The Practicing Mind

Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life

By: Thomas M. Sterner

Narrated by: Thomas M. Sterner

Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Present moment awareness is an essential ingredient in life if one expects to experience any degree of authentic peace and contentment. It has been acknowledged for centuries as the cornerstone of spiritual awakening in all traditions of Eastern thought. In the West, however, it is still a relatively unrecognized concept for living.

The Western mind is always restless, never content with the moment. Its internal dialogue is always firing off thoughts filled with emotional content and pulling the individual out of the present and into the past or future. But individuals raised in Western culture are becoming increasingly aware of their overall sense of mental exhaustion, their lack of discipline and their inability to focus on demand. They are willing to expend the energy necessary to experience inner peace and a quiet mind that is waiting to follow the direction of their will. They are realizing that the endless struggle to fulfill the insatiable appetite of instant gratification is fruitless and tiresome at best. They are ripe for a new path in life and eager for a new set of instructions.

This is the purpose of The Practicing Mind. It comprehensively deals with helping the individual understand exactly what present-moment awareness is, how we are raised in a manner contradictory to this, and how we change our mindset to make this a part of our daily living. This book is accessible to listeners of all philosophical backgrounds. Regardless of your perspective, you will find the book's insights most compelling.

©2012 New World Library (P)2014 Thomas M Sterner

A Keeper

Want insight into developing a present mind? Sterner generously shares his personal experiences and growth path. Well worth listening to his advice several times.

You'll want to listen more than once.

I loved it; I consume this genre regular and consider this in my top 5. enjoy!

One of the most impactful books I have ever read!

I have read many personal development books, but this book by far leads out of all of them because it's this book that sets the foundation for applying the other books that I truly enjoyed!!!

Alll this hits home. great listen. 100%

everyone needs to slow down . focus. breath and think about our priorities. nice job

a must listen

It's worth listening to twice. information is insightful, relatable and by listening to it twice, you can pick up what you missed the first time.

Great book, narration could be more vibrant

I always appreciate an author taking on their own work in audio format. It helps in providing the inflection and intent that the book was also written in.

However, for topics that are informative and process oriented in nature, rather than story driven, I feel like the narration plays a vital part in keeping the topic interesting. The author does a respectable job presenting his book in audio. To me it sounds like the same inflections and pacing over and over, so I would have preferred a standalone narrator to provide some auditory color and variety to the topic.

The book, thus far, is interesting to me and I want to take it to heart and retain it. But I catch my ears “glazing over” as the narration carries on. So I’m left listening to 10-20 minutes at a time to keep paying attention.

Nonetheless, would recommend :-)

A great mental game plan for every day challenges

This is a great book for putting a game plan together on how you approach life’s challenges. I picked up several great nuggets while listening to this book and recommend it. It's not just about a theory but an action plan for mental toughness.

A book of life!

By far one of my very top favourites on mind work, discipline, focus, self-awareness and living a full life. It is read in such a pleasant and subtly captivating way, and its deep wisdom is uncovered through relatable everyday life examples with fascinating references to arts, sports and music which inspire further thoughts. I truly love this book and will certainly add it to my “books of life” collection to re-listen to regularly.

Exceptional!

I greatly enjoyed and learned from this succinct text and will be revisiting it on a regular basis (Daily I think!). There appear to be two camps in the reviews thus far. Those, like me, who see great benefit in the way he has identified the key concepts of this way of approaching life and uses life anecdotes to illustrate the points. I found his deliberate and highly focused delivery soothing while simultaneously underpinning the strength of the point.
Others find it too slow and ponderous and consider it merely repeating concepts from other books. I disagree. I think it is wonderfully put together with a great deal of thought behind the structure and delivery. It introduces better ways of approaching these concepts than many other books I have purchased because of its succinctness and style of emphasis, I found on the second 'reading' some nuggets I had not picked up the first time around also now stood out. I further liked the emphasis given to points in between chapters.
I think Thomas has given of us a true gift based on his exceptional insights learned over many years! Thank you Mr Sterner!

The benefits of present mindedness

I liked how he gave so many references and similar situations as examples it made topic much more clearer