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 enlarge | Author: Andy Andrews
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $5.90
You Save: $14.09 (70%)
New (48) Used (17) Collectible (3) from $4.54
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 12459
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0785261419
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.1
EAN: 9780785261414
ASIN: 0785261419
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
Absolute must-read after The Traveler's Gift... March 25, 2008
A short while back, my boss lent me a copy of The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews. It was one of the best self-improvement books I've ever read, and the seven decisions that were woven into the story were incredibly powerful. Andrews has a follow-up to that book called Mastering the Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success: An Owner's Manual to The Traveler's Gift. If you were taken by the power of The Traveler's Gift, Mastering is a must-read book that fleshes out the concepts and helps you to apply them in your own life.
Contents:
Introduction; The Responsible Decision; The Guided Decision; The Active Decision; The Certain Decision; The Joyful Decision; The Compassionate Decision; The Persistent Decision; Conclusions; Bibliography; About the Authors
Each chapter corresponds to one of the seven decisions from the original book. After a restatement of the key decision, Andrews goes into more explanation and detail about how that particular trait, that decision you need to make, plays out in your life. Interspersed throughout the chapter are activities to help you determine where you are at and what may need to change in order to get to where the decision can take you. Much of the activities at the start involve some level of journaling as you spend time thinking about your values and goals. Perhaps you've never even *thought* about your values and goals before! Being forced to put these things down on paper is a powerful way to start sorting through your life. As you progress through the decisions, many of these insights you discover become actions you take to incorporate these seven traits into your everyday life. I also enjoyed the end of each chapter, where Andrews shares a letter from some well-known person that illustrates how that particular decision has helped them get to where they are today.
What I most appreciate about The Traveler's Gift and Mastering the Seven Decisions is that the concepts are based on solid choices that are completely within your reach. There's no metaphysical mystery to it all. If you incorporate and personalize these things, such as taking responsibility, taking action, seeking wisdom, and choosing to be happy, you will separate yourself from the mass of people who live life feeling as if they have no input or direction. Granted, you have to work at it, but the results are worth it. Mastering the Seven Decisions should be the absolute next book you read after The Traveler's Gift. And if you're going to buy one, buy them both. The changes that lie in store will be dramatic.
Change your attitude, change your life March 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I ended up buying quite a few copies of The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success for friends because I liked it so much, I read it cover to cover twice without stopping. I really believe in what the author has to say. The seven decisions are an attitude that (akin to positive thinking) can change how you view the world and deal with the world, and ultimately, how the world deals with you.
The seven decisions are:
The Responsible Decision: The buck stops here. I accept responsibility for my past. I am responsible for my success. I will not let my history control my destiny.
The Guided Decision: I will seek wisdom.
The Active Decision: I am a person of action.
The Certain Decision: I have a decided heart. Criticism, condemnation, and complaint have no power over me.
The Joyful Decision: Today I will choose to be happy.
The Compassionate Decision: I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.
The Persistent Decision: I will persist without exception.
The problem with motivational books is that they are inspiring to read, they make us feel great, but then we aren't really easily able to change our behavior. Reading is passive, changing attitude and behavior is active and more difficult. The author gives techniques to master these attitudes. Some are as simple (on the surface) as smiling when you really don't feel like it. But smiling is a muscular action, and it fires neurons in the brain. The brain, even though it may be simmering about the hellish traffic you are in, the disastrous breakfast you just ate and the unpleasant meeting with the boss you are heading for, is not so bright. The neurons firing in your brain saying "I'm smiling!" tell the brain "I'm happy!" and you find you are turning on the good music and relaxing rather than tensing up and formulating curses at the driver in front of you.
There are many more of these techniques in the book. If you love "The Traveler's Gift" and want to get more out of it, I'd suggest this companion volume. I think it would make great reading with a book club or church group or at home for dinnertime discussions. Sometimes your future can be positively changed by something as simple as a smile--or this book. Highly recommended.
Commitment and Credibility February 25, 2008
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Andy Andrews not only has been successful in changing the attitudes and approaches to happy and successful lives in a large throng of followers, he continues to offer refresher courses in his philosophy that are solid, well constructed aids to gently polish the doctrines of his original Seven Decisions. This reader received a smart package from the publisher that not only contained the hardback 2002 book THE TRAVELER'S BOOK in a deluxe format, but the well designed box contained an advance copy of the latest addition to the Andrews library - MASTERING THE SEVEN DECISIONS THAT DETERMINE PERSONAL SUCCESS, a pocket calendar with the 'decisions reminders', and even a mouse pad with the seven decisions printed on a high quality pad, a daily reminder for the desktop of the important steps toward a happy life.
MASTERING THE SEVEN DECISIONS is a refresher course, one designed to repeat the information from the original book while fortifying that information with letters from established 'successes' who share their enthusiasm for Andrews' postulates. He gives stories, examples and revisions of the wording of his first book and while there is nothing particularly profound here, there is a lot of useful information that helps extend the reader's ability to incorporate Andrews' ideas.
One way in which Andrews freshens his approach is to 'rename' the seven decisions. In this book they become the following: The Responsible Decision, The Guided Decision, The Active Decision, The Certain Decision, The Joyful Decision, The Compassionate Decision, and The Persistent Decision. The concepts remain the same, and yes, for this reader, it does help to read THE TRAVELER'S GIFT first, but as with all refresher courses, this book retains the information presented in the first book and merely guides the reader more specifically in how to apply the information to the individual. He adds his opinions, such as 'A true friend holds you to a higher standard - he or she expects you to do what you said you were going to do, when you said you were going to do it. A true friend makes you better by his or her presence.' And he offers pauses for exercises, such as the section on The Deathbed Exercise, an exercise in imagining a eulogy that 'will help you clarify what you want your life's accomplishments to be and help you build momentum to achieve it'.
Andrews knows his material, understands how to communicate his thoughts and ideals, and, as in his first book, he relates this information in such a user friendly manner that reading the book is a growing experience for even the most doubting reader. Take charge of your life is a recurring theme and he says it well as in the following: 'There are generations yet unborn who depend upon the choices you make, because everything you do matters - not just for you, not just for your family, not just for your hometown - everything you do matters to all of us - forever.' There are many people who make snide remarks about books of this type: the comments sections of reviews of these books overflow with negativisms. But if each of us works toward making our lives happy and successful, who will have the last laugh?! Grady Harp, February 08
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