January Book Review: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

ByDavid Cory

Some of you will laugh, but I grabbed a title off my bookshelf that has been there for many years that I’ve always wanted to read and never had until now, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an enquiry into values” by Robert Pirsig. It was first published in 1974 and became quite the classic piece of literature for its time. Maybe you could call it a bit of a ‘cult classic.’ An autobiographical review of Pirsig’s experience with mental illness and reflecting on knowledge, values, and approaches to life while on a motorcycle trip with his son.

As you’re reading along, it might occur to you that the author is extremely bright and then if you read about him on the net you probably won’t be surprised to find out he’s got this genius level IQ. While not a book about emotional intelligence per se, it definitely causes one to think about a lot of things, such as how one copes with the emotions of life – or doesn’t as is the case for Pirsig and makes you think about why this is the case for some people and not for others. What do you think? Have you read it? What do you recall from the book?

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David Cory, M.A. is a leadership performance consultant specializing in individual and organizational performance improvement. And he's the founder of The Emotional Intelligence Training Company, Inc. which is celebrating its 20th anniversary of delivering leadership courses based on EQ and the EQ-i 2.0 Certification Course all over the world.
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