Psycho-Cybernetics: the book I wish I had read years ago
One of my favorite genre of books has been self-help. I have my share of issues I am trying to fix to live a better life. I have read almost all the well-known books in this section (some of them in multiple languages) and have watched hundreds of videos on YouTube. Even the reason I became interested in philosophy was to find my answers.
This book was in my to-read list for over a year now.
About two weeks ago I decided to start writing book reviews on medium and was looking for the books I should have already read and this one was on top of that list.
The book was first published in 1960, the author is not a motivational guru or a famous coach or someone you would expect this kind of books from, but a plastic surgeon.
I was curious about what a plastic surgeon would know about the psychological struggles and how to resolve. But he had the first-hand experience of seeing people transform ( or not ) with changes in their appearance. For instance, a scar on the face could ruin one person’s confidence, on the other hand, could boost the confidence in another person.
Fortunately, he got curious about what was the underlying cause of this and we got this gem of a book.
I just finished reading the e-book before writing this review only to realize that this is not the book you read only once but should keep coming to it for guidance multiple times in life. And ordered a hard copy for me (the one you can see in image at the beginning of the post).
The book starts with telling what is self-image and why it is important.
The power of imagination, success attitude, failure mechanisms and how to make all of these work for you.
It explains how your conscious and subconscious minds work with limitation and power of each one over the other and how and where to use each one.
The book has topics from emotional fixes you need to how to be more productive.
I had thought of this and still sticking to the thought after completing this book: I won’t add any self-help book to my list after reading this book.
I would prefer reading this book five times instead of reading five other self-improvement books.
This is not a perfect book.
The cover is not as exciting as for instance of ‘The subtle art of not giving a f*ck’. On a first look, it looks like a textbook or a boring collection of facts.
If you are not someone who judges the book based on its cover and decide to go through the table of content, again you won’t be overexcited and chances are you would have already read something about what each chapter promises to convey.
But if you do not let all of this discourage you (as it did to me the first time I picked and left after the first chapter) and can select which part you need to focus and get something out of this book will be one of the best books you would find on the topic.
The book is full of examples to convince you why the idea proposed is true and I personally just skim through those if I am already convinced for instance. I preferred reading the non-example part and the practical advice and exercises mentioned in the book.
If you are someone who researches seriously to improve your life and to find answers and solutions to some specific issues in your life I would strongly suggest to give this book a try.
If you have never felt the need and look down upon self-help books, then read it as self-improvement (even I prefer this term over self-help) book.
If I could pick three books in this genre I would pick this, ‘think and grow rich’ and ‘the subtle art …’. I wish this one was as popular as the other two and hope some of you will give consider it after reading this post.
If you have already read this book or you are trying to decide if its worth a read do let me know in the response if my review helped.
