Is this the best Personal Development book ever?

If I'd read this book a few years ago, I could have saved myself the weeks of time and thousands of dollars I spent learning NLP, hypnosis and other aspects of personal development.

The book is Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. I'd heard about it a few times but I've only recently read it. Maybe I was put off by the title!

Though clearly I've learned a lot from the other sources, I feel Psycho-Cybernetics summarizes and explains the mental aspects of success better than anything else I've seen.

Everyone has their own take on a book. But I thought it was worth sharing some of the key points as I saw them.

1. Focus on a goal

• We have an inbuilt mechanism that delivers to us what we think about; it can operate as an automatic success mechanism or as a failure mechanism - depending on where we put out attention
  
• The mechanism can only work if we give it a clear direction by setting specific goals

2. Find your true self

• Most of us under-rate ourselves
  
• Our self-image controls what we accomplish and can impose artificial obstacles that prevent our success
  
• Our self-image is based on what we imagine to be true rather than the facts
  
• If you want to change your results, you have to change your self-image

3. Future success depends on imagination and practice

• To achieve success in any field, we need to create it in our minds first by imagining success
  
• It helps to make small achievements before we aim for big ones; practicing in comfortable environments builds the habit of success
  
• If we decide to put more effort into imagining positive outcomes than we do into imagining negative ones, we increase our chances of success

Obviously some of these ideas appear in other books. But what I like about this one is that it seems to cover every angle, it is based on real case studies from Maltz's time as a medical doctor and surgeon working on people's physical scars, and it provides specific actions you can follow to apply his recommendations.

There's a lot more in the book and others have their own interpretations I'm sure.

Incidentally I recommend the updated version edited by Dan Kennedy.

I'd love to know what others think of this book or do you think another one is better?

To your success

Robert