Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose

Author: Robert Pagliarini

It is a total joy to share books with my readers and especially books that I learn a lot from or that I can really connect with.  The book “The Other 8 Hours” does both of those things for me and so it is my pleasure to tell you how great this book it.  Robert contacted me to offer me a free copy with hope that I would review here at LearnThis.  I was excited by the description and title yet apprehensive when I don’t have it recommended by many people since it is a new book just out.  Long story short, I loved the book and will definitely recommend it as one of my favorites.

The Creative Spirit

The book explores personal development by specifically focusing on what you do with the 8 hours or so every day that you are not working or sleeping.  It focuses you and inspires you to make that time available to become a Cre8tor, a person with a drive to create new opportunities, that generate more wealth and purpose and happiness in your life.  The book has 4 main sections in it:

• Get a Clue
• Get More Time
• Get More Money
• Get a Life

All of these sections have chapters to explore each statement and there is actually quite a lot of depth to each topic.  Pagliarini covers everything from examining the life leeches that exist around us taking away from the available time that COULD be ours to a fantastic set of resources with each chapter that can kick start any Crea8tor channel you want to pursue.  There are strong messages in each of these four areas and I’m fortunately enough to have experienced many of these in my own life so have explored and even executed many of the challenges put forward.  I certainly have not however, collected such a strong, consistent and enjoyable text to read from all these lessons and clearly Pagliarini has down much in his own life to experience these as well AND he has done an immense amount of research to back things up with statistics.

Another aspect that is unique in this book that I really enjoyed are there being many 1 page short stories and examples of people who have taken these techniques and put them into action, each showing the major benefits to be had as a result.  I found the stories to be quite enjoyable clips to read and put much of what is written into real life context that is easy to relate with.

Get More Time

The tips on getting more time are absolutely timeless and powerful.  There is so much in here that I agree with as a productivity lover it was simply fun to read, yet there was also much to learn from even with the countless hours I’ve put into this area already myself. One example of this is termed “boosting” and used to describe taking on a second job or side job that is so mindless or easy that you can use it to actually study or work on other things while getting paid.  It gives two benefits, some extra income to use for creative channels or to catch up on debts as well as to further yourself in new knowledge areas, business plans or others such needed Cre8tor work that is difficult to make time for.  While I don’t plan on taking on any second mindless jobs myself, I will certainly use and share this concept again, some people come to mind to me for this right now.

He includes what I can easily say is the best 18 pages I’ve ever read on the powers that grip us in life and suck our time away from us.  Everything from TV watching or being disorganized to doing more than is necessary.  There are 24 items lists in this section with the typical common behavior and then a short straightforward solution that anyone can use to tackle that problem.  If you take nothing else out of this book, take this, as you will find yourself creating more time and increase your productivity, which obviously I’m a big fan of doing!

Get More Money

This section of the book is brilliant and clearly the main content as it covers in superb clarity 10 separate suggested channels or areas to follow as a cre8tor that can bring in new wealth and opportunities to make a better life for yourself.  The examples of course continue throughout and each of these channels are outlined with many ideas on what they might look like, how you can start, a typically process map for executing it and then a great set of resources to get started in each one.  This is absolutely packed with great content and again, easily makes the book worth buying just for these chapters alone.

Get More Life

Finally after touching on all the great aspects and opportunities, Pagliarini covers what many critics want to see.  What makes all this difficult is life.  Life gets in the way and needs to be managed better to even dare take on few work in our other 8 hours.  This section helps here and has many compressed lessons on productivity, habits, goal setting and other great techniques to manage all this and actually get it all done.

Conclusions

There are a few sections scattered through the book that talk about purpose and legacy and what you can do that is bigger than yourself but I must say this was the only thing I was a bit disapointed in.  Everything I thought was quite finance centric and the overall read of the book to me was about making more money.  That is an overall message though, not the only one.  So much is covered this is likely just a personal feeling.  I am really quite impressed by this book and am certainly going to check out more from Pagliarini as certainly has a best seller here if I had to make any guesses.  It’s a fantastic book that I encourage anyone to read.  It truly applies to to anyone with even the slightest desire to get a little more out of life or to change your current circumstances.  I still have many references and websites to check out from several chapters that will keep be coming back to it for the next little while.  I know each of you will enjoy it as well.

Note: I always avoid reading other’s reviews once I start a book as I know that lets me write the most objective review I can.  I’m happy to see that after writing this, I just checked out the reviews for it on amazon is its getting 5 stars across the board as well.  So, go check that out the reviews if you need to see more or to buy the book.  Also, check out the book website at TheOther8Hours.com.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 4 Comments »

The Enlightened Way to Wealth

Author : Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen

I was given this book by a colleague (Thanks Warren!) and finally got around to reading it.  Its basically a guide book to becoming a millionaire.  Not only that, but a millionaire with a desire and will to help others do the same.  The book was not what I would expected because it is written as two books in one.  The left side is a more technical training type of book with straight forward steps, processes and ideas for each of the segments to learn for becoming an enlightened millionaire and the right side of the book is a fable written to demonstrate all the same concepts through a story of characters struggling to learn the millionaire methods.  Personally, I read the fable side as it dealt more with characters, relationships and a story line, which I much prefer over the other option.  The story was well written, short to read, yet demonstrated a clear set of steps to create massive wealth from what seems like nothing.

The steps are presented in lessons to the characters in the story on a quest to make a million dollars in just 90 days.  This for a widowed mother who’s got nothing left but a will to win back her children through a heart felt emotional bet from the clutching money protected x father in law.

The story covers a lot about the mindset required to become a millionaire and I find that the most valuable part of the book.  Not that I necessarily learned a lot of new things myself, but that it was presented through the story and taught in a way that I felt was easy to connect with and see the value in.  Self confidence is not an easy thing to teach and the examples of how a woman struggles to find this in herself with a supportive group and exceptional mentor, is a valuable way to demonstrate and teach this to any reader.

The other portions of the book I especially like are the ideas of building and trusting in relationships and connections between people to reach out for ideas, help and financing.  People are far to afraid to ask for help now a days and are more likely to digg themselves deeper than they are to reach out a hand and ask for some help. One example here is to actually go seek out a millionaire or two and treat them to lunch to give you an opportunity to ask questions and them an chance to share a bit of their story (after all, everyone loves to talk about themselves).  This is a great idea that most people would be very resistant to but shouldn’t be, its just asking for help!

I found the whole story to be quite encouraging and it covers varies areas about investing with invention, networking and through real estate and stocks.  The combination of all of these is stressed and demonstrated well in the story and is often ignored when writers look at becoming wealthy from only one of those methods.  A holistic plan that has a wide spectrum is far more likely to succeed.

Lastly, I found the book to be at least to some degree, questionably unethical in some presented methods.  A couple examples of this are to use internet marketing through email (did someone say SPAM?) and to find property investments where someone is in real trouble and you look to take advantage of that.  These methods were not quite that one sided as the concepts behind them are about internet marketing and about looking to help someone else out of a seemingly impossible situation that benefits both of you.  The lessons taught here are quite ethical themselves but the actual execution and examples in the story seem quite unethical and even the woman in the story struggles with that.  I would have no part just to make a quick buck, thank you very much.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 1 Comment »