Six Pillars of Self-Esteem Paperback – Deckle Edge, 1 May 1995

This deserves being read over and over and over and over until the day you die. Seriously.Self Esteem is the immune system of our self image. High self esteem has massive ripple effects over all areas of our lives.It can decide the difference between someone who is rich and someone who is poor. Someone who is happy, self confident and someone who is not.Self Esteem as defined by Nathaniel Branden: "Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficacy of our mind, in our ability to think. By extension, it is confidence in our ability to learn, make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change. It is also the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment ' happiness ' are right and natural for us. The survival-value of such confidence is obvious; so is the danger when it is missing.'It is the difference between kids who feel shy and introverted and those who feel they DESERVE to shine and be social.In our typical Indian school system, at least my generation was raised being told to shut up and look meekly at the board in the class while the teacher rambled on until he finished his quota of the day from the syllabus.ZERO emphasis on personality development, has led to our country being so meek, so driven by media. No one questions the status quo.But the emphasis on school education is just UNREAL. Seriously, when are people going to realize that teaching kids to do very well at school teaches them to be high achievers for SOMEONE else."Bete ki google mei job lag gayi""Hamara toh CA ban gaya"Aagey bhi badho iss sey. Our society NEEDS this book as part of school curriculum. This needs to be taught to everyone. The world is evolving, now there are new things like start ups. Companies coming out of nowhere with just a few heads pitted together cashing in billions.Those are the results NOT of people who are excelling at school necessarily. These are intelligent people. Intelligent people don't become intelligent studying statistics as we're taught to do in the schools. Where is your GK now after you become an adult? Does it even frikkin matter? I don't care about physics(Except astrophysics, I love that stuff), I don't care about biology or chemistry. I don't remember a single equation. I'm SURPRISED I'm still alive, WOAH. HOW. My mom and dad told me "Beta 10th 12th mei padh logey life ban jaayegi"THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. You know what could've helped more? Learning how I was inside. That could've helped. I had to pick up books and read them myself, thank God I did. Life changed for the better.This book is one of those AMAZING AMAZING books that can really really change your life. Don't underestimate what a paperback worth 500/- can do for your life.Intelligent people become intelligent THINKING on their own, respecting their own ideas and giving them voices. Accepting themselves and approving themselves when the world thinks they can't amount to anything (Think Michael Jordan. His dad wanted him to be a mechanic, his mom wanted him to just be well educated and get a safe job...a legend would have been crushed, but the guy saw he was more than that)This book lays down that Self Esteem is result of following six practices that lead to an individual's rising belief in himself and his ability to deal with anything that is thrown at him in life. Heard the saying? If life throws lemons at you, make lemonade. Your average Indian would probably take the lemon that hit him, and throw it back at whichever direction it came in from. We're so busy blaming the government, our parents for the way we turned out, how there are not enough opportunities and all these external influences but never turn the compass inwards because we were NEVER taught to!Nathaniel Branden lays down the six pillars, these are six practices that if you follow will lead to noticeable difference in how you go about in your life:1) Living Consciously2) Self Acceptance3) Self Responsibility4) Self Assertiveness5) Living Purposefully6) Personal IntegrityIf you have somehow landed on this page even by mistake, please do yourself a favor and buy this book. Then after it gets delivered to your doorstep, shut the door to your room with the book in your hand and read it. Consume it. Literally let it percolate through your brain. This will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

This is the first book I've read on self-esteem that is specifically for self-esteem. I've never thought about it in much detail until recently. This book has set on a series of questions firing in my mind regarding everything I've been taught growing up - by my parents and family, by my school and teachers, and my friends and acquaintances too. I did fairly well in school and university and I was often applauded for it, that meant, I often equated my esteem in terms of achievements - i.e. things/positions that I 'earn' or 'acquire'. But as it goes, sometimes you do your very best and things don't go well, or they fail miserably. What does it say about yourself? There is a fine line of difference between 'I failed' and 'I am a failure'. That fine line is self-esteem.Now that I'm reading and reflecting on this topic since the past couple of years, I've realized that a whole lot of people have self-esteem issues, which are evident in their behavior: they either don't try things because they inherently believe they are not enough, or they do a whole lot of things and keep themselves really really busy so that others don't discover they are not enough. Both of these are issues of low-self esteem.This book discusses in detail on what is self-esteem, with different definitions according to different psychologists and also what Nathaniel Branden things it is and a lengthy discussion on it. The six pillars of self-esteem are just 6 chapters our of 18. The rest is history, philosophy, readings and discussions on how different things like culture, religion, family, parents, schools, etc. affect our self-esteem. The chapter on Personal Integrity is mind blowing. I found the first half of the book really really interesting and enlightening to read. The latter half seems slightly academic and less personal, but worthy of reading through anyway.The best part of the book is that this book functions as a personal therapy tool. Yes a lot of us have emotional baggage from childhood which need resolving with honesty. The book has many sentence completion exercises which help to resolve unconscious emotional tangles. There is also a 31 week program at the end of the book which the author uses for his clients. So I believe this book cannot be read at one go. It needs to be read and paused and re-read many times over a course of time. And maybe the exercises need to be worked on repeatedly over the course of our lives. In that way, this book is a keeper.Now if you do not read much non-fiction or psychology, this might seem slightly boring to begin with. In that case, I suggest reading Brene Brown's books which are similar in topics, but the narrative language there is more human than academic and rational as in this one.[I bought a paperback copy of the book, and the printing is good, so is the paper quality and binding.]

this is good book with good quality pagesso,try it once to read,and then choose ,because it takes time to explain simple explainationsso,it good for psychology,bad for people who want direct solutionthis book is very big to read

nice.. good content and tips

The book is written in a simple language and easily understandable...The book manages to connect to each and everyone at a very basic level. It offers a great insight into the fact that ultimately it is we who are responsible for our feelings actions and ultimately destiny...The sentence completion excercises are simple yet very effective atleast for me... I would surely recommend it to everyone who has a problem in accepting oneself..

You can never guess how the book asks you to apply the concepts. It's so simple and so effective that it's hard to believe. And yes, it works. My self-esteem went from 0/100 to 60/100 in a few days. Why 60 and not 100? Because I lost motivation and stopped reading it after that. :P

Jo publisher mentioned hai us publication ki book nahi bhej rhe

This book brings on so many insights and quotes that will help anyone on their path to greater self esteem. I'll probably read it again just for the insightful quotes which if internalized can truly make a huge difference.I will also check out more books by Nathaniel Branden.