Today means a second early start for me this week. This time I’m off to London for a meeting.  I’m hoping to get some time in the afternoon to take a look around and maybe visit a couple of bookshops in London.

My meeting is scheduled for 11am to 1pm, though I may have to work a little beyond that to catch up with emails.  I’m booked on the train to return at 4pm so I should have a little time to browse around.

I’m an avid reader, have been since I was a child but I don’t bother much these days with fiction, unless it is science fiction.

I haven’t bought a novel in quite some time, though I’ve borrowed the odd one from the library. I’m much more interested in ideas in a range of areas such as psychology and science. I have a pronounced weakness for self-help, books though I’m applying a lot more scepticism to my choices in that area now.

What I’m reading at the moment is “The One Thing You Need To Know… About Great Managing, Great Leading And Sustained Individual Success” by Marcus Buckingham. To tell the truth it is not the only thing I’m reading. I usually have at least two, usually more, books on the go as I’m interested in the ideas I can pick up from them.

Back to “The One Thing…”I like it for several reasons: it is well written and has interesting mini biographies used to illustrate his points. But the main  reason I like it is that it seems to be grounded on facts.

There is a mass of advice out there based on nothing more than the author’s opinion and this is true of every subject matter under the sun. As human beings we are designed to create explanations for what we see around us. This is both one of our greatest strengths and weaknesses. The upshot is that it seems there are more available explanations  for things than there are grains of sand on the beach.

Th problem is that that, while we provide explanations and theories in abundance, we don’t feel we need to test them before adopting them and advocating them as true. So to find someone who does test, as good science tells us to do, is very important.  Such people as Martin Seligman in positive psychology or James Brausch in internet business come to mind.

Marcus Buckingham with “The One.. ” and his other books draws on Gallup research and other scientific material to form his conclusions.