If there is one book that I would recommend as the very first personal development book it would perhaps be Brian Tracy's "Maximum Achievement". Other books in this category that I have had the pleasure and privilege to read with minute care are Anthony Robbins' "Unlimited Power" and "Awaken the Giant Within", Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", John Assaraf and Murray Smith's "The Answer", Jach Canfield's "The Principles of Success", Richard Bandler's "Get the Life you Want", Joe Vitale's "The Attractor Factor", John F Demartini's "Inspired Destiny", and Joe Dispenza's "Evolve your brain". "Maximum Achievement", however, is one of the most direct, lucid and straightforward of them all. This book is Brian Tracy at his best and most profound. He begins with his own personal example as to how he came to realize that "life is a combination lock" and how to "make life into a masterpiece". The several causal "mental laws" like the law of correspondence, law of compensation, law of attraction etc are all dealt with in a masterly manner. Throughout, the tone is clear and the foundations secured on the principle that the only justification for a law is that it works and that it has worked without fail for all those who have sincerely applied themselves to it. Just as natural laws are based on experiment and cannot be "proved" but only "falsified" so with mental laws. The same implicit statistical basis that natural laws have, mental laws also do. One would only replace experiment with experience in case of life. Just as in science, it is important to keep in mind that "it is not what happens to one that constitutes experience. it is what one does with what happens". As with natural law, inadequate mastery and application mental laws in no way discredits the laws. In science, causality is strict and the causality principle even more fundamental than the law of conservation of energy. So also, in life, causality is strict and the principles make no exceptions. Whenever a scientific principle appears to be violated, it just means that the domain of applicability has been exceeded. Likewise, in life when, for example, one sees the law of compensation to be violated, it just means that the domain of applicability has been ill-defined. Extending it brings the law back into focus. There are situations in physical science or even in mathematics when results do not seem to be consistent with the basic assumptions. One may even have to introduce assumptions that seem far removed from experiment. One suspends for the time being all reference to experience, works with the abstract model and descends down into the experimental domain at an appropriate level. In case of life a similar procedure is followed. The law of causality may seem to break down when attention is confined to a given time-line. Extending the time-line then restores the law. In natural law, there are ranges of applicability. Beyond the range, the law itself may not exist. In life too such a state of affairs prevail. The reason is that cognitive experience is not confined to the conscious Beta state alone. it ranges all the way from the Alpha to the Theta to the Delta states. In each state causality itself undergoes a modification, a less and less directness. Reading the present book brings forth all this covertly if not overtly. Brian Tracy does not refer directly to NLP techniques. He likes to state that the principles set forth by him are 'timeless' as is true of all great truths. However, what he does through his writings is none-the-less a programming through language. His audio books illustrate this vividly. Brian Tracy's voice has a hypnotic touch and soothes one into installing the techniques deep within. In addition, the present book has certain key chapters of tremendous relevance to goal setting, personality types and parenting. I repeat, If there is one book you would read to set you off on your personal development program, Maximum Achievement would be the best choice.
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