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Release Your Brakes

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Outlines the PACE system for increasing personal effectiveness by utilizing one's constructive imagination, developing self-esteem, learning how to relax, and heightening the mental processes that contribute to success

333 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

168 people are currently reading
1090 people want to read

About the author

James W. Newman

2 books11 followers

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5 stars
141 (60%)
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49 (20%)
3 stars
29 (12%)
2 stars
12 (5%)
1 star
4 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
37 reviews2 followers
August 23, 2017
WOW, WOW, WOW.. This book is life changing.

This book is CRITICAL; a necessary read for every living person. It should be part of every school curriculum.

The book, is very simply written, and many chapters may seem mundane, yet it is full of extremely POWERFUL, insightful, illuminating facts about our reality. One must read the basics in the early chapters in order to understand the LIGHTENING BOLTS OF INSIGHT, offered up in the latter chapters.

It teaches you to stop holding yourself back, to recognize limiting beliefs, to recognize how you have been programmed and are constantly programming yourself, and that you must take 100 percent responsibility for your current and future life situations.

This book illuminates how foolish you have been up to this point in your life, and offers a simple road map which will enable you to eradicate that nonsense from your life.
This book is IMPORTANT !

If you thought Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, was an important book... Take my word for it, that is chicken feed in comparison to this GREAT BOOK.

It is a little concerning, that this book has not been republished in every language and that the book itself is hard to find, and a used copy will set you back a couple of hundred pounds or dollars. I myself hacked a pdf copy offline, and it truly changed my life.
What is really concerning is that the book will empower anyone that reads it with the ability to unleash their full potential. Now wny is this book not really known about, ? Why is a copy of this book so expensive ?
It is an "Alladins Lamp" of a book.

Anyone starting a business, studying, Moving home, desiring a relationship, wanting money, lacking confidence, feeling depressed, full of fear, wanting to make a leap in life of some kind, dealing with addiction, feeling negative will benefit tremendously from this book.

It is no frills, yet it is the best self help book i have ever been fortunate to come across.
Profile Image for Tiago Soares.
88 reviews13 followers
June 24, 2016
If you like Dan Peña, you will a lot of him in this book. Why? Well, Jim Newman was one of his mentors. More specifically, Newman was is mentor when it comes to mindset.

It is worth the reading for sure.
15 reviews7 followers
June 28, 2014
Phenomenal book. Nothing in it feels gimmicky or overly hyped. Just a measured, systematic, logical and sensible approach into the psychology of self image. No over the top claims or misleading advice, but a cautious and carefully judged effort that shows you how to identify the mental processes that are holding you back while also suggesting ways to conquer them.

A MUST READ for EVERYONE.
Profile Image for Reginald.
41 reviews16 followers
September 14, 2019
Astonishingly excellent - Newman essentially explains the value of affirmations, self esteem, comfort zones, and positive emotions in a manner that actually aligns with established principles of psychology and high performance (rather than opting for feel-good BS these topics are commonly associated with). Highly recommended
11 reviews
September 5, 2019
Best self improvement book ever

If you want to achieve greatness in your life then this book is for you. Get it now, don’t wait!!
Profile Image for Ice Lord The Trader.
8 reviews
May 6, 2020
IVE ALMOST MEMORIZED THE ENTIRE BOOK. IM TRYING TO COMPLETELY INTERNALIZE IT SO IT CAN BE AT MY FINGER TIPS.


Profile Image for Tomás Atilano.
64 reviews5 followers
September 1, 2020
Vivir con el freno de mano puesto puede ser una de las revelaciones más importantes que tenga una persona.

Entender que podemos desarrollar nuestro máximo potencial como seres humanos nos libra de presiones y al mismo tiempo nos da la responsabilidad de asegurarnos que así sea.

Las páginas finales del libro son una verdadera joya. Aunque no lo queramos el estar acá (en la Tierra) nos da un papel en el funcionamiento del mundo. ¡Todos lo estamos cambiando!

No necesariamente tenemos que competir por ser la mejor persona del mundo, solo debemos buscar ser la mejor persona que podamos ser.

Acá aprenderás cómo manejarte bajo presión, cómo comunicarte mejor, cómo cambiar tus estados de ánimo.

Pudiera decirse que este libro es primo de Poder Sin Límites de Anthony Robbins.

El modelo PACE es el de Newman mientras que Robbins tiene sus técnicas, pero ambos buscan lo mismo: que vivamos una vida feliz, sana y cumpliendo nuestras metas.
3 reviews
October 1, 2019
A great book dealing with mindset and how to develop a better mindset. In my limited experience, it offers the best explanation of how/why affirmations are useful tools, really getting away from hokey nonsense explanations.
Profile Image for Mark Daniels.
Author 1 book1 follower
November 30, 2020
Practical

Great practical work with good workable suggestions highly recommend this book to help you grow in consciousness and achieve
Written and simple understandable terms.
Profile Image for Matis Pure.
1 review1 follower
February 14, 2021
BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ IN PHILOSOPHY/PSYCHOLOGY - This is insanely good, should be taught to every parent and everyone SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.

There's audiobook of this in YouTube, and it's excellent.
1 review
January 5, 2020
Mindblowing book. It gives you a new perspective on how your mind and emotions work for us.
Profile Image for Eric.
120 reviews
November 25, 2021
A little dated but good stuff - focusing on changing identity and false assumptions accumulated during life to create change.
Profile Image for Viktor Nilsson.
290 reviews24 followers
September 14, 2025
This is one of the best self-help books I've ever read. It is truly eye-opening, empowering, and soothing at the same time. My only complaint is that it is a bit hard to come by, and that the reprinted edition is of poor quality (letters have sometimes been scanned so poorly that they've gotten mixed up, pictures are hard to see).

The book deals with exploring the nature of self-limiting beliefs. The concept is quite simple:
- You hold certain expectations about yourself, and many of those are incorrect.
- You tend to live up to whatever expectations are put on you. You will do this with both good and bad expectations, and no matter whether they are true or not. Even beliefs about yourself that you know are false will affect you.
- Since you probably have a few negative and false beliefs about yourself, you are not living to your fullest potential.
- If you can replace false and overly negative beliefs about yourself then you can "release your brakes" and live to your fullest potential.

The author provides a simple recipe to do this:
- Diagnose: Explore the beliefs you have about yourself, and compare them to what you know, what you dream about etc.
- Accept that you have these beliefs. It is impossible to remove things from your mind.
- Instead, build up new beliefs about yourself. They should be positive, yet realistic.

The way to do this is to:
- Write affirmations: Stories that you tell yourself about how you are.
- Reading the affirmations to yourself.
- Imagining yourself acting out these affirmations.

That's it!

Now this to me seemed very awkward at first. But follow this idea and you won't regret it! It is actually quite easy to follow - the examples you tell yourself can all be real experiences from your life (I'm sure it can't be that you only have negative experiences?), so you don't really need to make anything up. You just need to remind yourself, in order to bring certain memories back to life. To strengthen some neural connections in your brain, until they overwhelm others.

I have always been put off by the idea of "positive thinking", as I think ignoring real issues can be dangerous and delusional. Newman is perfectly balanced in this regard, however, and readily acknowledges these issues. He does spend some time exploring when you should do this and when you shouldn't, what is reasonable to expect of yourself, the importance of being realistic and the value of reflecting on your mistakes. I haven't seen such balance from many self-help authors.

A very easy read. Try it out, if you can get it. You won't regret it.
Profile Image for Lida Sarantidi.
79 reviews6 followers
June 27, 2021
Ξέρω ότι η μέθοδος αυτή δουλεύει για κάποιους ανθρώπους, πράγμα που το θεωρώ πολύ σημαντικό.
Σε εμένα δεν "μίλησε" αυτό το βιβλίο, αλλά και πάλι αυτό δεν λέει κάτι, μπορεί απλώς να μην είχα την συγκέντρωση ή αυτό πειθαρχία που απαιτεί η ενεργή ανάγνωση του. Παρόλα αυτά βρήκα πολύ ενδιαφέροντα σημεία έστω και αποσπασματικά...
Profile Image for joshua kinard.
41 reviews1 follower
October 28, 2022
I get the point of book but somehow it didn't feel practical. I'm not saying that it isn't just for me it might take a while.
Profile Image for Adam Smith.
Author 41 books5 followers
June 23, 2023
Typical self-help bullshit. Probably was the standard to this sort of 'art'. In my opinion waste of time.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews

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