21, let me distill the book for you instead. It basically says: dream of something that excites you, do things that you enjoy that you are great at, establish goals in writing, keep focused on those goals, develop your skills (Covey's Sharpen the Saw) regularly every day, put the needs of others ahead of yourself, be a decent human being, connect with others, don't entirely ignore your health, work very hard, save some money and invest it, and take action as soon as possible! You could read Benjamin Franklin and find the same points and have more fun. If you are a young person, that's exactly what I recommend that you do. Old Ben knew how to enjoy life along the way, and was one of the greatest Americans of all time. You will find yourself admiring him. Poor Richard's Almanac is often very pithy on these subjects, so you'll save reading time in the process. People will be more impressed if you quote Ban than Mr. Tracy. After you finish reading and applying Mr. Tracy's exercises, ask yourself how you can organize your day to have time for all of these activities and whatever else is important in your life. I suggest that you use Life Strategies and the workbook that goes with it to put it all into perspective. Those exercises will help you accomplish these results as well. Be sure to take care of your health, happiness, and peace before you start focusing too much on prosperity!
Rating:
Summary: Very Abridged Version of a Library on Personal Success
Review: This book will mainly be valuable to people who love to read books about personal success, and want to have one brief volume that reminds them of everything they have read on the subject. For those who do not know much about achieving success, the lessons here are usually presented in such a simplified way (without explaining much about why they work) that the meaning will be elusive. Also, these rules "maximize" the opportunity for those who are truly obsessed about success and/or money. If you are interested in love, happiness, relationships, or having a great family, I think this book will put you out of balance and cost you in those areas. Mr. Tracy is a very admirable man, and someone from whom we can learn. He is a self-made millionaire. In his comments here, I got one new idea for why. He grew up in Pomona, California. Every person I knew of his age who grew up in that town became extremely eager to overcome their childhood poverty. You may not be so obsessed. Two things, however, annoy me (as usual) about Mr. Tracy's book. First, he doesn't ever choose to credit anyone whose work he draws on in another book. A great deal of this material (almost verbatim) comes directly from Anthony Robbins' books and courses. Second, the book is often an advertisement for Mr. Tracy's many tapes, seminars, and other books. I get 90 pages-long advertising paperbacks in the mail all the time that are written much like this book. The main difference is that I don't have to pay for those. I think that this advertising is out of place in a book that people purchase. I graded the book down two stars for these flaws. The strength of this book is that it contains many brief exercises that will help you begin to develop more useful habits. I hope you will do them. If you do the exercises, you can virtually ignore the text, except for where you want a little insight into why you are doing the exercise. Without the exercises, I would have graded the book down to two stars to reflect the overly minimal exposition in the 21 essays. A fundamental weakness of the book is that the 21 rules here could have been boiled down into about 9 points. Many of the concepts overlap one another more than they differ. Rather than give you the list of the 21, let me distill the book for you instead. It basically says: dream of something that excites you, do things that you enjoy that you are great at, establish goals in writing, keep focused on those goals, develop your skills (Covey's Sharpen the Saw) regularly every day, put the needs of others ahead of yourself, be a decent human being, connect with others, don't entirely ignore your health, work very hard, save some money and invest it, and take action as soon as possible! You could read Benjamin Franklin and find the same points and have more fun. If you are a young person, that's exactly what I recommend that you do. Old Ben knew how to enjoy life along the way, and was one of the greatest Americans of all time. You will find yourself admiring him. Poor Richard's Almanac is often very pithy on these subjects, so you'll save reading time in the process. People will be more impressed if you quote Ban than Mr. Tracy. After you finish reading and applying Mr. Tracy's exercises, ask yourself how you can organize your day to have time for all of these activities and whatever else is important in your life. I suggest that you use Life Strategies and the workbook that goes with it to put it all into perspective. Those exercises will help you accomplish these results as well. Be sure to take care of your health, happiness, and peace before you start focusing too much on prosperity!
Rating: 
Summary: Take a Chance - You Can't Go Wrong Here
Review: This was the first of a long string of Financial Success books that I have read in the last 18 months. I saw an ad for it and thought, "what the hell?". The book won't let you down. The title may sound VERY CHEESEY, but please dont let that fool you. You can't really argue with anything he says. In fact I'm sure if you followed Mr Tracy's recommendations you just can't go wrong. The audio starts out with Dream Big Dreams and Develop a Clear Sense of Direction. These are my favorite chapters. I hit review for these two tracks on my CD player all the time. I think, just as Mr. Tracy, you GOTTA think BIG! And you gotta make a plan. This book will motivate you, take my word for it. My only complaint is that Mr.Tracy does not discuss the Mastermind concept in the chapter on Getting Around the Right People. I still give it 5 stars.
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