Book Notes

Please feel free to read and use any of these notes taken from various books I have found useful, interesting and worthy of consideration.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Posted by on Nov 23, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Steven Covey – The Seven Habits represent a holistic, integrated approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness. 1. P.18 If we want to change the situation, we must first change ourselves. And to first change ourselves, we must first change our perceptions. 2. P.27 Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. 3. P.37 To relate effectively…we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. 4. P.43 Be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than...

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Life 101: Everything we wish we had learned in school – but didn’t

Posted by on Nov 24, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Peter McWilliams; excerpts from the book follow: P. vi  “At college age, you can tell who is best at taking tests and going to school, but you can’t tell who the best people are. That worries the hell out of me.” Part I:  Introduction to Life P. 6   “We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” P. 9   “What is the purpose of life? Life is for doing, learning and enjoying.” P. 12   “Our doing allows for more learning. P. 19   “The trick...

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | Comments Off

By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – P. ix “This book summarizes…decades of research on the positive aspects of human experience – joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life that I call flow. …a joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. …this book presents general principles…to transform boring and meaningless lives into ones full of enjoyment.” P. 1 “Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men and women seek happiness.”… “We do not understand what happiness is...

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The Monk and the Philosopher

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By J-F Revel and M. Ricard – 1. Revel is a renowned French philosopher and atheist and Ricard is his son who has a PhD in biology and a very western education before moving to Asia to become a monk some 30 years ago. 2. In this dialogue, Ricard defends the validity of his life-changing experience of enlightenment. He does not see his conversion to Buddhism as any repudiation of what he knew as a scientist. Revel is a formidable proponent of liberal Western individualism, of that enlightened self-interest which accords so well with...

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Teachings of the Buddha

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

1. The word “Buddha” means ‘one who is awake’. It is the experience of awakening to the truth of life that is offered in the Buddhist tradition. 2. The Buddha saw that human freedom must come from practicing a life of inner and outer balance, and he called this discovery the Middle Path. 3. The Buddha sat in the midst of these forces with his heart open and his mind clear until he could see to the depths of human consciousness, until he discovered a place of peace at the center of them all. 4. From the Buddha’s enlightenment, two...

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The Seat of the Soul

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Gary Zukav p. 21 “Our deepest understanding tells us that a truly evolved being is one that values others more than it values itself, and that values love more than it values the physical world and what is in it.” p. 22 “The need for physical dominance produces a type of competition that affects every aspect of our lives.” p. 23 “All of our institutions—social, economic and political—reflect our understanding of power as external.” (The author sees external power as bad) p. 24 “We have come to perceive power as in...

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How to Win Friends and Influence People

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Dale Carnegie – p. XIX “Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.” William James p. XIX “Education is the ability to meet life’s situations.” John G. Hibben p. 6 “By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes.” p. 8 “Criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return...

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Good to Great

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Jim Collins – 1. “Good is the enemy of great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.” 2. “We believe that almost any organization can substantially improve its stature and performance, perhaps even become great, if it conscientiously applies the framework of ideas we’ve uncovered… Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.” 3. “They first got the...

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Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Martin Seligman – p. iii “Curing the negatives does not produce the positives.” p. iv “The skills of becoming happy turn out to be almost entirely different from the skills of not being sad, not being anxious, or not being angry.” p. vii “Self-esteem seems only to be a symptom, a correlate, of how well a person is doing in the world.” p. 3-10 There are 2 ways to look at life’s occurrences: optimistically or pessimistically. Both ways of thinking seriously affect many aspects of a person’s life (work, health...

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Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Books | 0 comments

By Susan Jeffers – Excerpts from the book: p.3 “Fear seems to be epidemic in our society.” p.4 “Fear is primarily an educational problem.” p.6 “Many of us short-circuit our living by choosing the path that is the most comfortable.” p.11 We are all trying to do the best we can and are all uncertain about whether we’re good enough. It never varies. p.13 “The common denominator is the fact that fear is keeping all of [us] from experiencing life the way they want to experience it.” p.13-16 Fear can be broken down into 3...

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