Being invited to read and review a book is a curious voyage. A trip you may not have taken otherwise so journeying with a curious mind is helpful! And so to the book Choices and Illusions by Eldon Taylor. It started with enjoying the first four chapters covering how our beliefs shape our world. The next two on illusions, although not new, kept me interested and keen to read on. Eldon provides a great reminder of the ways in which our brains work to distort, delete and generalise to make sense of the world or our experience.
The next chapters start to explore the impact of influencers on our thoughts for example how thought control is used within marketing and some of the subliminal techniques adopted. This I found slightly alarming, triggering both the inner sceptic and conspiratory theorist. Staying with a little openness I read on and saw how being aware to what may take place can help with making more powerful thought choices. If I’m honest I got a little bored at this point but I pushed on. It continues with suggestions for waking up to damaging elements and making healthier choices. Now I was aware of the way people used suggestions subliminally or otherwise and I resisted acting on the number of suggestions that I visit Eldon’s website! I fought back or did I and have you?
To sum up the book, rather a strange smorgasbord of positive psychology, metaphysical meanderings and spiritual good-housekeeping, it was great in the later chapters to have reminders to: treat others with love, to be well through doing kindnesses unto others and to take personal responsibility for ones thoughts and actions. I’m always glad I’ve read a book and I would happily quote a number of the stories and examples from ‘Choises and Illusions’ as they help in enabling others to think about the impact of our thinking on our outcomes.
So we joined the book blog tour and you can see us here.
The great learning from this is the delight in being introduced to ideas you might not have read and also to see a benefit in putting words down on the subject after reading. What a great way of embedding learning and so I make a commitment to do this as part of our blog on a more regular basis. Any suggestions for great coaching reads?
