The Mindful Attraction Plan: Your Practical Roadmap to Creating the Life, Love and Success You Want

Dan Savage, sex columnist and political activist, writes that he starts every day going through the large number of emails he receives from men frustrated at the lack of sex in their marriages. This is clearly a common pain point and a big problem. Dan, who is compassionate, wise, witty and unafraid of a fight when thrust into one, generally ignores such letters in his columns to focus on less vanilla issues. Who'd read the column otherwise? [*]Athol Kay, blogger and author, has taken a different approach and the success of his advice has allowed him to create a popular and growing web community and write a series of books. Mindful Attraction Plan, is his latest. Good as his other books were, this stands above them.For Athol Kay, the sex deprived marriage is only an indicator of deeper problems. Solving the deeper problems will either automatically turn the sex problem around or provide the tools to allow a more assertive approach to resolve the issue. Sex deprivation need not be the life issue. The problem could be you are lonely, broke, unhappy, overweight, in a bad relationship or, indeed, undersexed.For the author, loneliness, bad relationship, overweight, undersexed or other obvious pain points are often not problems that can be directly solved. They are symptoms of something deeper. Solve the deeper problem and the symptoms resolve. I call this the thorn in the lion's paw problem. The issue for the lion is not that they limp when they walk, can't land after pouncing, stand properly or that the other lions laugh at their awkwardness. If the thorn is not addressed, then working directly on any of those clear handicaps will not solve anything. Discover the thorn and remove it and the whole system of problems resolves.Humans are complex creatures operating within complex systems. Any number or combination of things could be that thorn in the lion's paw. After explaining the happiness and life satisfaction gains for a person and those around them by identifying and resolving the core issues, the book provides the equivalent of a pre-flight check-list of what the problems could be and what the solutions are.Like a pre-flight check list, most of the potential problems are obvious 'is there gas in the tank?', 'have the stops been removed from the landing gear?' But pre-flight check lists work, even though everything on the list is obvious, for even the obvious can be missed. How many have friends who can not see in themselves what is obvious to those around them? We are no different about ourselves. No sex in your marriage? Being heavily overweight would make you unattractive and that could be a big part of the problem. Start working out and don't scrimp on the weight training! The book's pre-flight check list has dozens of such potential issues and is a way for an individual to gain some distance from themselves and realize what some of their own issues might be. The book then gives clear advice about what you can do, right now, to start to turn around each of the issues identified.And there are a lot of potential issues.People, imperfect as we are, will normally have more than one issue. Weakness in one area will contribute to weakness in other areas. Turning these around will take time and dedication. But the task should not be daunting as there is always some small step forward that can easily be made. The key is to make those steps and keep the long goal in mind. Even taking a wrong step is better than taking no step at all, for now you have begun moving. Individual steps might be easy, but getting everything lined up will require real work of a year or more.Next, with the solution built, you have to fix the problem. Sometimes the problem will resolve itself as you work on your part of the solution. However, relationships take on a life and patterns of their own and the second part of the book outlines how to positively and assertively use the changes you have made in your life to get the changes you need in your relationship or, failing that, move to a relationship that meets your needs.Those who follow the author's web community, marriedmansexlife (mindfulattractionplan is still under construction as I write), you will have seen in real time numerous such situations being resolved with people following that advice. I am blessed with a relatively uncomplicated life with no major issues (knock on wood), but I have learned a great deal from the author's web community and his books, including this one. I've tried many of the suggestions and to my surprise and joy, they have worked.Athol Kay's community, his blog and his books - including this one - have been some of the best investments I have made in improving my own life and the lives of those around me. Mindful Attraction Plan will only take a couple hours to read but is sure to contain several insights that you can put to work immediately for your own happiness and the happiness of those you care about. Without hesitation or reservation, I strongly recommend it.[*] Dan's advice to all those married men driven crazy by the lack of sex in their otherwise good marriages is to discretely cheat.  American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics  Absent credible options this may well be the best advice, but it is the advice of despair. Mindful Attraction Plan provides other credible options.

Summary: As a two year hard-core student of the Red Pill, self-improvement and intergender and sex dynamics, I am not the target audience for this book and didn't necessarily "learn" anything new. With that said, the lens through which this book was written was entirely unique, will appeal to a large audience and it reawakened some of my own thinking and has already allowed me to push through past barriers to improvement. I think that no matter where you are, if you keep an open mind, you'll get some new perspective or some new nugget that hasn't yet been uncovered and I would recommend it anyone.Full Review: I'll admit that I am struggling with how to present this review. It first needs to start with Athol's previous book: The MMSL Primer 2011 (AKA "The Primer"). This book was raw, edgy and was written for men, and explained things between genders in a comprehensive way that then allowed us married guys to apply it to our lives to improve ourselves and our relationships. This new book may have the same bullet points repackaged, but is the opposite of raw and edgy. As a regular reader and one who is used to the author writing to a more masculine audience, it was admittedly a hard pill to swallow. The Mindful Attraction Plan is written for both men and women and you can tell from the outset it was toned down specifically so that it appealed to more conservative masses. I certainly can't fault this approach since it does probably start more people on a journey towards a more positive life, and as one who is pro-staying-married (once you're there), I think this message can't be spread far enough. But I, for one, missed the raw edge.I liken the two books to differing approaches to a protest. The Primer was the "in your face" aggressive protester who is throwing bottles at the cops and pissed off about whatever injustice they are protesting about. The Mindful Attraction Plan (The MAP) is the hippy non-violent protester who accomplishes their fight against injustice in a more peaceful way. Both are acceptable approaches depending on your vantage point, and are two sides of the same coin... much like the yin/yang-esque symbol on the new book's cover.For about half my life now, my philosophical and spiritual thinking migrated from younger christian beliefs to more eastern philosophy and non-traditional spirituality. I was really surprised to see this play a foundational role in The MAP. Positive and negative energy in the context of self and relationships is something I've believed for awhile, and Athol makes this the centerpiece of his book. To me, this makes way too much sense and was a little surprised that he made the jump from the raw force that was The Primer to the softer more positive, more spiritual approach here. But in doing so, it does lose some of the biological and anthropological explanations and backbone with regards to intergender relationships that made The Primer so powerful. It focuses nearly entirely on self, being present, making changes within yourself as an end in and of itself. I really liked the idea of making small improvements each day (he referred to a change of 0.1% each day) to add up to big improvements later.As one who considers himself more academic and loves statistics, studies and research in support of key points, I thought The Map was lacking. I consider it more gooshy and soft science (at best) when he was making his point. It lacked some substance in my opinion. He references a number of times throughout the book circumstances where he's seen certain things or helped couples overcome toxic situations, but he doesn't ever reference specific stories. Books like No More Mr Nice Guy and Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence carry more weight due to the specific examples of real couples dealing with specific situations. Now the focus is more on self in The Map, but thought this type of thing would have bolstered some of his writing.As a huge fan of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now about being and living in the present, I think The Mindful Attraction Plan has a lot to offer for self-improvement and about seeing the dynamics between people in a new light. I can say that there are still stagnant things in my own life that I need to work on, and this book has me already addressing them in a way that is positive and doesn't beat up too bad the reader's past choices. It's a very positive mindset book, and while it's a little soft for my tastes, still has a lot to offer and is a good introduction to self-improvement, marriage improvement and sex improvement (in a roundabout way) without scarring the uninitiated. I would say it's a good companion to The Primer, but of the two, The Primer is more of a slap in the face from a Bull which I think is needed for many men having a hard time figuring out why their marriage isn't what they want. The MAP is a soft approach into the same areas and is a great intro to men and women who are looking to simply improve themselves and as a result, their marriage and sex life.

The Best Self Help Book I Have Ever Read. And I have read dozens and dozens.... Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, David Deiada, Pema Chodron, Robert Kegan, Ken Wilber..... This beats them all hands down. Why? Because not only is the theory sound as a pound (yes I'm British), but because it is also a supremely practical and "actionable" book. Buy it, read it, put the guidelines into action, and you will change your life and your marriage for the better.In the two years or so since I bought and read this book and starting to put it's teachings into practice I have:- had more sex with my wife than in the previous 18 years of our marriage;- have put on 18lbs of muscle and am physically stronger now at 54 years of age than I was at 24, 34 or 44;- have taken control of a failing working-from-home business, remodelled it and increased my gross income by 50%+ in some areas.- I dress better, feel closer to my wife, and am more optimistic and energised in my daily interactions. Absolutely No Bulls***.None of this would have happened if I hadn't come across Athol and implemented his writings in my own life. No doubt you will make different kinds of improvements in yours. Either way - Don't hesitate. Just buy it, read it, and put it into action. Life is too short not to.

There is zero insights or fresh ideas in this book. The promise is that it offers actionable and very effective plan instead. Well, what is packaged as THE plan is nothing more than a dump of common-sense wisdom and stale clichés.<new paragraph>"It’s a very big world out there. You’re not going to get to see it all before you die." <paragraph ends>Another excerpt:"Don't give up." This is the whole paragraph, I kid you not.It wouldn't make me cringe if it wasn't like this sentence after sentence, page after page.The "About the Author" section is amusing though, studded with self-praise like "A deeply intellectual person,..." and "He is a very bright, kind, honest, secular and spiritual man."Avoid.

Athol Kay's first book, The Married Man Sex Life Primer, was an eye-opener for me, raw data I had no idea about. I bought it to see how I could fix or understand my relationships, out of desperation. Impressed by that, I got this book, The MAP. It is an excellent follow-up, containing basic common sense laid out into easy-to-follow steps.However, what Athol Kay does in this book is confirm what I should have known and done already, but my mind had been in a jumble of emotions and upset and continually jumping to wrong conclusions. My relationships kept failing, but the revelations in this book firmly convinced me that not only had I been responsible for my own problems, I was the only one who could do anything about it. The blame had been entirely mine all along for not doing the sensible things, and the reason for that was because the answers were not obvious until I read this book.These were my first two books looking at my relationships and they've pretty much answered all my questions. I think I could read a lot more books by other authors, and there seems to be no end of them, now that I've looked. But all the explanations I needed I've found here in these two books, nicely condensed and extremely well laid out.This book covers not just one's personal relationships but also explains a lot about employment and one's social groups, which I also found hugely instructive, and which helped me to put things in a wider perspective as to why I'd been doing so badly with my marriage.All in all, very worthwhile. I have a new and more confident outlook for the future.

This is a self improvement book and a relationship improvement book rolled into one - and it is brilliant. Low on Woo woo unlike most self help books and stunningly simple in presentation.Using a traffic light system - stop doing these reds (easy), keep doing these greens (easy),turn these yellow issues into greens (bloody hard work); this book is a complete guide to the things you need to do to live a better life. There is not a lot of how to, but there is a lot of what and why. The how is up to you and the person you want to be. I found the first half of the book the most useful - a list of common sense things that for some reason never clicked in my head. Having them laid out on paper in a rough order of priority has been very helpful.The premise of the book is that if you are a better person - healthier, happier and less of a doormat - then your sub par close and professional relationships will either start to follow your upward trajectory, or you will be in a position to build new relationships that are mutually beneficial. The second half of the book focuses on dealing with the human 'vampires' in your life, acknowledging your part in your relationship messes and encouraging you to work on it till its over, instead of cheating, 'upgrading' or giving up because 'the other person is hopeless'. They might turn out to be hopeless in the end, but the 'end' is a long way away and you might be pleasantly surprised.I have the kindle edition. I wish I had bought a hard copy because I would like to annotate it. I think in future editions, some worksheets and checklists would be a useful addition; you will at some point find yourself writing out all of the advised actions, perhaps several times over.Also check out the 'three monkeys' post on Athol's blog, it will help you organize and run your 'Map' more effectively.

This is the first review that I've ever written for Amazon; it's the first book that I've ever been compelled to write a review for.In my humble opinion, this is the greatest self help book ever written; and as a single man I'm not even part of the target demographic (this and Athol's other books are primarily aimed at married men who want to rekindle the spark in their marriages).I was already a fan of Athol's Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011 - as someone who has done some very painful 'Red Pill' learning over the last few years, MMSLP represented the most concise description of the roots of the 'Red Pill' mindset that I had ever come across. It was also the least misogynistic/nihilistic book on Red Pill thinking that I had encountered, although I can't say I agreed with all of it.But this book is in a whole different league. Aimed at both men and women, and written in Athol's same concise, no-nonsense style, this book talks you through identifying how you need to improve yourself in 6 key areas. By identifying which destructive behaviors you need to stop, which behaviors you need to start, and which toxic people/environments you need to potentially remove yourself from, your life will start getting better every day, you'll like yourself more, and you will command more respect from others; getting to a point where irremediably toxic/destructive relationships can be ended.This is a wonderfully positive book, but a concise and actionable one. The advice is for the most part quite simple, but I've never seen a book that's brought it all together so well. It can be read in one sitting, and you can start making positive changes in your life right now. Every day you get a bit better.This book and 'The Depression Cure' by Dr Steve Ilardi should be compulsory reading for everyone. You'll be a happier and healthier person for it.