Steve – Nothing beats making your dream happen. Birthing a book that needs to be born is a great experience and I’m glad you saw it through.

> most self-help books aren’t very helpful.
I agree, but it took me a while to figure out precisely why. Then it hit home. I call it “the change frame”

When you’re changing yourself, you can change your thoughts, feelings, or actions. Sometimes the advice you get is for changing your thoughts, when what you really need is a technique for action. Sometimes you get stuff for action, but what you really need is a new way to think. Or the synergy or integration is really what you need.

When you’re changing your situation, you can adapt, adjust or avoid. You can adapt to the situation, adjust the situation to suit you, or just avoid it all together.

While there’s a ton of great insight spread over space and time, there’s just not a great collective body of knowledge to easily browse the best thought patterns and techniques for personal effectiveness. What a perpetual opportunity. I’m happy to see the continous stream of value of various blogs that help flesh out this collective knowledge base.

I follow Steve’s blog (and have been doing so for a good year now) so I’ve heard a fair bit about the writing of the book. Something that struck me from this interview, though, was when Steve said:

“I spent a lot more hours figuring out the framework than I did writing the book, so the writing part felt like it was all downhill. I think the fact that I had an inspiring framework made the writing easier. I was excited to share these ideas.”

I suspect that if a few other “gurus” of personal development spent so long (comparatively) on their thinking instead of just rushing through the book, the shelves wouldn’t be so full of the sorts of books that Steve (and I, and many others) find essentially unhelpful!

Personal Development for Smart People is coming out here in the UK on the 15th, and I’m immensely looking forward to getting hold of a copy :-)

The information about blogging are also really usefule, because they are also very deep, coming from 4 years of successful blogging. Steve: respect for this work! :)
Leo: thanks for 2 extremely great interviews!

Then again with 2 million visitors a month, who is desperate for 10,000 from a digg homepage ;)

Cheers,
Glen

What especially resonated with me was this point: “Sharing my personal stories is another common element in hit articles. I often use the “make a point, tell a story” method.”

I’m quite a private person, really. So, it’s a real struggle for me to ‘let it all hang out’. This is the blogging barrier that I need to overcome. However, I hasten to add that my goal is not to give a running commentary on my relationship with my partner, or broadcast every little mental burp :-)