First Person by Vladimir Putin Review

First Person by Vladimir Putin was a very interesting and powerful book that taught me five things. Be completely self-sufficient. Run your own life like a business campaign. Be silent. Be a silent person. Plan for the future.

Mr. Putin was very candid and open about his past and his relationship with the people around him and how it impacted him both professionally and personally. I liked the fact that he gave others the opportunity to speak about him so that the co-authors would get the spice and flavor of Mr. Putin without hearing just one version from him. They got a varied and honest picture without any hidden feelings. People were honest and open. I could tell communication and trust were being used by all the people spoken to in the book. Privacy was being respected to the highest degree possible. Boundaries were firm, enforced, and in place by Mr. Putin and I liked how he patiently told people where he stood without disrespecting someone or insulting them. They knew his boundaries and what he was saying without him having to say anything else.

Quote:

“My father’s father was born in St. Petersburg and worked as a cook.”- Vladimir Putin

Learn how to cook. Start with simple meals. Then gradually buy ingredients and make your own food from scratch yourself.



“A cook after all is a cook.”- Vladimir Putin



Organize your cooking ware and kitchen by item and in alphabetical order. Cook all your meals at home. You should only buy a snack and a roast beef sandwich or a meat loaf with gravy to eat at work. With a bottle of lime water. Nothing more. Also learn to shop in each area of the grocery store. That is essential. Get what you like but buy it at what you can afford.



“But apparently my grandfather cooked very well, because after World War I he was offered a job in The Hills district on the outskirts of Moscow. Where Lenin and the whole Ulyanov family lived. When Lenin died, my grandfather was transferred to one of Stalin’s dachas. He worked there a long time.” - Vladimir Putin



Cook really well and bring your own food to church and work. Cut up sandwiches into four slices and spread it out over four days to eat for lunch.



If you learn really well from your half-sister eventually you can cook by yourself when you are on your own again and not have to bring food back to your apartment.



Write down everything your half-sister says in a Word file for each recipe so that when you move out you can make your own food and drinks from scratch.



“My grandfather kept pretty quiet about his past life.”



Do not talk much about your life with your relatives before the age of eighteen. Ever. Forgive them and move on. Keep pretty quiet about your own life and what you are doing. You do not have to say anything.





“My parents didn’t talk much about the past, either. People generally didn't back then.”



Just because your parents do not talk much about their past does not give you the right to ask them questions about it. So stop. Respect the times they grew up in and their cultural norms and embrace it and modify it to fit how you live now.



“But my parents never told me anything about themselves.”



Do not tell much about the relatives of your birth father. Keep that private. Only write about it discreetly in letters. Same thing with your the family of your birth mother. Stop talking about them.



“He was a silent man.” - Vladimir Putin



Be a silent person. You do not have to talk if you do not want to. You are under no obligation or requirement to talk to anyone, or to respond to anyone, or to discuss anything. Unless of course it is your aunts, your mother, or your care team. You do not have to reveal anything.



Those that get ahead in life are silent about the steps they took to get to where they got. So do that.



“I have some rules of my own. One of them is never to regret anything. Over time, I came to the conclusion that this was the right thing to do. As soon as you start regretting and looking back, you start to sour. You always have to think about the future. You always have to look ahead. Of course you have to analyze your past mistakes, but only so that you can learn and correct the course of your life. ”- Vladimir Putin

This is important. This means to me that I must not live in Regretville. Living in the past means I am focused on past issues, past relationships, past concerns, past worries, past hurts, past learning curves, past hurtings. Do not do that anymore. Stop. You must do that yourself. Don’t look back. Keep moving forward. What do you want to achieve in the next nine years? What do you want to achieve in the future? Think about the future. Plan for the future. No one is going to sit down and plan it out for you. You must do that yourself. If you do not plan your life out in minute detail, then no one is going to help you to get to where you need to go at the appointed time when you need their wisdom and candor.

You cannot let anyone rob you of your joy. You cannot let anyone rob you of your ecstasy. Do not give anyone the power to control you and your emotions. Do not give anyone the power to control your habits. Do not give anyone the power to control what you say or how you say it. Speak in love. Live in love. Breathe in love. Exude love and happiness. Pour out love, favor and blessings. Upon your own life. Especially upon those that you meet. Dance if you want to. Who cares if you demoralize others around you? If God has been excellent to you then why not dance and dance your blessings? Why not sing your praises? Who cares what your haters think? Do their opinions matter? No! Do they factor into who you are as an individua? No! Do they factor in how God sees you? No! So then why should you care? You should not. That is their problem. Not your problem.

“I have always reacted negatively to those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others' lives.” - Vladimir Putin

I love this quote. Immensely so. It is blunt and to the point. Do not put your nose into other people’s lives. Stay out of their life. Completely. If they want you in their life, they will call you or reach out in some feasible way that was agreeable to both of you. But it is not. Even then remember that people have a right to live their own lives the way they choose. So do you. Your birth mother and birth father cannot (and should not) control every single aspect of your life. Take back the reins slowly chess piece by chess piece. Day by day. Make your own life the way you want it to be. But stay out of their lives. Especially the lives of their other children. And most importantly do not push to be seen. Do not push to be heard. Do not push to be talked about. Positive or negative. Just do your own thing. Quietly. Privately. Do not push for the limelight. Do not push to be in the center. Stay in the background. Be selective. Have your own beliefs and values. Set your own boundaries. Stick to them. Have your own rules of code of conduct. Never ever break them. And leave everything up to the Hand of God as your Source of Strengthen and Provider in All Things. Because with Him you have everything, He wants you to have! Be grateful and smile...... ( )

A brief but interesting book on Putin. This book is structured in a similar manner to Fidel Castro's "My Life", where the subject is interviewed on his life and the conversations serve as the biography.That being said, one of the immediate draw backs to the book is not so much what is said, but what is omitted. The president had a very interesting life, but it is described more often then not in very brief detail; one gets the feeling there was just enough discussed to introduce him to the world and explain how he got where he is (the book was first published in Russia just as R

Autobiographies are always interesting, especially when dealing with a world figure such as Putin, but one will have to read more elsewhere to get a broader picture of the man. ( )

Quite a decent biography. Nice to read what moved and moves Putin in the start of his well-known career. ( )

Chi è Vladimir Putin? Chi è I'ex spia del KGB a cui in modo imprevedibile, quasi all'improvviso, sono state affidate le sorti di uno dei paesi piu complessi e turbolenti del mondo? All'indomani della sua elezione a presidente queste domande sono rimbalzate in tutte Ie principali cancellerie del mondo, e non hanno trovato ancora oggi una risposta definitiva. In questo libro-confessione il nuovo leader della Russia post-comunista si racconta per la prima volta al pubblico occidentale, ripercorrendo l'intera sua vita dagli anni di scuola all'ingresso nel partito comunista, dall'attività di agente segreto nella Germania orientale ai discussi rapporti con la famiglia Eltsin e all'elezione a presidente. Ne emerge I'inedito ritratto di un uomo e di un politico ancora poco conosciuto in Occidente, che si trova oggi a guidare una Russia dal presente travagliato e dal futuro incerto. ( )