Inspiration Books

There are some typos in here that take away
from the book, such as the gaff that the '73
(it was the '72)Dolphins being perfect. Did
Shula forget the date, or did he EVEN proof-
read the text? No matter, it IS a very good
and positive book anyway and much can be tak-
en out of it and used in everyday life. Shula's
legend lives on!

Of the 1000's of books written on leadership in the past 100 years, this one presents a very real picture of world we live in. Too many of the books I've read lately give us the magic formulas to follow, some leading us through a veritable mathematical maze to tell us what kind of leader we are. "Principle-Centered Leadership" by Covey and "The Platinum Rule" fall into this category. What Blanchard and Shula have done, and done quite successfully is to integrate theory with actual examples. While I don't agree with everything that Shula has done, I do applaud his efforts. I do absolutely believe in his philosophy of "Lead by example," and the necessity of developing trust. Both Shula and Blanchard emphasize this aspect of leadership as critical. There are too many so-called leaders in the corporate world who do not lead by example. They are quite willing to demand of you what they are unwilling to do themselves. On top of the quality of the reading, the book is very easy to read. I hi

What makes this book so effective is that the advice offered is not only solid, but it can be applied immeditely. It's a "hands on" doer's guide. The strength Ken Blanchard brings is his strong Christian influence. Shula's credentials consist of his long term track record as an NFL coach. In this book Shula describes how he leads by example and thorough preparation.

One place this book separtes itself from books of this genre is that it emphasizes "follow through" as contrasted with goal-setting. That's an action focus. It puts the spotlight on doing something.

This is a must buy for every coaches library. Coach Shula explores all of the areas a coach is confronted with. He gives the reader his philosophy on coaching and relates it to life's teachings.

Don Shula, the National Football League's all-time winningest coach, teamed up with Ken Blanchard, the internationally known and multiple award-winning author, educator, and management and leadership consultant, and together they co-wrote an outstanding book about leaders getting the best performance from the individuals and organizations they are privileged to lead. Whether you are responsible for the performance of multiple organizations, or for just one other individual, the leadership wisdom and insights in this book can help you maximize your coaching and leadership effectiveness.

The winning combination of the two separately distinguished leaders in their respective fields, and the complementary structure of the book were brilliant. Organized around the acronym C.O.A.C.H., the five coaching "secrets" that Shula had practiced and Blanchard has been teaching for over 30 years, the book alternated synergistic passages from Shula then Blanchard to explore and explain the acronym in theory and practice from the football gridiron to modern business situations, and ultimately to the game of life.

Here's how Shula and Blanchard define and think about the acronym C.O.A.C.H.:

Conviction-Driven: Effective leaders stand for something.

Overlearning: Effective leaders help their teams achieve practice perfection.

Audible-Ready: Effective leaders, and the people and teams they coach, are ready to change their game plan when the situation demands it.

Consistency: Effective leaders are predictable in their response to performance.

Honesty-Based: Effective leaders have high integrity and are clear and straightforward in their interactions with others.

Conviction-Driven: "Someone has said that a river without banks is a puddle. When I apply that saying to human interactions, it reminds me of the job of a coach. Like those river-banks, a good coach provides the direction and concentration for performers' energies, helping channel all their efforts toward a single desired outcome. Without that critical influence, the best achievements of the most talented performers can lack the momentum and drive that make a group of individuals into champions."

Overlearning: "To me a game doesn't end when the clock finally runs out. It ends on Monday, after we've analyzed every play and learned all we cana from it...Failure is successfully finding out what you don't want to repeat...Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven't learned a thing until you can take action and use it."

Audible-Ready: "Preparation means everything to me. I'm passionate about my players being ready for anything. Now, part of being ready is being able to shift your game plan at will. I see myself as a battlefield commander who has the guts to make the right moves to win. I want to be prepared with a plan - and then to expect the unexpected and be ready to change this plan. I must preserve the right to change - even to change at the last moment - as circumstances demand...Audibles aren't surprises - just new ways of doing what you already know how to do. Business people need to learn to call audibles, because in today's world, nothing stays the same."

Consistency: "Your team will soon learn what your standards are and perform accordingly. I not only insist on practice perfection, I'm there to see that it takes place. I don't miss practices. I need to be out there smelling out whatever isn't working. Even the slightest deviation from perfection needs to be noticed and corrected on the spot. Correcting and redirecting performance is strategically important - it's where we outstrip the competition. Some coaches will let little things go. Right there is where the difference is made. To me, it's not a matter of how many times we've done it or how late it is or how tired the players are. We'll do it until we get it right. Then we won't deviate from it in the game. I'd rather throw out a play or formation during practice than find out it can't be done correctly in the ball game. We seldom try anything on game day that we haven't been able to perfect in practice. If I'm asking our players to do something they can't do, I want to know about it now."

Honesty-Based: "I have a straight-up approach. I don't know how to go around corners or how to finesse. My players know this and they expect candor from me. Congruence is important to me. What you see with Don Shula is what you get. I don't play games. Effective coaches confront their people, praise them sincerely, redirect or reprimand them without apology, and above all are honest with them. Integrity pays, and integrity means being honest with yourself and others. This is a key ingredient in my coaching philosophy."

In his introduction to the book, Blanchard stated that he is on a search for simple truths to help leaders and managers be their best. With Shula's proven long-term coaching effectiveness as the foundation for this book, Blanchard has found and shared many simple leadership truths and complexities. This book would be a welcome addition to anyone's coaching or leadership collection.

This book is lifechanging!!! A groundbreaking book that will help you manifest what you truly desire ... money, career, health, a new relationship ... whatever you desire! I did all the simple exercises (and there were not that many) and have already manifested my goals! Incredible stuff!!! I recommend this book to absolutely everyone. This one is a must read for everyone.

This book was a great overview of LOA with simple steps to follow to attract to you all that you desire.

Do you believe in magic ? Do you want to learn how to "create" magic in your life ? ... or are you the kind of person, like me, that thought you were just a lucky person ? If you want to gain control of your FUTURE and MAKE things happen, then ...

A "MUST READ" for people who want the most meaningful life ever !
Thank you, Connie Domino, for putting your "secret" practices into print !!

Lucky Lucy

This book is a quick and wonderful read. It is right to the point. It took me all of 1.5 days to read this book from cover to cover. I do recommend this book for those that are beginning to get into LOA.

Having read creative visualization by Shakti Gawain and Ask and it will be given by Hicks, this was easy to follow. The book is well written and concise to the point. A good buy.

Dr. Allert adds argument to the growing number of evangelicals challenging their fellow evangelicals to correct their interpretative lens. Through the use of multiple examples from the early church Dr. Allert challenges evangelical assumptions about the canon, definitions of inspiration, and definitions of scripture. He points out how the early church fathers, who's authority determined the canon on which we rely, often pointed to other writings as scripture or inspired. If we were to take recognition by the early church as our guide to what must be included in the canon, we would have a much larger canon than we now have (Dr. Allert's included with regard to the deuterocanon - see Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible for more on that topic).

Dr. Allert does well to challenge these assumptions and making it clear that, in the end, it is not canon or inerrancy that is key to understanding scripture's role as a guide. It is, in the end, interpretation that is key. And interpretation cannot be done in a vacuum (see also, 2 Peter 1:20) but must be done in the context of the church that formed the canon. Dr. Allert avoids the begging question of "what church would that be?" Instead, he ignores that important question and leaves us wondering at his answer. He makes a bold confession denying sola scriptura when he concludes, "For roughly the first four hundred years of its existence, the church had no closed canon, so the *Bible* could not have functioned as the sole criterion." Unfortunately, though he points out the importance of the church in interpreting scripture, he fails to identify how that church can be found in the evangelical paradigm of an invisible church. The same history that gives us the importance of the church also identifies that church but Dr. Allert seems hesitant to share his findings. Perhaps he is not yet ready to face his own assumptions about that question.

Many of us have gone this same road of discovery and we are all on different parts of the road. Dr. Allert is to be commended for his honest and thorough scholarship in challenging his fellow evangelicals to think more deeply on these questions. This is a worthy addition to this refreshing series of works. Dr. Allert has given us a solid historical study with much food for thought while leaving some important questions still open for us to ponder. One of his closing remarks says it all, "[I]f we are to do justice to and cherish God's word to us, we must be aware of the means God used to deliver it to us, and in that, the church has been central. Failure to account for this does not appreciate the importance of the Bible in the life of the church and its members, no matter how high people claim their doctrine of Scripture to be."

The point is very well stated and very highly recommended for deeper consideration. Also a good companion to Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future) or Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future) in any library.

This book is part of a series of works aiming to bring patristic scholarship to bear on problems in interpretation and proclamation for evangelicals. The author makes simple observations - that the canon of scripture was not solidified and closed by the second century (as Harnack claimed) and that there was indeed a church before there was a canon. The first of his two observations is more controversial than the second, but has better support from patristic sources. Allert challenges the dominant evangelical understanding of "theopneustos" in 2 Tim. 3:16 by recourse to the patristic sources that use the same apellative to describe phenomena unrelated to scripture.

This is not a book that offers easy answers to the difficult questions surrounding what we mean when we say that scripture is inspired. Also, I would have appreciated a bit more interaction with the source material like the review of recent scholarship on the effect that Marcion, Montanism and Gnosticism had on the development of the canon. But as an introduction is it quite sufficient and I expect to use the footnotes to guide further study of this area of interpretation.

Allert found it curious that evangelicals--and he calls himself one--rarely studied the historical process which formed the canon of the New Testament. For himself, he felt that "a high view of Scripture demands an understanding..of the Bible's very formation" (p 13).

About 1900, Zahn had argued that the canon was formed by the end of the 1st century. Harnack saw the canon as settled during the 2nd century, which became the standard approach for many evangelical biblical scholars.

As Allert dug deeper, he realized this was incorrect. In 1 Clement and the letter of Ignatius there are references to a common set of dogmas or tradition. "This tradition is guarded by the church leadership" (p 62).

Harnack may have argued that the canon was settled by the 2nd century, but the facts do not fully support this thesis. The church fathers cited many noncanonical literature as Scripture. Their view of what formed the books of Scripture was clearly broader than ours today.

In fact, "the Bible grew in and was mediated through the church...Scripture and church function together--they coincide" (p 84-5). He notes that Irenaeus stresses the process of succession from the apostles to the bishops. Against the heresies of the Gnostics, Irenaeus points to the body of doctrine proclaimed by the church as consistent everywhere.

A well thought out and well argued approach. Much recommended.

This is a very inspiration work which helps bring the highly paradoxical and often incomprehensible philosophy of nondualism or Advaita Vedanta down to every day life. Nondual religions like Zen or Hindu Advaita or Dzogchen are perhaps the highest expressions of human religious intelligence, but the teaching that "everything is consciousness" or "any effort to get it takes your further away," or "there is nothing to achieve," can leave the average person (I count myself as one) a bit lost--- especially if you don't have the good fortune to be around a realized nondualist teacher. That's where the book comes in-- in a market flooded with New Age books which often boil down to how use the universe to satisfy your ego wants, this a book that points the way to true satisfaction. It gives good, "practical," if I may use that word, guidance to achieving a state of non-achieving. It's a nice "how to" book for the path in which there is no "how to." It points us to that paradoxical space wherein we must make a total committment to allow things to happen without making any effort. The personal anecdotes sometimes go on a bit too long to make their points, but the author's life and healing are impressive enough to make her approach credible,...actually incredible (in the positive sense of that word, meaning miraculous).

Many of spend our whole lives searching. Perhaps, we are trying to find that something that will make us good enough, perfect, or worthy of love. Still, it seems that the more effort we put into the search, the less we actually seem to find.

What if we already had everything we needed to be whole? What if the entire time we had been searching for just that right job, the perfect spouse, that right dogma, or the ultimate therapist we had already had all the tools we needed. What if we found out that all that energy we spent running away from our feelings, our natural inclinations, and our flaws was actually making our journey more difficult? What if we found out that we could make a change right here and now and for the rest of our lives?

Freedom Is explores these and many other life changing notions. Based upon the popular Journeywork, the author explores effortless being; nonattachment; present-moment awareness, honoring and reverence; emotions, gratitude, love, forgiveness, and enlightenment.

I thought the material in Freedom Is was well presented and approachable. I felt extremely safe in the hands of the author as I began to explore some very personal, deeply hidden, and potentially scary issues. Moreover, after completing the book, I felt strong enough to carry what I had learned into my real life. One thing I do suggest though is that you also purchase the CD that accompanies this book. It will make the meditations and exercises a whole lot easier to accomplish without having to try to create your own.

Brandon Bays' bestseller THE JOURNEY has received much attention, and her latest spiritual growth guide FREEDOM IS: LIBERATING YOUR BOUNDLESS POTENTIAL promises the same, providing an overview of freedom as it relates to daily living. Unlike most titles on the topic it's not about freedom - it's about experiencing the feeling. Chapters provide case histories of master/student interactions and examples and plenty of first-person reflections from the author's own seminars and experiences.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

ASIN:1577316002 Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential
This book can truly set you free. Read a chapter at a time, doing the exercise at the end of the chaper, and you will see amazing results. If there was a ten star rating, thats how I would rate it. It is a must own book! Peggy Cashman, Canton, NY

This wonderful book will not provide a quick fix or easy answers. It is a book meant to be read slowly, tasted and savoured - and, if you want to get the most out of it, roll up your sleeves and be prepared to follow the guidance given to discover the things that are really holding you back. Keep it next to your bed. This book gives you the tools (for only whatever you pay for it) that otherwise you'll pay thousands for at Journey Seminars (that said, the Seminars are priceless). If you are not ready to face who you really are (and you're great!) then don't buy this book.

This is not a review but a correction - the translator should be "Gaffin", not "Graffin"

This thin and razor sharp piece of scholarship is essential to the understanding and defense of true protestant religion. Too many so-called protestants don't know the first thing about "Sola Scriptura." And among the slightly aware, canonicity is a much neglected topic. Get a life and read this book today.

This is a great gift book, to show appreciation to an inspirational friend, for a special celebration or any occasion. I saw it, looked at it, put it down and had to go back and buy it. I was not disappointed.

You can't tell from the photo, but this book has a muted UL following the SO. It makes it appear to say "SO HAPPY" from a distance but, upon closer observation, one realizes it says "SOUL HAPPY." It is a great bargain for a nice hardcover book. It is great to pick up & read a random quote when one needs inspiration (or reminding).

This is, by far, my favorite quote book. The colors are beautiful and subdued and the layout is simple: one quote per page spread, the quote on the right-hand page and a small picture and topic heading on the left. Most of the quotes aren't the generic ones I've often encountered in other larger books of quotations. And though there are only 42 quotes in all, what the book lacks in quantity, it definitely makes up in quality.

"Let your soul stand ajar, always ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." ~Emily Dickinson

I actually got this book before Gelb's 'How to Think Like Da Vinci.' It actucally motivated me to get the first book. An EXCELLENT book to have to recharge your creativity batteries. 'Nuff said. Excelent is about as good as it gets.

Leon

This is one of my favorite books. I like it so much, I've sent at least 50 to my customers.

One of the best chapters is about Christopher Columbus, who according to Michael Gelb, may have been America's fisrt salesman!

Lots of good stuff!

Jim Meisenheimer

I thought the short biographies were interesting. I listened to the audio book while I was driving. A sizeable portion of the book was exercises, most of which didn't interest me. A few of them made me think a tiny bit. The good thing this book did do for me, was got me interested in the author's choice of a dream team. It sparked me to do some of my own research with his choices.

I honestly did not intend to buy this book. I wanted to get free shipping and was browsing bargain books. This gold nugget appeared and I decided to give it a shot. When this book arrived, the contents were amazing. The author illustrates through words and exercises how to actually think like many famous geniuses. From Plato to Gandhi to Einstein, you will find someone you can relate to many times over. The exercises are fantastic and get your brain juices going. I highly recommend this.

There are many good books with research based studies on how to improve your IQ or creativity on the market. Unfortunately, this book isn't one of them. Most of the exercises just seemed like silly stuff the author thought up on his own without any testing or research to prove the exercises actually work. For example, in the chapter on Columbus, one of the exercises is to get the tub with your sweetie, splash around and try to chart new waters in your relationship. For another example, the chapter on Plato recommends inviting guests to come to a toga party, dressed as ancient Greeks, and to bring their favorite poems and essays about love. Well, I suppose it is possible that might be a good way to improve a person's creativity, however I suspect a more likely outcome from the toga party idea would be to get someone get kicked off his bowling team, shunned at the next Rotary meeting and removed from any Scout leadership positions.

Instead of this book I would recommend The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. It is more of a research based book and written rather formally, but it actually has practical, research based factors on what it takes to make people experts in their fields. Tips from this book include the findings that experts are made and not born (with the exception of some sports) and that expertise is usually associated with years of experience that include deliberate practice (practice with continual feedback).

I have no idea what these authors are trying to put across. They do spend a lot of time trying to put a scientific explanation to what an imagination is and giving the reader thier "occult expertise". The fact that one of the authors claims that astral projection is impossible to achieve at will implies that they are most likely one of Israel Regardies' "Cosmic Foo-Goos". The reader, if they take this work to heart, may come from the experience a less effectual person. It is sad that [garbage] like this gets sold and marketed when there is so much more valuable stuff out there.

Truly magical. This book comes under the heading of "I wish I had read this years ago". These two authors write seamlessly, you can hardly tell where one leaves off and another begins. They interact very well. On the theoretical side there is a wealth of knowledge to delve into and thimk about. This part alone kept me alternately reading and thinking for almost a week. I did not want to miss a word. Then I got to the practical side and had to keep re-reading paragraphs because I kept getting new insights.

All in all a remarkable book . I hope they write more. The combination of scientific and practical information is stunning, and so down to earth, unlike the airy fairy stuff that is published nowadays.

I don't know what the other reviewers are complaining about, there are numerous texts on magic in print and many of them are for the more adept student (why not try Julius Evola's work), but I found this to be one book I recomment most highly to beginners. It covers the most important aspects of what is fundamental to all magical workings: concentration and visualization exercises. This book, in conjunction with Peter J. Carroll's Liber Null & Psychonaut, lay down the groundwork using semantics that are easy to grasp and not overly burdened with ritual, dogma, and other baggage from magic's past. Highly suggested.

This book is, in my opinion a treasure and offers a comprehensive study that would provide a newcomer to energy work and visualization enough food for thought and practice to carry them for quite a while. It is a program, a reference, and very complete. It is also indispensible to the seasoned practitioner as well; full of previously unheard anecdotes and ideas that will offer fresh material to those already informed about magical thought.

I disagree with others' criticism that book is too chatty and here is why: If you do know about the mind, you know that some parts of the mind learn and remember best when stories are used to facilitate. This book creates thoughtforms for you, to help you learn about thoughtforms, and it does so with interesting stories and histories thrown in as examples in-between practical work.

This is not a heavy reader, so don't let the other warnings of length deter you, it is enjoyable, easy to understand and still full of depth.

Here are some of the things you will learn about if you read this book:

The nature of astral matter, how it behaves and how you interact with it regularly, and how you can interact with it consciously to cause results.
Basic and easy instructions to complete advanced thought forms.
What it is like to visualize and create objects on the astral plane.
Methods for improving your skills at visualizing.
How to create astral dwellings.
How (and why) to dismiss a thought form once it's use is finished.

You might benefit from taking notes on the page numbers of any practices in the book that you want to try, though there are exercises listed separately in the appendices.

If you've ever practiced magick and felt that there was maybe some minor detail missing from the experience, something more you could do to make it more effective, some secret that's been kept from you but you knew was just under your nose, this is the book for you!!! The exercises and ideas in this book will help you to realize your full potential! I'm not giving away any of the details of the book, but I am telling you that if you're serious about your art, then you should pick this up...If you learn just one single thing that's new, it'll be worth the price!!