EMPIRES OF THE MIND

by Denis Waitley

Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 252 pages, soft cover

Reviewed by Kavitha Koteeswaran (08BSHYD0345), Section L, IBS-Hyderabad

About the book-

The book puts forward in detail about how inculcating effective self-leadership qualities assist in
leading a successful life and also to identify and use ones potential to the fullest to achieve
excellence in today’s world. The book explains how developing personal strategies can help in
facing new challenges posed in today’s world where knowledge is given high priority. It
emphasizes on self-mastery and points out that improving your self will have a deeper impact on
the organization and the country.

About the author

Denis Waitley is an internationally known keynote speaker, consultant, and former chairman of
psychology for the U.S. Olympic Committee's Sports Medicine Council. He is a graduate of the
U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and a former Naval Aviator. He has studied and counseled
leaders in every field- from Apollo astronauts to Fortune 500 top executives and Olympic gold
medalists. In addition to writing 15 books and hundreds of articles on Peak Performance and
Success, Denis has written hundreds of poems and lyrics to songs and conducted countless
interviews with Peak Performers. His books include The Psychology of Motivation, The
Psychology of Winning, and The New Dynamics of Winning etc

EMPIRES OF THE MIND

The theory of self improvement by different means is explained in the book in its 14 chapters
and 252 pages. The shift of focus from material assets to knowledge, as the definition of power,
has been dealt with and provides an account on how this shift can be handled by the people. The
book presents self-motivation and self-improvement strategies. Falling in the
business/psychology genre it targets a wide range of readership including students, employees
and employers.

The changes that have taken place on a personal and organizational level with the shift in focus
to knowledge have been explained in chapter 1.The new corporate culture and the change in
attitude of the work force in today’s world views gaining knowledge as a step towards success.
The author analyses the need for seeing change with a welcome state of mind and not offering
unnecessary resistance.

Chapter 2 deals with another characteristic of today’s world that is freedom and its supplement
that is responsibility. Responsibility has been termed as the forgotten side of freedom and here
the author makes a clear demarcation of taking responsibility and taking credit. The author
introduces the concept of portable ignorance as a means of being unprejudiced towards others
opinions. He also discusses about the three ruts in the road to excellence- the rut of average, the
rut of conventional wisdom and the rut of group-think. Keeping up with the main idea of self
leadership, the importance of benchmarking in self-leadership is the focus of chapter 3.
Individual benchmarking is dealt with in great detail in which he mentions the importance of
choosing the right leader, then recognizing what a person is really good at and enjoys doing,
followed by educational and technical guidance in that field which will update and enrich him
with knowledge on the field.

Self-leadership and integrity is chapter 4 where the author emphasizes on absolute integrity, and
rejects the possibility of partial dishonesty or situational integrity. He goes on to say that
integrity always pays off with good results in the long run. Integrity begins at home in the
context that subordinates are prone to respect the boss’s integrity if it is seen in action as well
and not just in words. At the end of the chapter some tips are offered to ensure integrity in life.
Ensuring that the value of self esteem is analyzed forms the crux of chapter 5. It has been well
said that self esteem is not to be built in comparison with the others; rather it is accepting oneself
in all senses of value. A ten step approach to improve the team members self esteem has been
provided. The Ali Hafed’s acres of diamond story is stated as an example of how people end up
searching everywhere for value that actually lies within themselves. It also mentions the four
legs of the chair called self-esteem, namely, a sense of belonging, a sense of individual identity, a
sense of worthiness, a sense of control and competence.

Chapter 6 critically analyses the need of visualizing a moment of success for being able to
reinforce winning highlights in our mind. This forms the inner vision of success. This has been
further extended to explain the importance of a vision for the success of the organization which
helps in motivating the people to achieve it. The example of the blind weightlifter stresses on the
significance of this vision to achieve success. On similar lines, chapter 7 talks about the link
between a positive attitude and success. Physical and mental well-beings are inter-related and
hiring a person with a positive attitude has obvious advantages as he/she would see challenges as
opportunities. The attitude of ‘Learned helplessness’ has been criticized where people tend to
believe that external circumstances and not people themselves control what happens to them.

Chapter 8 encourages the idea of working for passion and not pension, differentiating between a
career and a job in this context stating the importance of personal satisfaction in a career. He
goes on to explain how anything taken up is not complete till we’re personally satisfied with its
outcome. In chapter 9, the author studies the concept of power relevant to today’s world. The
quote from the book “You must participate in person, but lead invisibly” explains the essence of
the author’s approach in this chapter. Being non responsive to the global markets changes is
called the leaders trap and escaping this has been talked about. Also, changes in terms of
business being cross-cultural and the growing part played by women have been discussed along
with its implications on the businesses. Change in the form of innovation forms a major part of
any business and communication is essential for innovation. The chapter ends with a few tips for
better communication.

The necessity for keeping oneself updated with technology is the core of chapter 10. This
necessity is greatly felt in today’s knowledge based world where some of the highest monetary
values are associated with information on subjects. The steps by which IT contributes to the
business world are discussed. In addition, the author explains how Asian countries had
recognized this blend of technology and handling this technology and thus has a competitive
advantage over the countries which recognized this blend later on. This has been attributed as the
cause for the enormous success in the recent past.

Chapter 11 points out how habits have a deeper impact on our lives than we perceive, and rejects
the saying that some people are born to lose. The author says that past is not all determining and
bad habits can be replaced with good ones. Chapter 12 provides action steps for perseverance,
including need for seeing failure and obstacles as a part of future success, the ability to laugh at
ourselves and also have a corrective feedback mechanism with disappointment has been
elucidated with examples.

Chapter 13 has an effectual comparison between the famous story of the beauty and the beast and
looks into all the parts of the story and draws a parallel with nourishing children with basic
values that are essential. The chapter ends with a 14 step approach for building healthy personal
relationships. In the final chapter of the book, chapter 14, the author presents examples of
application of these concepts discussed in the book by successful people and how these concepts
have helped them attain their success. He also highlights the importance of understanding the
value of time and its non-renewability.

The strength of this book is the illustrations it presents to give a clearer view of the concepts and
the strategies that have been discussed in the book. Its language is simple and proves to be an
easy read, with practical strategies put forward. Also, it deals with a contemporary situation i.e.
the changed demands from the world today and how this situation can be handled with the help
of personal strategies. Apart from dealing with the personal level, the author also discusses about
the application of these strategies on the corporate level which would be of interest to the
managers in the corporate world.

The weakness of this book would definitely be its all-American tone with a very slight mention
of the Asian countries in chapter 10. Though the ideas mentioned are applicable to people allover
the world, it mentions only the Americans in most part of the book with no mention about the
Indian society. The flow of ideas is also not very continuous; though it’s not derogatory to the
standard of the book, it could have been better handled. Ignited Minds by Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam
gives an Indian outlook towards self-mastery and self-improvement. It talks about Wisdom as a
weapon to ward off destruction and as an inner fortress, which enemies in terms of obstacles or
failures cannot destroy. Both the books suggest taking risks to a certain extent and being
pragmatic. This book by Dr. Kalam ends with a "Song of Youth", which focuses on the Indian
youth and enforces dreaming big and aiming big.

To conclude the review, Empires of the Mind analyzes self leadership as a means to unleash the
maximum potential present in each one of us. Life is to be admired and improvised by viewing
the inner self and not only with the external appearance. The author elaborately presents the
importance of knowledge, flexibility to change, integrity, vision, an optimistic attitude and core
values for succeeding in the modern world. The examples that have been clearly explained in
relevance to the concepts mentioned in the book also add value to the book as a whole.