The advice Don Miguel Ruiz presents in this book is relatively simple. He provides 4 guiding principles to use to guide your life--your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others:
1) Be impeccable with your word.
2) Don't take anything personally.(When someone says something negative, it is not about you; it is about them.)
3) Don't make assumptions. **Instead, ask questions.**
4) Do your best.
Ruiz uses each of these principles to show the power of the word, which we use to make agreements with ourselves and with others. His goal is to show us how to replace those negative agreements that we have bought into or come to believe through pressures from others and society.
While the advice Ruiz gives is simple and seems to be common sense, he admits that none of this is easy; but, he notes that if we always strive to do our best--and our best changes every day and under different circumstances--that the other three agreements will become easier. But it becomes easier to do our best as long as we practice doing our best.
I think that the book offers refreshing insight as well as a different way to look at how our words and our thoughts impact our self-esteem as well as our relationship with others. It's a very simple approach to personal freedom.
I do think that some readers will have to strive to get past the language he uses when he talks about "white magic" and "black magic". However, if you can get past some of his language choices, it is easy to see the fundamental soundness to this approach to life.
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