Simon G's Blog

"Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" by Susan Jeffers contains lots of good practical advice, such as the power of eliminating negativity and pessimism from your vocabulary, taking responsibility for your reactions, how to have a balanced life, and many other great pearls of wisdom. Here are some of my key take aways: All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I'm on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes with a feeling of helplessness.  Before you take any action in life, ask yourself: "Is this action moving me to a more powerful place?" If it isn't you will think twice about doing it. Begin eliminating the terribles, can'ts, problems, struggles and so o...

I found “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ” by Daniel Goleman to be quite an academic (and at times scientific) view of emotion that includes some good story-telling. It started very dry but I found it got more engaging about 60 pages in. I found the book to be more focussed on describing emotional intelligence as opposed to providing much guidance about how to improve your emotional intelligence. Despite this, I did however find that it contained a wealth of interesting information. My key takeaways were: We have two minds (rational and emotional) that typically operate in tight harmony. Anger builds upon anger; the emotional brain heats up. Distraction is a highly powerful mood-altering device. This is due to the fact that it is hard to stay angry when you’re having a pleasant time. Thoughts are associated in the mind not just by content, but by mood. People have what amounts to a bad-mood thoughts that come to mind more readily when they are down. While...