This book was assigned to me this semester by Shazaam (not his REAL name) a high achieving, front row guy who you will soon understand played a big role in giving Marvin's Book (my first book) a happier ending, even if that ending is in THIS book.
No Excuses is a great book for someone who needs a pep talk, guidance and direction. It's about responsibility, accountability and intention -- know what you're doing, know WHY you're doing and DO IT.
I love the way the author keeps bringing up the 20/80 rule. Have you ever heard of it?
- 20% of the people make 80% of the money
- you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time
While reading the first part of this book I decided to take notes, but I quickly realized my notes could be from this book or a Tony Robbins book or any great motivation book.
Here's what I wrote.
- If it has to be, it's up to me.
- SELF-DISCIPLINE - "ability to do what you should do, regardless if you feel like it or not" (p7)
- Successful people have habits that make them more successful than people who don't have the drive to establish difficult and rewarding habits.
The author talks about the laws of attraction, of perverse consequences, and of the POWER of habits.
I will not say this is a bad book -- this is an important book if its the RIGHT book for you, NOW. It wasn't the right book for me. I've heard almost everything in this book in other books, and the advice and motivation contributed to where I am today.
I wanted to like this book - but at the point where it goes from work advice to parenting advice to relationship advice to health advice to food advice I wanted to throw the book and ask the hard question, WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME ALLLLL THIS???
The best motivational, inspirational books come from real people whose story we already sorta know.
I don't know who Brian Tracy is, besides a guy whose talked to over a million people.
I don't know who he was and why I should listen to him, but besides THAT, this book is quite a book.
If you are looking for one book that distills all the advice from 1990-2010 into one book, this is a book you might want. If you've read other great advice books by people like Dr. Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, this book might be a bit redundant.
My only concern (omg am I saying this?) is that this book has no spiritual roots, so it seems self-discipline is the core of life. I don't agree. I think the work self-discipline is being used as a poor substitute for "mature" and included in "mature" is "spiritual maturity" -- but then again, I might just be saying that because reading 85 books has made me a little cranky.
