Special End Of Year/End Of Decade Recommendation Issue

Dear Speed Seduction(R) Students,

As the year(and decade!) draws to a close, I thought I’d revive a tradition and publish a brief list of the books and other products that I found most personally influential.

Some of these are repeats-they are so good that they show up as consistent favorites from year to year.  In that case, I’ll put a “CF” for “consistent favorite”.

Also, to be very clear, I have zero financial relationships or ties with any of the authors/creators of these books, etc.  I receive not one penny for these recommendations-I make them because I believe in them.

That said, let’s get cracking.

Top  Ten Books/CD Products  For 2009

1. Provocative Hypnosis, by Joergen Rasmussen. Available from http://www.provocativehypnosis.com.   Joergen has written the single best book on NLP and Hypnosis that I have read in the past 10 years.  Packed full of real-world, kick-in-the-nuts, “street fighter” tactics, this book is the product of an original mind who is not afraid to challenge the tenets of NLP and hypnosis with what he finds to actually work.   Superb.  Highest possible recommendation.  It doesn’t come better and rarerly this good

2. Break Through Pain, by Shinzen Young. Available from Amazon.  This is actually a book and a CD filled with practical exercises.  Shinzen Young is, first and foremost, the single most intelligent person I’ve ever met in my life and his work has influenced me as profoundly as NLP did nearly 23 years ago.  This book/CD set is about dealing with physical pain, but the rammifiications extend far, far beyond that. Highest possible recommendation.

3. Break Through Difficult Emotions, by Shinzen Young. Available as CDs or as Mp3 download from Amazon.  This two CD set by Shinzen not only gives a brilliant re-thinking to the entire concept of “emotions” but contains practical meditations to assist any person undergoing deeply challenging emotional times. The exercises in this CD set helped me cope with the death of both of my parents, the end of a 16 year business partnership, a deep personal betrayal by someone who was a trusted friend and “brother” from “another mother”, among other things.   Again, Shinzen is the single most impactful thinker I’ve encountered since Richard Bandler back in 1987.

4. The Science of Enlightenment-Shinzen Young. Just in case you are a total yotz and dumb as a post, Shinzen is the fShizzle. This 12 CD set is the best and most brilliant exposition of meditation and Buddhist thought I’ve ever encountered. If you’ve ever wondered about the “reality” of mystical experiences and “realms of power” tune into what Shinzen has to say about that, among dozens of other topics. Top value for your personal growth dollar.

5. Conscious Language 101(CD Set)-by Robert Tennyson Stevens.  Available only at http://www.masterysystems.com  (Don’t get the book by the same name and same author-it frankly sucks donkey ass).   Stevens is quite a puzzle to me.  The brilliant work and thought he’s put into this CD set has influenced my own teachings when it comes to getting guys to powerfully set themselves free from stuck points and old ways of languaging their “problems”.   I’ve studied language and consciousness and the relationship between the two for over two decades, and this guy has the best stuff I’ve ever seen on this topic. He’s really thought it through.

However, in my opinion, some of the rest of his stuff is beyond butt-plug dumb, into the realm of being crazy.   It just goes to show that you have to cherry-pick your stuff.

But don’t be deterred by his nutty stuff. THIS CD set is a MUST HAVE for anyone’s self-development/personal growth tool kit. Whether you are seeking to improve your own life or the lives of those around you, you have to get this CD set.

6. Breaking The Patterns Of Depression-by Dr. Michael Yapko.  Available at Amazon.  I’ve had the honor of meeting Dr. Yapko at a wedding of all things, and was deeply impressed by his knowledge and intelligence.  He’s brilliantly combined cognitive/behavioral therapy with hypno-therapy and is a master of short-term therapy.  This book is written for the lay-person struggling with depression, however, the practical advice and exercises on clear-thinking, good decision making, and learning to read other people would stand any person in extremely good stead and I really think you should read this book from cover to cover and do the drills!  I would require every teenager to read and study this book for an entire semester of school.  If I were in a crisis or knew a friend who was, I’d get this book.

7. Do One Thing Different-Bill O’Hanlon(CF).  Available from Amazon. This is a repeat visitor to this list.  A fantastic book filled with wisdom and techniques from Solutions Oriented Therapy. Another great “friend” to have in a crisis. Very highly recommended.

8. An Awakening From The Trances Of Everyday Life-Ed Rubenstein(CF).  Amazon.  Yep, another repeat visitor.  Look, I loathed “Peaceful Warrior” and the whole fictiious “sage teacher appears to train warrior” genre.  But this book rocks it.  Get it.

9. Mind-Lines-L. Michael Hall.(CF) Amazon.  The single best exposition of using the NLP language model for persuasion. Hall unpacks it and really shows you how to use “Sleight of Mouth” to bend arguments in your bare hands, leap tall piles of rhetoric in a single bound, and be a persuasion “Superman”.  I’ve had vigorous disagreements with other NLPERS over this book, but what the fuck do those clowns know? I’M ROSS JEFFRIES, BITCHES!

10. Prometheus Rising-Robert Anton Wilson.(CF) Falcon Press.  God, I love Wilson’s writing. A huge influence on my thinking, and now, on my nephews, as I’ve poisoned all of their minds with this guy’s brilliance!  Wilson writes beautifully about reality-tunnels and beliefs, and how they structure our consciousness.   Gorgeous and orgasmic logic.

Websites And Other Stuff I Like/Recommend

1. Solari.com/blog Catherine Austin Fitts’ blog contains brilliant and counter-culture writing about the real causes of our ongoing financial and political crises.  I don’t agree with everything she says, but much of it is deeply brilliant, insightful, and filed with angles I can guarantee you wont’ find in the popular media, EVER.

2. StrategicProfits.com Rich Scheffren is the single most instructive and worthwhile “marketing” guru I’ve encountered and studied with in the past decade. Why? Because he teaches business as a series of systems and procedures, with strategic positioning and teamwork, as opposed to just maverick, fly by your seat of the pants showmanship.  He’s changed my entire idea of what it means to be in business. The best.

3. TheOnion.com.  Hilarious. When I want to laugh until I choke, I go watch their “news” videos.   The fuckers stop putting out their print newspaper, which I used to love reading at my local Starbucks. Bastards! Funniest stuff on the Internet.

Ok, there you go. Your mileage will vary.

Peace, piece, and comment below.

RJ

P.S. Feel free to post your own suggestions for top 10 books/CDS here.