I originally wrote and posted this entry two days ago. Unfortunately, I made the stupid mistake of accidentally deleting it. The deleted version was linked to my dear friend Ricki's Literary Friday. Three of my blog friends left nice comments that I can't anymore retrieve. Sorry.  My saving grace is my back up email that is subscribed to this blog.

I'm not a fan of self help books. The preachy atmosphere imposed by these books makes me feel bored and irritated to some extent. The last book I read within this genre almost ended as a disappointment. It's not that I contradict the beliefs, experiences and sentiments shared by the authors. They make the great writers because they lived a great life in the first place.  Much of my aversion arises from the dictating tone I feel whenever I read these kind of books.

I'm still finishing Cecelia Ahern's One Hundred Names. Along the way, my feet brought me to Fully Booked and surprisingly took home two books from my least preferred genre. How unlikely of me? I guess I've been loading myself with too much fiction titles lately. I'm hoarding fiction books only to let them wait and sleep away. When I saw Paul Arden's first book, It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be, I found a little refuge to my dwindling self-esteem issues. I took the book home and counted it as another sleeping item on my shelf. Haha

Last Friday, I went again to Fully Booked because of their screaming 20% discount on all titles. Yay! I took home Paul Arden's second book, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. This time however, the book didn't end up as another evident pile of my laziness. I started reading the book last night and finished it on the way to work. Yes, you can finish the book in one sitting.

In a nutshell, the book related Paul Arden's thoughts and stories on creating successful ideas. Arden's simple premise is that successful people are differentiated by their great ideas. Unfortunately, not everyone is capable and trained to breed successful ideas.

In the entire book, Arden emphasized that we often confine ourselves within the grounds of the stable road. We were conditioned to always play it safe. Arden contests that if we continue to religiously obey this principle, everyone is bound to create nothing but mediocrity. This also explains why we can only count the number of great men and women from our history. There are only a few people who dared the unexplored path.

My favorite part of the book is when Arden explained why we have dreams. It remains as a dream because we are not doing anything to fulfill it. Simple yet so compelling when he presented it. The importance of demanding for negative criticism, difference between wish and want and why he has high regard for Adolf Hitler were the things I will never forget about this book. In the concluding part, Arden also shared an advice given by a boss to an aspiring photographer. 

ASTONISH ME!

This I believe summarizes the entire book. Paul Arden is convincing us we should not be afraid of choosing the roads that are less traveled and not taken. Greatness starts from having the courage to take chances, explore opportunities and daring to achieve our dreams. 4 out of 5 stars for this book.