Phil D’Agostino’s self-help book, Naked Thinking: The Power of Feeling Less, Thinking More, and Making Better Decisions will not be helpful, read like a novel. If you really want to take charge of your emotions and set free your creative energy, the different parts of the book must be read enough times for you to start integrating it into your everyday life - your very being.

D’Agostino says at the beginning of his book that being emotional is the consequence of being human. But intellectual thinking, not mere emotionality, should be the “stuff” out of which great decisions, excellence, successful goals are created. To obtain these ends, Naked Thinking suggests numerous paths of thinking, doing, believing and choosing. Each item on the list below is thoroughly explained in D’Agostino’s book.

Thinking
Think about the success you are aiming for, if you could magically create it and always — always — walk forward on that path. Shortcuts can be hazardous, especially if loaded with hidden emotional content. This is where a realistic plan with mileposts in place becomes critical, because it forces you to reach each smaller goal on your path to success.

When talking to yourself and those persons helping you reach your goal, it is essential to use positive, active terms. They must see you as showing real concern for their welfare - you need positive pets; they need positive pets. During this process, you can gradually teach yourself to be less emotional to setbacks and negative comments. You particularly, and your colleagues generally, must internalize that you mean exactly what you say, and nothing will stop you except reaching your prized goal.

Doing
You can create your own excellence by deliberately exposing yourself to challenging disagreements. Learning to use your logic against opposing arguments can build self-confidence. Naked Thinking suggests reading some well-known work and deliberately disputing a philosophical point of view from the book, just for the sake of exercising your own intellect. Like a muscle, it becomes stronger with use, says D’Agostino.

Doing what you can do well and seeing the results builds self-esteem. But improving neophyte skills not only helps you develop talent, but knowing you’re improving increases self-confidence. Sometimes, doing the most difficult task first and breaking it into simpler ones is all that is necessary to gradually learn a new skill or grasp what seemed an unreachable milemarker.