Customer Reviews

What Matters Most: The Power of Living Your Values

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mr. Smith's book will inevitably be compared to Dr. Phillip McGraw's book, Life Strategies. In What Matters Most, the emphasis is on uncovering your values as well as your aims. That value-oriented element is better developed here than in Dr. McGraw's book. On the other hand, Life Strategies and the Handbook that goes with it provide much better material for implementing the changes than What Matters Most does. My suggestion is that you read all three books, starting with What Matters Most, followed by Life Strategies, and then the Life Strategies Workbook.

"Be yourself, but be that perfectly" is the theme of this book. The problem is that " . . . too many have lost contact with the deeply held values that matter." As a result, being yourself perfectly " . . . won't necessarily be easy." This argument is based on the observation of the sense of peace and comfort we feel when we act in alignment with our values, and the unease that follows acting out of alignment with those values. Many anecdotes are shared that will ring true in almost everyone's experience to make that point.

The bulk of the book focuses on helping you uncover what those values are and how to act more in alignment with them by using the benefits of more planning, action, and discovery in coordinating your roles with your life's mission and values. Mr. Smith is part of the Franklin Covey Company (for which he helped create the Franklin planner), and much of his thinking on mission and values will seem familiar from reading Dr. Stephen Covey's many books, such as Principle-Centered Leadership. Mr. Smith's treatment here is more practical than Dr. Covey's is in his books, and Mr. Smith provides many more examples. Dr. Covey's writing style is more lyrical, but Mr. Smith information is easier to work with.

One of the great strengths of this book is its discussion of hero qualities. These include self-awareness, confidence, self-worth, a sense of urgency, a personal mission, personal magnetism, awareness of and respect for one's own uniqueness, having consistency in one's life, and having a sense of calmness and serenity. The book is worth buying just for this section, which is chapter one.

One of the book's strengths is that it taps into our emotions very effectively. One of my favorite ways this was done is in describing the common lament "someday I'm going to . . ." and pointing out that today is a good time to get started with all of those important tasks. This is explored in chapter two.

Part one focuses on explaining the clarity and power you can get from knowing who you are. Part two is the heart of the book -- discovering what matters most to you. Part three is a practical exercise in working on something that matters greatly to you. Part four expands your perspective on this process by looking at how it applies to organizations, over a lifetime, and to wider groups (there's a nice discussion of Nelson Mandela and Gary Player here). You are also encouraged to adopt an abundance mentality. This last material is very much like the Tony Robbins work on this same point. In part five, there is additional emotional reinforcement for starting to make the necessary changes.

After you have finished reading and doing the exercises in the three books I have recommended to you, I suggest that you find someone who is in dispair about their own life and offer to help them learn these lessons, too. This will be a good way for you to both reinforce your new learning and to live a life of broader meaning and caring.

Be part of the ever-expanding network of caring heroines and heroes who help others improve!

If you are searching for a set of rules to get your life on track this is a highly advisable read. He talks about the affects of roles, missions, and values on how we make decisions about who we are and identifying who we want to become. It is a very COMMEN sense book which does have a lot of what's already been said alot of other times, but is still well worth reading.

This book is great at showing the importance of recognizing one's values and not contradicting them with one's actions. Further it has exercises to help one discover one's values and keep them more in focus. The only shortcoming is the book's failure to show how reality precludes certain choices. I recommend the book Viable Values by Tara Smith to cover that gap.

Nice book, easy to read, very interesting insights about what to do to make living better on a daily basis. Have practiced the concepts Mr. Smith points, and they really make the difference.

This book's target audience is stressed-out business people. So for them, I bet it is great. But right now I am a stay at home Mom, so coming up with a Mission Statement is not high on my priority list. But I really enjoyed the stories about Winston Churchill and Mother Theresa, so I gave the book one star per person. This book would be a great starting point to help you figure out what is most important to you if you haven't done anything like that before with your life. On a skiing scale, it would be for novices. I've been doing a lot of work on myself lately, so I'm an intermediate and I didn't get much out of it. One book that I did enjoy was Dr. Phil McGraw's Life Strategies. It's a quick read because he writes in terms everyone can understand, and it gave me a lot to think about.

I picked this book up at the local library, and was deeply moved and inspired by it. I haven't read Mr. Smith's previous book, but certainly intend to look it up next time.

As the title suggests, if you wish to lead a rich and fulfilling life, (and we're not talking material things here) you must live it in accordance with the values and people that matters most to you. You can't be everything to everyone, and you need to be clear about what matters most in your life, otherwise you will live your life in a fog. Once you are clear about what matters most, by living in accordance with those priorities, your life will be more in harmony with your deeper self.

Rich with personal examples, I found this book reached to me at a deep level. Daring to ask yourself what matters most is the first step, then it's up to you to act on them. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Hyrum Smith does an excellent job portraying the tools we all need to use in our life if we are to succeed. As I just happen to live in the same area as he does it would be wonderful to run into him someday. Most of the material he's used in this book has been used (either books or tapes) by him before. However, like any positive material, it is all worth repeating. The only drawback to this book (four stars) is that it dwells so much on Hyrums experiences- rather than giving usable advice to its readers (the old WIIFM). This book did leave me with the warm fuzzies, which by the way, is one of the ways I rate a book. If you are a reader of self-help books, this is a winner.

The ideas in this new book no longer amaze me. Why? Because I have practised thus integrated them into my life and be 'one' with most of them. I am a better person now - and thank you to Hyrum Smith for his former book. That book really revolutionizes the way I look at things that matter most to me and at the same time ignore if the things that bug me are out of control.

Every idea goes through a refinement process. I thus see this new book as a better version of the first; along with some new ideas that sure will change my perception about life again. Human being needs to be constantly reminded. With this new version, I can look at the same idea from a different angle.

I do not have any complaints about this new book. After all, Hyrum did change my life and save myself from getting an ulcer. Thank you Hyrum!

The concepts presented in this book have completely turned my life around. I've tried numerous "self-help" or "self-improvement" books but most tend to focus on the problems you have in your life, rather than your core values. In What Matters Most, Hyrum Smith brings these values to the forefront and helps you focus on the important things in your life.

It's unfortunate some people are not happy with the book - especially when they haven't even looked at it! While some of the concepts may have been published elsewhere, this book presents them in a wonderful and easy-to-read format. What Matters Most certainly doesn't rehash The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People - rather it compliments it quite well. In fact, I've started to read The 7 Habits book again and it all makes much more sense now.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.

There are a few reasons why I will not buy this book:1. It is merely Hyrum's old thoughts recycled. It contains material mostly from the second half of his time management book.2. I already have Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book. What is Franklin Covey trying to sell here? They seem to be selling two separate philosophies: Covey's 7 Habits approach and Hyrum's Discover/Plan/Act approach. Cognitive dissonance anyone?The subject matter of this book is best covered in Covey's 7 habits book. While I criticize Covey for milking the 7 Habits paradigm for all its worth with mediocre follow on books after his first magnum opus, atleast he has a lot of material in that book.What I would have loved to see from Hyrum Smith is his original book reworked for the Palm world. Unfortunately that is not to be.