Here it is.Β I reviewed my own book.Β If you look at benbalden.com/bookreviews/ or benbalden.com/pdw/ you’ll see all the personal development books I’ve reviewed.Β Well, now I review my own.Β My book is called,Β Live a Happier, Fuller Life.Β Β If you like what you see and want to purchase a copy of the book to read for yourself, visit https://benbalden.com/books/.
My Review Summary
-
- 10/10 – Principles
- 10/10 – Applicability
- 10/10 – Enjoyment
- 10/10 – TOTAL
My Conclusion: What can I say?Β I love this book.
From Book Blurb:
This book is an organized set of personal development principlesΒ that people can learn and apply by themselves.Β I have developed this concept over the years as I have researched personal development and noticedΒ many repeating patternsΒ from one book to another and missing information or missing links between ideas and concepts.Β This book is an attempt to bring it all together intoΒ ONE UNIFIED FRAMEWORK.
See more at https://benbalden.com/books/
This episode is a book review of my latest book, Live a Happier, Fuller Life.
Get all podcast episodes and subscribe here: bit.ly/benbalden
My Review
Is it weird to review my own book?Β I think it makes sense.Β But I want to state ahead of time that I’m a little biased and will probably give myself a glowing review.Β After all, I made the book that I’ve always wanted to have, so, of course, I’ll find it fantastic.Β But, I admit that it is not perfect.
So, what’s in the book?
-
- Adventure
- Intrigue
- Romance
- Sword Fighting
- And the answer to all of life’s problems
Well, not exactly.
This book is a personal development book.Β It seeks to summarize and synthesize the majority of the best personal development advice out there.Β It draws upon knowledge of many hundreds of personal development works from hundreds of different authors and personal development experts.Β It organizes all the ideas, concepts, principles, and formulas into one unified framework based on the 4 Principles of Personal Development and 6 Life Areas.
The book is organized into these ten categories.Β It is my claim that all personal development principles and concepts can fit into this framework, thus providing an organized and systematic approach to personal development.
Most of the sections also include stories to help illustrate the principles discussed in the section.Β Most of the stories are fictional, but there are many real stories or stories adapted from real life examples.Β The stories add an element of enjoyment to punctuate the focus on larger than life concepts and principles discussed in the book.
The 4 Personal Development Steps are
1. Wake Up
2. Get Clear
3. Focus
4. Move Forward
The 6 Life Areas are
1. Character
2. Wellness
3. Wealth
4. Relationships
5. Contribution
6. Lifestyle
The book also contains TOOLS to help you affect changes in your life
– 61 Worksheets
– 39 Exercises
– 71 Notes
– 28 Graphs and Tables
– 7 Quizzes
– 24 Checklists
– 34 Diagrams
The book comes out of an idea to extract all the great wisdom and solutions from the hundreds of self-help books out there and organize the best ones into a useful way, and to provide tools or resources to help you apply the ideas into your life.Β That’s basically the goal of the book: to give you all the best knowledge and wisdom you need to live a happier, fuller life and help you incorporate it into your life.
As the author, I may not have a degree in psychology, but I have done much real life learning and do hold a bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.Β I, personally, think the book is well written.Β The tone is light and approachable.Β There is a light humor throughout the book when not being very serious.
So, why would I write this book when there are so many other personal development books out there?Β The reason is because there were no books like this one.Β One that took on the challenge to combine all personal development knowledge into one unified framework, to make it fun, and to provide hundreds of tools like worksheets, exercises, checklists, diagrams, notes, quizzes, graphs, and tables.
You see, I have a vision.
I think that many of the problems in life can be solved through personal development.Β People getting mad, frustrated, feeling stuck, or simply being unsatisfied with their situation in life.Β And that generally anyone can live a much happier, fuller life by applying the principles of personal development.Β In fact, I believe that society at large would grow, progress, and evolve as more people simply learn and implement the simple practices and strategies of personal development into their lives.Β And that’s my end goal: a society so progressed that it becomes a utopia to live in.
Just imagine if anyone could overcome almost any difficulty in their life and almost everyone in society was really sincerely happy in life.Β How amazing would that be?
Here is the table of contents for the book:
-
- My Preface
- Your Introduction To This Book
- Step 0 – Develop Yourself
- Take A Step
- Growth Is The Solution
- Why Personal Development?
- The Power Of A Framework
- See The Whole Picture
- Step 1 β Wake Up
- Awaken To Your Power
- The Possibility Of Change
- Reclaim Your Responsibility
- Recognize Your Choice
- Activate Your Intelligence
- Initiate The Change
- Live Life Fully
- Step 2 β Get Clear
- Your True End Goal
- A Chat About Happiness
- Why Set A Destination
- Know Yourself
- Remove Boundaries
- Check For Control
- Know You Can Decide
- Design Your Life
- Remember Your Plan
- Use Your Vision To Seek Direction
- See The Vision
- Detach Unconditionally
- Step 3 β Focus
- Align Your Minds
- Understand You Are On Autopilot
- Understand Your Mental Thermostat
- Understand You Are Programed
- Understand The Creation Formula
- Reprogram Your Mind
- Reprogramming Tools:
- Detect And Remove Blocks And Barriers
- Intentionally Install Beliefs And Values
- Defend Against Dissonance
- Hear Good Words
- Model Successful Behavior
- Create Reinforcing Results
- Reinterpret The Past
- Manage The Meaning
- Tell Supportive Stories
- Recalibrate Your Responses
- Serve And Support Yourself
- Adopt A Healthy Mindset And Attitude
- Bridle Your Passions And Obsessions
- Unlock The Power Of Physiology
- Master Your Emotions And Feelings
- Establish Your Emotional Home
- Question Your Feelings
- Navigate Negativity
- Manifest With Meaning
- Visualize Frequently
- Leverage Motivational Forces
- Get Disturbed
- Fill Your Fundamental Needs
- Face Your Fears
- A Birdβs Eye View Review Of Step 3 Focus
- Step 4 β Move Forward
- Plan To Arrive
- Set Goals To Aim At
- Design Tasks That Direct Your Motion
- Allocate And Focus Your Time
- Start With An Explosion
- Narrow Your Focus
- Push Through
- 6 Life Areas
- Life Area #1 β Character
- Life Area #2 β Wellness
- Life Area #3 β Wealth
- Life Area #4 β Relationships
- Life Area #5 β Contribution
- Life Area #6 β Lifestyle
- Letβs Wrap It All Up
- The End
- How To Connect With Ben Balden
- Index: Other Personal Development Works I Recommend
As you can see, the biggest part of the book is Step 3 Focus, which discusses the mental battle of making improvements to one’s life.Β The size of the different sections is also reflected in the margin tabs of the book, which you can see from the side.
So, here are the 4 steps of personal development:
- WAKE UP – Wake up means activating your intelligence and believing that change is possible. It also means acknowledging your choice, responsibility, and ability to direct your life, and waking up and doing something about it.Β This is the door you must open to make everything that follows possible.
- GET CLEAR – Get clear means getting clear on what you want in life and defining what happiness means to you. It means deciding who you want to be, what you want to have, where youβre going, and what you want to do in your life.
- FOCUS – Focus means aligning your conscious intentions with your subconscious paradigms, beliefs, and mindset programs, so you naturally gravitate toward success and happiness.
- MOVE FORWARD – Move forward means taking physical action to progress in your lifeβs journey to be the person you want to be and being happy and fulfilled during the journey.
Here is brief explanation or description of each of the 6 Life Areas:
INNER LIFE AREAS
- character β Character means being the person you want to be, having confidence and conviction, loving yourself, being mature and developed, having wisdom and knowledge, having trained yourself with all the skills you need to be successful, being loving, kind, intelligent, and having a supportive attitude and mindset. It also includes a form of morality, ethics, and spirituality.
- wellness – Wellness means optimum wellness in body, mind, and spirit inside and out. Not only being as healthy as you can be physically given your circumstances, but mentally and spiritually whole as well.Β It includes both physical and mental health.
- wealth – Wealth means understanding and applying the principles of stewardship and forethought, accumulating, growing, and expanding your wealth, your freedoms, financial holdings, and enabling you to receive more, be able to do more, and have the capacity to help more.
OUTER LIFE AREAS
- relationship – Relationships means connecting with others by initiating, building, maintaining, and strengthening relationships to be stronger, more capable, and happier. Itβs about how you interact with others, how you lead or follow, or how you synergize your efforts with that of others to progress.
- contribution – Contribution means serving others, contributing to humanity in some way, understanding your purpose in life, or a calling to derive satisfaction and fulfillment and meaning out of your days. This may be your work, your career, or how you serve others.
- lifestyle – Lifestyle means living the life that you want, enjoying the stuff and the people you want, having the freedom of time and resources to go and experience what you want.
There is also a suggested reading list of personal development books and works at the back of the book, which is more or less the list from this webpage: https://benbalden.com/pdw/
The book also has a workbook that you can buy, which makes it easier to take notes and complete the worksheets and, in fact, gives you a disposable means of doing so.Β You can learn more about the workbook and find a link where you can purchase it here: https://benbalden.com/books/
- Great book
- A collection or curation of many personal development concepts and principles form many other sources
- Put together in one unified framework 4 steps & 6 areas
- Provides stories
- Worksheets, checklists, and exercises to help you apply them in your life
- My vision is that the world can be a much better place through personal development
If you want to buy this book, please visit https://benbalden.com/books/
View Contents
Anyone can comment