The subline of the report says How the Mega-Successful use this rule to achieve greatness and how you can too. Steve and Seamus connect Curly’s Law with Andrew Carnegie (at one time the richest man in the world) and what is known as Carnegie’s secret. They also give example of other successful people that focus on just one thing and become great at that.

My only complaint is that the e-book is compact, all text and no images. That is OK in an ordinary book but in e-books I prefer a lighter and more inviting look.

What’s In the Report?
The report has four chapters that are originally posted at their blog plus three articles that are not available on the blog. All in all seven chapters that introduce you to the concept of Curly’s Law, explain Curly’s Law in detail and in the bonus articles (chapter 5 – 7) go deeper into the concept. The report gives you tools to apply this rule in order to achieve great(er) success in your life.

You can get the free e-book at Curly’s Law. What they ask in return is that you join their Rebel Zen email newsletter.

The book is very well written and includes text about people who have used this method and came out stronger. It is a great handbook for dealing with crisis step by step, on your own or with professional help.

I do recommend the book – Click here to view more details.

The e-book is edited in a way that makes it really easy to read on the screen. I like the articles, should I pick some it would be “The magic of the Every day mindset” (be here and now = mindfulness) and “How to sell yourself” which we all need to do.

Go and get your copy of the free E-Book: A Year of Change. It will inspire you in your work with your own changes.

Their courses are reasonably priced and there are some that interest me, like Introduction to Starting a Blog Network with Wendy Piersall & Easton Ellsworth.

The SparkplugU Internet Business Guide is a free report on 18 different internet business models suitable for work at home business. Coaching is one of the ideas, I will check that out. I am a professional coach and I am interested in if/how I can use internet to leverage that.

Spiders are centralized, command and control, organizations. Historical examples are the Spanish army, the Aztecs and the Incas. Today most companies and organizations still work like this.

Starfish are decentralized with no hierarchy and no headquarters, an open system with no designated leader. An historical example listed in the book are the Apache indians. Modern examples are Craigslist, Wikipedia, Burning Man, AA, Skype, Kazaa and open source software like the Apache server.

An interesting part of the book is when they give examples of the spiders problems when they have to compete or combat against starfish. The Apache indians (starfish) managed to stand up against the Spanish army (spider) but the Incas and Azteks were spiders too and could be beaten. Todays music industry (spiders) fight against filesharing (starfish) and will most likely not win.

A hybrid approach means companies gain from both world, spider as well as starfish. There are examples of companies like eBay and Amazon that decentralize customer experience. And there are centralized companies like GE that decentralizes internal parts of the business.

If you want a quick look at some of what’s inside the book, see Lessons from a Starfish World.

There is a booksite at The Starfish and the Spider with links to reviews. Wikipedia also has a page about The Starfish And the Spider.

The monk who sold his Ferrari is a great book that covers much of Eastern and Western wisdom around life and success. The book is well written and the concepts are nicely fitted into a frame, a fable around the seven virtues. This book is the first one with the monk and where you get to know his history plus why and how he changed.

Discover Your Destiny With The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is labeled “A potent pathway to self-awakening that will help you to live your greatest life and claim the happiness, prosperity and inner peace that you deserve”. Still, this is not one of those “just wish and it will be yours”-books, instead it is a guide book on how to discover your authentic self and achieve lasting inner peace.

The Saint The Surfer And The CEO is about a person’s three final questions: Did I live wisely? Did I love well? Did I serve greatly? I like this book too, it gave me valuable input to help change my life and views.

The book summary says:

Facebook is one of the hottest websites in today’s world, and is having a major impact on career and business. This book explains the different parts of Facebook and helps you understand how you can get the most out of your Facebook account. It helps you understand what you could or should do in Facebook to further your career, business, or job.

The tag line of the book says “How to get personal, business and professional value from Facebook”. In my opinion the book is really useful and helps you get a grip on what to do and what not to do. The chapters cover topics such as:

• Getting started (navigating Facebook)
• Getting involved (connecting, groups)
• Facebook Applications
• Privacy (an important issue)
• Your Facebook strategy (for you and your company)
• Facebook for Business
• Facebook No-No’s

A really useful feature of the book is that each chapter ends with a list of action items.

The book of course has a fan page at Facebook and there is a blog behind the book.

I recommend the book, you can buy the book from the publisher.

This complete guide to life coaching reveals what life coaching IS, how to coach yourself and others effectively and how to create and sustain a successful coaching practice. Leading you through a comprehensive programme of Advanced Life Coaching Skills, it contains key NLP-based techniques that include State Control, Rapport-building, Spiral Coaching, Meta-programs, Meta-languages and The Milton Model.

Here are some qoutes from the book that stuck in my mind:

Life coaching concentrates on the person’s whole life instead of just one area.

Life coaching is a holistic process that has the power to balance and harmonize life.

The book also lists some elevator pitches or openings. I think this one says a lot: Life coaching can seriously change your life..

See the book at AdLibris (Sweden).

Zen To Done takes some of the best aspects of a few popular productivity systems (GTD, Stephen Covey and others) and combines them with the mandate of simplicity. It makes things as simple as possible, and no more.

As simple as possible is what I was looking for. Zen To Done (ZTD) has a focus on doing, here and now, more than on planning or on the system. ZTD focuses on simplifying which is in line with my pen and paper solution.

Zen To Done is a set of ten habits that will help you get organized, simplify your life, get things under control and, last but not least, actually get things done. You can pick those habits out of the ten that will work for you. To really master a new habit, and to make it stick, focus on few (1-3) at a time and work on them for a month.

Each of the ten habits has its own chapter in the e-book, here is just a brief list.

1. Collect tasks, ideas, projects etc. Write them down and later add them to your to-do lists.
2. Process your inboxes. I need to work on that.
3. Plan for a week ahead, focus on MIT (Most Important Tasks) or “Big Rocks”.
4. Do, one task at a time. Finish them!
5. Simple trusted system. No complicated system and do not keep on trying out new tools.
6. Organize, have a place for everything. And put it there right away!
7. Review your system and goals weekly.
8. Simplify and eliminate. Reduce your goals and tasks to the essentials.
9. Routine, set and keep routines.
10. Find your passion. Seek work for which you are passionate, passion gives energy.

I already worked on habit one, three, four, five and seven before I came across ZTD. And I have touched on habit eight, Turning 2008 into 80-20. Now I have to set those habits which take me about halfways in the ZTD and then start working on the other habits.

If ten new habits sounds far too much there is a minimalist version of ZTD, the first four habits. Set those and you have achieved a lot.

Buy the ZTD e-book now, at $9.50 it is a bargain:

There’s an enormous amount of superstition about what makes some pages rank high while others languish. When you look at the actual figures, though, much of that fades away.

It turns out that the new playing field enforced by the search engines is eliminating many of the shortcuts that used to be effective. In other words, the best way is the long way.

The long way is to create content that is updated, unique and useful.

Those three U’s are not that simple. Useful and updated are the easy ones, unique is a different issue. The e-book is short but food for thought and includes links that shows more about what Seth means.

Read Seth’s post and get the e-book.

You can check out Seth Godin at Squidoo.