Two weeks ago I wrote a post entitled The Sunday Review and announced to the world that I was going to review a different book or audio program every week, By doing this, I feel that you my lovely, cuddly and astute reader can benefit from some of the great stuff I have stumbled upon without having to wade through the crap that it has been my misfortune to pay hard earned cash for.

I then rather selfishly went on vacation and the whole thing ground to a halt one week in. Sorry about that, but not too worry we’re up and running again today and I have a blindingly good audio book for you today.

I reviewed this Maverick Mindset about a year or so ago, but as it’s literally my favorite of all time I think it’s time to extol its virtues again just in case you missed it last time or ignored my sage advice to go and buy it.

Let me be absolutely upfront here and say that if you click the link and buy the product I earn a few bucks. If you have a problem with that I understand. In fact I have no problem with you having that problem and I hope you have no problem with me having no problem about your problem. Because I believe so strongly that you will not just like but love the Maverick Mindset, here is a link that earns me absolutely nothing. I’d rather you buy it and me earn bugger all, than you not buy it because you think I’m only promoting stuff that earns me the readies. The choice is yours.

I strongly believe in goal setting, I think it is highly useful in helping a great many people get where they want to be. Dr Eliot thinks that goal setting is useless when applied to the super-successful, that when you are dealing at the very highest level you need to be dealing with dreams and not goals.

When I first heard this I was skeptical simply because I had seen goal setting work for clients of mine many times. Then I realized that I don’t work with people at the very top of the tree. I’ve never worked with an Olympic athlete, a top-level surgeon or senior exec of a Fortune 500 company, so maybe there was something to what he was saying.

On a re-listen to the Maverick Mindset about 12 months ago I finally dispensed with the SMART method of goal setting I’d been using for a couple of years. I knew it didn’t quite meet my client’s needs because it was just too restrictive, but it did serve a purpose. I played about with different formulas and came up with SMARTER goals. The end ‘R’ becomes the REWARD. When I say reward, I don’t mean in terms of money, a vacation or a new car. I’m talking about the real life rewards like significance, leaving a legacy, peace etc. Those are the things that allow you to relentlessly pursue your desired outcome irrespective of any barriers in your way or the opinions of other people, good or bad. This is the dream that Dr Eliot talks about, the thing that will drive you on when times get tough and the thing that the super-successful are so good at tapping in to.

He also spends a lot of time talking about the training and trusting mindsets and why it’s so important to spend the right amount of time in each and when to do it. One of the analogies he uses is professional golfers. As he rightly points out, great golfers don’t start practicing a new swing half way through a tournament round. They do it on the practice ground and then trust that when they are in competition it will click into place. That is the flow state that so many top performers can achieve, but that so many of us mere mortals can’t seem to grasp. I know when I first started coaching there would be all sorts of chatter going on inside my head such as “What question should I ask next?” “Does the client think I’m an idiot?” “I think they’ve realized I have no idea what I’m doing, should I feign a heart attack?” Now I just listen and trust that my experience and training will allow me to ask the right questions.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of this audio book is all the stories and anecdotes that Dr Eliot tells. There are some quite brilliant examples of people overcoming setbacks, refusing to think like normal people do and smashing through the norm to scale incredible peaks of achievement.

Seldom do I read a ‘self development’ book these days such as this, that doesn’t contain at least a few ‘inspirational stories’ that I have heard before. I usually roll my eyes and think “Not that old chestnut again” I guess there are only so many brilliant cases and some of the great ones do bear repeating for people that aren’t familiar with them. It seems though that Dr Eliot has his own search engine for sourcing such stories because there were a great many and I was familiar with hardly any of them. Of course, a lot are his own first hand examples with people he has dealt with in his work as a psychologist.

The 7 CD’s are a mixture of studio-produced material mixed in with some live recordings of Dr Eliot talking to audiences. I must confess that I love his delivery style. His does have a habit of talking quite quickly, but I think that’s a representation of his enthusiasm and love of what he does.

If you hate sports then the Maverick Mindset may not be as enjoyable to you because there are a lot of sporting stories. However, I’d still urge you to give it a listen because it’s not just about sports, it’s about life. It’s not cheap at 90 bucks, but in retrospect I would have paid 10 times that for it.

JOHN F. ELIOT, PH.D. is an award winning professor of management, psychology, and human performance. He holds faculty appointments at Rice University and the SMU Cox School of Business Leadership Center.