Amazon Be Your Own Guru Category:  Self-Help Publisher: Capstone ISBN-10:  184112737X Pages: 256 Copyright: November 2007 The secret’s out – successful companies employ successful individuals! Until now, only a handful of the world’s richest and most visionary companies have been able to afford to invest in developing their people’s emotional and spiritual intelligence. ME! ME! ME! CHAPTER ONE ARE YOU A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION? Do you love, honour and cherish the most important person in your life? Or do you scorn, deride and reject the one person with whom you’ll spend your all your days? In fact, are you aware of just who is the most important person in your life? Your answers reveal a lot - everything in fact. You see, whatever else anyone will tell you, there is just one person who will be with you from the moment you’re born to the moment you die. That person is you. Most people respond to the question: “Who is the most important person in your life?” with – in no particular order - “My parents, my children or my spouse.” It could be worse. One woman told me that the most important person in her life was her pet rabbit! How you feel about yourself determines how you feel about other people – and indeed how you feel about life generally. And that’s why it’s so important to get yourself right first, before attempting to improve anything else. How do you feel about being the most important person in your life? To some, the notion is self-centred and egoistic. But the truth is that you can only become selfless when you transcend “self”. Ignoring, rejecting or sacrificing yourself isn’t actually selfless at all because these behaviours arise from falsehood, the lack of recognition of who you really are at your core. However, self-sacrifice, false humility and approval seeking are the kind of behaviours that are often seen as acceptable by society. How often do we punish ourselves with far harsher sentences than would ever be meted out by the law courts?    Excerpt The secret’s out – successful companies employ successful individuals! Until now, only a handful of the world’s richest and most visionary companies have been able to afford to invest in developing their people’s emotional and spiritual intelligence. But now, with the launch of “Be Your Own Guru”, everyone who has to work for a living – whether they own the company or work for someone else - can learn how to tap into their own hidden potential. Daringly, “Be Your Own Guru” reveals how emotional and spiritual intelligence become much more powerful when they are used in tandem – creating phenomenal profits for the organisation and personal excellence for the individual. Packed with practical advice, fascinating anecdotes and real-life case stories which often border on the miraculous, “Be Your Own Guru” fits snugly into the Business/Self Help genre. Created for business-minded ‘practical’ people who absolutely need to see big results, the book delivers – in one powerful package - a unique process which puts the reader firmly at the helm of both their personal and business life. Written in an engaging style by personal leadership expert and former journalist Olivia Stefanino, this thought-provoking book reveals the tried-and-tested techniques that the author has used – for nearly a decade – within organisations which have understood the commercial sense of developing their people’s emotional and spiritual intelligences.

“When you discover how to be your own guru, you’ll be happier, healthier and wealthier... guaranteed!”
That’s the promise that Olivia Stefanino makes to readers of her extraordinary new book, and let’s face it, how many of us can honestly say that our lives couldn’t do with a little bit more of those three qualities?

Olivia Stefanino is perhaps uniquely placed to make such a bold claim about the potential for life and business changes that her book possesses. A former journalist and magazine publisher, Olivia has been helping individuals and organisations to achieve phenomenal results in terms of achieving life goals and improving business performance for more than 10 years.

Be Your Own Guru is likely to sit comfortably on the shelves of both the business and self-help sections of your local bookshop, and in all probability will earn an appreciative reaction from browsers of both. Rich in practical ideas and strategies, the philosophy of this book is presented in a highly accessible style by interweaving the strategies with an intriguing true story of Olivia’s personal experience in delivering her programme to a team of managers at a major British bank. The anecdotal chapters are related with a sense of total honesty, which is exactly what this book demands of its reader if the strategies are to really be effective.

The book’s concise chapters of theory and anecdotes are themselves interspersed with sound-bites and pithy strategies for self-help. This technique has resulted in a book that is highly accessible, to the point that it is difficult to put it down and take the time to apply the methods as suggested. Personally, I found this to be such an enjoyable read that I rushed through the whole book in one sitting, at which point my head was buzzing with ideas. To really benefit from this book all the reader really needs to do is to dedicate sufficeint time over each of the 3 days the publisher recommends to work steadily through the strategy, to be completely honest about his or her feelings, and to take the time to adopt the strategies to their every day life.

For the high street bank that features in the book, the programme was judged to be a phenomenal success, not only by the participants but also by the hard-nosed executive who had commissioned the programme, and could not fail to be impressed by the dramatic, measurable improvements in sales and performance that the participants subsequently achieved compared to the control group.

“A successful business employs successful people” is just one of the author’s claims, and in Be Your Own Guru, Olivia has comfortably squared the circle of addressing the spiritual and emotional needs of the individual with the measurable objectives of goal-driven organisations. A must-read for the ambitious, for people who feel they are not achieving what they are really capable of, and not least for the business owner, Chief Executive of manager who is looking for a way to invest in that most precious commodity, people, in a way that will actually guarantee a healthy return.

Tim Hiscock, Freelance Writer.


How to Be Your Own Guru?
I am unquestionably a ‘cynic’ with regard to self-help books. In my 47 years, I have never succeeded in reading beyond chapter 2 of any - in spite of encouragement from friends and family.

With the help of her “clients” as case studies, the author takes the reader through a journey of self-discovery. Olivia’s grasp of our frailties as human beings is at times unnerving - but her frank and honest approach makes her likeable all the same. There are sections in the book which show extraordinary perception, and at times, I felt that she had written certain passages just for me. Her journalistic experience has served her well throughout.

Olivia is brave - and the reader will warm to her as a result - for sharing so openly her own life experiences, together with some personal and professional failures.

Through the book there are exercises and simple and effective tools for the reader to use to help them become their own Guru. Interspersed between chapters are ‘The Guru Success tips’ - pithy reminders of the previous chapter’s core message.

Olivia has written an interesting and thought provoking book. She has an innate ability to engage and charm her reader. This is a book I will keep by my bedside table and I plan to purchase several copies for friends this Christmas.

Janet Gallacher,
Freelance Writer