Zig Ziglar - Secrets of Closing the Sale

Zig Ziglar is good company and has a wealth of interesting and entertaining stories.  I listened to this book in audio format and once my British ears had got accustomed to Mr Ziglar's rather strong American accent I found myself entertained.  I am not so sure I learned that much.

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

The most popular and the most controversial post Steve Pavlina ever wrote was his 10 arguments why you should never get a job.  This is a truly brilliant piece of writing and repays rereading a few times.  It was, he claims, a throw away piece never intended to be taken seriously.  I can well believe it.  It has a playful and devil may care feel about it that suggests it was written in a jokey fashion.   But humour and truth have a very close relationship, so even if it was intended to be a joke and can be read as one there is a hint of something in there that strikes a chord with a lot of people.

How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis

How to get rich books are rarely written by people who have got rich.  When they are, it is usually because they have got rich by selling books about getting rich.  (A similar principle is at work in people who sell products related to personal development.)   This book is unusual in having been written by a man who has indeed become fabulously rich, and has done so by starting and building businesses.  People in Britain might well have heard of him and will have quite likely have bought products that one of his company's has made.  So the eye catching title  has something behind it.

Deception Can Be Costly

Robert Trivers is one of the world's leading experts on self delusion.  (Or at least, that is what he likes to tell himself.)  In his new book "Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others" he highlights that homosexuals who try to keep their sexuality secret pay a heavy price for it in terms of their health.

How To Use Scheduling To Increase Your Motivation to Blog

A Good Schedule Can Increase Your Motivation to Blog

One of the advantages of my attempts to improve my typing speed is that I have generated quite a lot of blog posts that I might not otherwise have written.  I have two blogs - one is quite a popular beauty one that generates a small amount of money but more importantly makes me much better known in my business.  There is absolutely no substitute for people knowing your name when it comes to getting things done.  The other one is very much a labour of love.  It is about history and it positively costs me money to keep it going.  I just enjoy doing it and although I will never turn it into a source of income it makes me feel good doing it.

Avarice of Time

In Edward Gibbon's amazing work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon describes the equally amazing emperor Julian the Apostate as exhibiting 'avarice of time'.  Julian only ruled for 19 months, but in that time he achieved a huge number of remarkable achievements.  He wrote a book , Against the Galileans, which was so influential it had to be banned by a later emperor.  That wasn't his only literary exercise.  He wrote quite a lot of other stuff too - I recommend his hymn to Cybele.  He attempted to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.  He overturned the empire's religion and prepared a huge invasion of Persia.   It was in the campaign against Persia that he was tragically killed.  The thing he really should have done was write a book revealing his secrets of time management.

Steve Pavlina - Domination and Submission workshop

Okay, it is obviously an April Fool's day joke.  And quite a funny one.  For people reading this long after the event and assuming it will get taken down relatively quickly Steve had a very convincing looking post where he advertised a workshop on domination and submission to teach people how to enjoy that particular form of sexual expression.  It was complete with venue, prices and the usual puff a personal development course advert would have.

Or at least I think it is.....

I think that the clever thing is that there is just enough doubt in your mind and it is played just straight enough for you to wonder whether it might, just might, actually be true.  I'll stick my neck out and say I am 95% sure it is a joke.  But 5% doubt is enough to make it really funny.  Well done Steve.  Nice work.

On the other hand, if it is true....