The Pilgrim - Inferno Redux - Four Point Review

I recently read this interesting book, available at Amazon in ebook and paperback formats. I will give 5 out of 5 stars to the book. Whether you like to read fiction or non-fiction, I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to you, as it has a bit of both.

Point1 - Book Summary

On the fateful day of 9/11, the protagonist Roy Aron had to take a long walk from ground zero to his home, due to the chaos and disruptions all around in the city. Lost in his thoughts during the walk, his mind wanders around and comes across nine sins: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. Each of these sins are visualized through its own story. 

After reaching home, he is a changed man who sees this as an indelible lesson for life about the folly of sins. To reinforce the learning, he takes this walk every year on the same day, with the spirit of a pilgrim going on a holy journey. 

 

Point 2 - Organization & Pace

The book gets to the central theme of the nine sins very quickly after the initial introduction. The story of each sin unfolds in its own chapter. The pace of the story is like a whodunit detective novel, with incidents keep unfolding at a regular pace.

Point 3 - Narration Style

The author has adopted an easy to read storytelling narration style for the book with the protagonist being involved in most of the stories in some way of other. At times there is a story inside story (recursive stories?) to make it more interesting. The language is kept free of unnecessary embellishments to give the book a contemporary feel. I felt hooked to the book after reading the first few pages and the interest was maintained throughout the book. 

Point 4 - What I Liked Most

The author has very effectively painted the picture of the grim situation and the mindset of the people after the 9/11 tragedy. I could relate to it as if I myself is in the midst of the situation. Several stories revolve around the life in campus and early job in India and it added a nostalgic touch for me. 

Above all, what makes this book compelling to me is its overarching but subtle message about turning even the extreme crisis to an opportunity for positive reflection and learning, and the wisdom of living a life based on principles, avoiding all sins.

Book Review - रेत समाधि (Tomb of Sand) by Geetanjali Shree

The Novel रेत समाधि - Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree is in limelight as it became the first Hindi book to receive the International Booker Prize, a remarkable achievement indeed.

I just finished reading the original book in Hindi, and must say that I am in a spell, so I decided to write this review while it is fresh in mind.

This book starts slow, and takes its time to develop the plot, the characters, and your interest, you may also get impatient at times at this stage, but it starts to climax around page 250, after which you get hooked to it and can’t put it down. I will not reveal the story and be a spoiler. A very interesting aspect of the story is human like treatment accorded to birds, animals, and even static things at places, and very humorous tone adopted in the narration throughout. The language deployed is the one used in everyday conversations with an occasional English word thrown in as we usually do, hence it is easy to read.

As an avid Hindi novel reader, I believe this novel to be among the top ones, and fully deserving the award it received.

I have not read the English version, so cannot talk about it, but I would say go for the Hindi version if you can read Hindi. The book has beautiful play of words and language throughout that is really something to relish as you read along.

If you love reading fiction, this book is very highly recommended. 

One Minute Manager - A Simple Philosophy of People Management

The One Minute Manager is one of my all time favorite books by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson that presents the complex topic of people management in a very simplified way. The tiltle One Minute Manager may give an impression that it is about rushing to finish everything quickly, but far from it, the book uses a simple story to teach three secrets of efficient management. It is a useful reading not only for people who have a manager's job but for everyone as we all need to manage something during our day-to-day work. This is a story of a young man searching for the perfect managing and leading skills. He comes across a one minute manager, who is a respected leader, highly spoken of by his employees. The man shares his three secrets that are the key to his success. 

One Minute Goals 

The first secret is One Minute Goals. This involves a meeting of the manager and the team member where goals are agreed on, written down in a brief statement, and occasionally reviewed to ensure that productivity is occurring. This whole process takes a "minute", which truly means it is a quick meeting, however it is not limited to just sixty seconds. The one minute goal setting ensures that the team member his responsibilities clearly. This is important as confusion about role leads to inefficiency and discouragement. 

One Minute Praise 

The second secret is one minute praise. This involves being open with people about their performance. When you catch someone doing something right, you praise them immediately, telling them specifically what they did correctly. Pause to allow them to "feel" how good you feel regarding their importance to the organization, and finish by shaking hands. 

One Minute Reprimand 

The third secret is the one minute reprimand. Being honest with those around you involves reprimanding when a wrong has occurred. The first step is to reprimand immediately and specifically. This is the same as the second secret, and it holds an important aspect of the first secret: it enables an understanding of responsibilities and how to complete them correctly. Following the reprimand, shake hands and remind the person that he or she is important and it was simply their performance that you did not like. The one minute reprimand consists of the reprimand and the reassurance, both being equally important. If you leave the latter out, you will not be liked by those around you and they will attribute mistakes to them being worth less, which is far from the truth. 

The book also puts emphasis that we should consciously try and 'catch' people doing good things, and not play a supervisor who is always looking for faults. 

These are fairly simple steps to follow, that can help you manage more efficiently. I would like to be a perfect One Minute Manager, but my experience is that I tend to forget these simple principles in many situations. Reading from this book every once in a while helps to remind me about the principles and keeps me on track. 

Live Full & Die Empty

One of the most beautiful  book to read is "Die Empty" by Todd Henry. The author was inspired and got this idea of writing ​​this book while attending a business meeting.

When the director asked the audience, "Where is the richest land in the world?", there were different responses.

One of the audience answered, "Oil-rich Gulf states."
Another added, "Diamond mines in Africa."

Then the director said, "No it is the cemetery. Yes, it is the richest land in the world, because millions of people have departed, "they have died" and they carried many valuable ideas that did not come to light and benefited others. It is all in the cemetery where they are buried."

Inspired by this answer, Todd Henry wrote his book "Die empty." Where he did his best to motivate people to pour out their ideas and potential energies in their communities and turn them into something useful before it is too late.

The most beautiful of what he said in his book is: "Do not go to your grave and carry inside you the best that you have.

Always choose to die empty

The TRUE meaning of this  expression, is to empty of all the goodness that is within you, while you are alive. Deliver it to the world, before you leave. You cannot take it with you.

• If you have an idea, turn it into reality.
• If you have a knowledge share it with others.
• If you have a goal, work hard and achieve it.
• Love, share and distribute, do not keep it inside. Stop judging others and do not keep unnecessary grudges inside

This will fill your life will happiness and will ensure that you leave a strong legacy for the world behind you. Shall we begin to give and spread every atom of goodness inside us. Let us start the movement...

Live Full & Die Empty

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About This Post

This post was sent by Meena Jain, thanks a lot for the beautiful idea.

Essentialism - How to Organize your Life

These days I am pulled in many different directions at work – there is so much to do and not enough time for everything. Everything seems so important that I get fragmented and it becomes impossible to decide what to take up at the moment. I get stretched thinner and thinner trying to accomplish all of it. I end up making a millimeter of progress in a million directions, feeling overworked and underutilized.

I have also noticed that my attention span is eaten up by my smartphone with such a constant inflow of emails, calls, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, that it is impossible to sit down and concentrate. I do not feel as if I am in control of my life and my time.

It went to the extreme when I was praying in a temple recently; one after other wishes came to my mind and soon I had about twenty wishes in the list. I knew it is ridiculous so I tried to identify the most important one from this list, but did not succeed. Then I said, “Let me try to prune this list down to top three wishes”. It did not work either. I could not drop anything from the list. I was surprised to find that it is so hard to decide the three most important things I want in life.

Something has definitely going wrong here recently. I was not like this earlier. Greg McKeown provides the answer to my problem in his book “Essentialism”. He says that the root cause is that we have started chasing more and more in modern times – and the solution lies in what he calls “the disciplined pursuit of less”. When we deliberately focus our energy on fewer important things, we can utilize it more effectively. This is what he calls “Essentialism”. The picture here illustrates the benefits of being an essentialist.

According to McKeown, the situation has become worse in recent times as there is an exponential growth in the information and choices available to people due to advances in technology. There is tremendous social expectations to do everything and be everywhere. Today’s generation grows up with a notion that “you can have it all”, which adds to this pressure to get more and do more. We have corporate environments that talk about work/life balance but still expect their employees to be on their smartphones 24/7/365.

The word ‘priority’ is singular and means the very first or prior thing. It is not meaningful to make it plural and talk about multiple first things. People and companies now routinely try to bend reality by talking about top ten priorities. This gives the impression that many things are priority but actually means nothing is. How is it possible to focus on ten different things?

Let us take the example of your wardrobe. If you do not spend effort to organize it, it may get cluttered over time with the stuff that you rarely wear. When it gets out of control, you try and purge the wardrobe. But unless you have a disciplined system, you will either end up with not discarding anything out of it or with regrets after discarding some useful cloth in a hurry. The essentialist will approach the same wardrobe differently. He will use the following disciplined approach to organize the wardrobe or his life:

1.    As a first step, the essentialist explores and evaluates the entire contents of wardrobe to identify the dresses that he likes most. In real life situations, this amounts to identifying the activities that will make the highest possible contribution towards your goal.
2.    In next step, the essentialist eliminates the rest of the stuff from the wardrobe. This is same as discarding everything but the most important activities from your to do list.
3.    The final step is to execute the most important activities with complete focus to get the best possible outcome.

You can immediately see the power of this idea – it helps you move from a cluttered, out of control life to an organized, effective and less stressful one. It also resonates well with the time tested principle of Aprigrah in Jainism which stands for eliminating unnecessary things from your possession.

Let us all make an effort to embrace Essentialism or Aparigrah in our day to day life, and increase our effectiveness by bringing back the lost focus.
  

Start on Your Own Successfully

Think of what you do every day at work. Do you give your 100% to it? Do you enjoy your work? Does it bring out the best in you? Is it aligned with your core purpose in life?

For your long term satisfaction, it is essential that your work meets all the above criteria. However, in reality, many people do not like their work. A happier employee is more productive, hence good companies try their best to increase employee engagement by finding alignment between the work and the employee’s capabilities and interest. While this has helped a lot, it still does not address the case when there is a major mismatch of aptitude.

Why would someone land in a job that does not suit his aptitude or interest? Partly our education system is responsible as it encourages students to take well defined routes. Study science, do engineering and management degree, take up a lucrative job and work your way up in the career. At a young age, the student’s choice is guided solely by the prospects that the career offers. As a result, she takes up a career that looks promising even if it is not in line with her interest.

Stuck in such a situation, people make different trade-offs as a compromise. Some choose to give 100% to their career with single minded focus, while others find a balance and pursue their dreams on the side. Some people are bold enough to take a plunge, quit the job to follow their dreams – like starting a business or consultancy, becoming a singer, actor, dancer, etc. This results in an immediate hit on their earnings and a long period of struggle is mandatory with a thin chance of success.

So, while a job offers financial security and predictable chances of ‘making it’, starting out on your own looks attractive but a risky proposition. Is there a third choice by which we can follow our dreams without getting broke?   

In his book “The Education of Millionaires”, Michael Ellsberg offers great insights on this topic from his own experience. He places greater emphasis on real-life education as compared to formal college education. To stress the point, Michael gives example of many successful people who are college dropouts. He gives a simple four point formula to safely start out on your own without crashing:

1. The first step is to get financial stability through any job that you may get into and become independent. Use your earnings to ensure you are free of debts, and build up some savings for a rainy day.
2. The second step is to create room for experimentation while on the job. Figure out a job schedule which frees up some time for you for experimentation. e.g. you may find free time in the evenings or on weekends.
3. Use the money from your savings to start exploring your interest in your free time. Make sure to keep the regular source of income intact at this stage.
4. Once you gain confidence that you are ready to sustain yourself without a job, strike out on your own.

Remember, there is no guarantee of success in your venture. Failures are unavoidable in entrepreneurship and are an integral part of learning. However this gradual approach provides you adequate resilience to withstand the failure without getting broke.

Michael lists the following essential skills that one has to learn to be successful in his own venture. These skills should together form the essential curriculum of education for success, but are rarely taught formally in college:

Change the Mindset
Transition from employee mindset to entrepreneurial mindset, where you carve out your own path as opposed to working on path carved out by someone else. This is a vital shift, which can make you add more value even as an employee. Some of the differences between the two mindsets are as follows:

Entrepreneurial mind-set	Employee mind-set
Focus on contribution	Focus on entitlement
Focus on outcome	Focus on output
Sort for what’s needed	Sort for what’s requested
Go towards big decisions even without authority	Turn away from even the small decisions you have authority to make

Find Great Mentors and Build Network
Connect with powerful and influential people and build a world class network. Key point to remember is that great networking is not about taking advantage of your connections, but giving with no expectation of anything in return. Find people with great future potential and help them reach their goal. Add value to life of someone who is already established. 

Learn about Marketing
A lot of businesses fail because they are not able to reach out to right customers. The general perception of marketing is that its sleazy and manipulative, on the contrary, good marketing is making your potential customers know about you or your company.

Learn about Sales
Look at successful people in any field and they are not always the best individuals of that craft. You can be the very best in your craft but being able to sell is equally important for you. Again sales is often perceived in a negative manner. Sales is about knowing what customer needs and if you have a good solution/product, offering it.

Invest for Success
Reinvest your earnings for learning new skills to help take your endeavor to new heights.

Build a brand for Yourself
Your brand is what people think about when they hear your name.

This is indeed very valuable advice to everyone who wants to be successful in his own venture. This book has a promise of such a powerful paradigm shift that I strongly recommend that you should read it.

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About This Post
I do not agree with Michael's view that college education is not useful at all. However, even after college education there is a need to learn real-life skills discussed in this book to be successful.

My Child

Here are beautiful lines by Dr. Shefali Tsabary, who has done extensive work on the subject of parenting. She has authored books like Out of Control and The Conscious Parent.

My child isn't my easel to paint,
Nor my diamond to polish!
My child isn't my trophy to flaunt,
Nor my dummy to taunt!
 

My child isn't my badge or my honour,
Nor my respect that he/she must protect!
My child isn't an idea or a fantasy,
Nor my reflection or legacy!
 

My child isn't my puppet or my project,
Nor my pawn or my cadet!

My child is here to fumble & stumble
To get in & out of trouble!
My child is here to try,
To fall & to cry!
 

My child is here to unravel the mysteries,
To educate oneself & rewrite histories!
My child is here to make his/her own choices,
To exercise his/her freewill & experience the consequences!

As a Parent,
My task is to make my child able & capable,
To keep aside my ego & be by his/her side!
My task is to guide & educate,
To let be & not frustrate!
 

My task is allow him/her to ponder,
And see my child grow into a Wonder!

Live Life as a Marathon, not as a Sprint

Imagine you are parent of a school going kid, and like all parents, want your kid to do well in life. You wish she can get a head start in life by becoming a doctor, engineer, or MBA, or CA etc. Your heart sinks when you look around and hear the following news:

• This year 5 lakh students who aspire to join the much sought after Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT)  appeared in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), out of which around 10000 candidates qualified for admission. One in 50 students got selected.
• There was even more crowding for Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), where 2 lakh hopeful students took the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) to grab one of the 2800 seats in the prestigious IIMs. One in 70 students got through in this case.
• Things were not any better for students aspiring to become doctor. 70000 students took the entrance for AIIMS that has just 300 seats. One in 300 students tasted success.
• For those trying for Commerce or Economics degree, Shriram College of Commerce (SRCC) in Delhi University required you to have above 97% marks in XII class.

Typical thoughts that would come to your mind are - the competition is getting tougher and tougher every day. My kid has to really get serious about her career right now. She has to put her everything into studies so that she gets good marks. So, you visualize your kid slogging it out and cracking the coveted test, but in reality, you see this young kid behaving in a happy-go-lucky manner. She enjoys her studies and is a bright student, but also takes interest in a lot of other things, ignoring your advice to focus single-mindedly on her studies. As the time passes, you get even more and more worried about your kid's future. You are desparately looking for a way to get this child to work much harder, else she will land up with a result that would be no good, and you refuse to accept such a future for your child. What's wrong here? How do we steer this kid towards the right path?

Well, the answer may surprise you. Before you work on the kid to set her right, work on yourself and your paradigm. I recently came across a book that tried to compare our life with a marathon and a sprint. Before I reveal the conclusion from the book, let us take a look at sprint and marathon.  Sprint is a short race (few hundred meters) that is highly competitive. There is so much focus on speed that Athletes put their everything into it to gain just a fraction of a second advantage on their opponents. Getting a head start in a sprint is vital to winning it, since once you fall behind, you cannot hope to bridge the gap in the short time. It is also run under extreme pressure, you have to be on your toes throughout the race. Needless to say, winning is very important in a sprint - it is no use if you stood 5th, 6th or 10th in a sprint.
(I may go on and on, but are you already getting the feeling, "Yes, yes.. this is how I want my kid to go about her studies and preparation for competition. focus, head start, speed, on her toes, pressure, aim to win.. yes")

Now let us contrast it with marathon. The marathon is usually run as a long road race (42 Km). For the participants in this race, completing the race itself is a great achievement no matter what position you finish at. The focus here is on stamina, not on speed. People who are likely to last the complete run are those who run at an average pace. There is no significance of a head start here, since the early gains get evened out over a longer run. In place of feelings of competition, we see a bonhomie among the participants.

You would agree that it is not possible to try and run a marathon like a sprint. While running the marathon if we give too much emphasis to speed, competition, running under pressure, we may get exhausted very soon and may not be able to complete the race.

Our life is closer to a marathon than a sprint. Head start in life is not as crucial as we imagine. There are numerous example of successful people who did not get a head start. Also, it is not necessary to stay ahead of everyone to be happy in life. And no one can deny that its a long race in which endurance is more important.

But when we try to live life as a sequence of tests that we need to "ace" one after another, we try to reduce it to a chain of sprints. Clearly, this is not going to result in anything but a stressful life. This is the real cause of the problem. Another side effect of the focus on cracking exams is that very often the real learning takes a back seat in the process. Also, we often tend to underrate the achievement of our child just because it is not at the top. Take an example, your child works hard in her class XII exam and secures 96% marks. She wants to take admission in SRCC, but with her result, she is not eligible. Would you see it as a failure of your child? Come on. She should be hailed for her outstanding result and it is not her fault that the cutoff at SRCC is going sky high. Given the chances of getting into these institutes, it is not any better than placing your bet in a horse race or a lottery.

So, the suggestion that I got from this book was - don't run your life as a sprint, if you run really hard, it may help you get ahead in the short run, but you will find it hard to sustain. Instead, try to enjoy it as a run of marathon.

Eager to know the title of the book? It is "Don't Sprint the Marathon"  by V. Raghunathan. I strongly recommend you read this book.

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Clarification: I support strong focus on studies to acquire a good education and trying your best to make it to the good institutes. This post is more about reducing the over emphasis on competition in our mindset, not to avoid competion. 

The Top Five Regrets

In their last moments, people often think about what they could have done differently with their life. What are the most common regrets?

Bronnie Ware has written a book named The Top Five Regrets of Dying, in which she has compiled a list of the top regrets expressed by people on their deathbed.

She should know as she has spent several years nursing the patients on their deathbed.

For me, this list is really an inspiring wake up call to live my life differently now! Thanks Bronnie for coming up with it. 

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

When we realize that our life is almost over and look back on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most of us do not honor even a half of our dreams due to choices we have made, or not made.

I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

We miss our children's youth and our partner's companionship, and later on we deeply regret spending so much of our lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

We suppress our feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, we settle for a mediocre existence and never become who we are truly capable of becoming. Often we even develop  bitterness and resentment as a result.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

We get so caught up in our own lives that we let golden friendships slip by over the years. And then there are many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved.  

I wish that I had let myself be happier.

We do not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. We stay stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflow into our emotions, as well as our physical lives. Fear of change makes us pretend to others, and to ourselves, that we are content, when deep within, we long to laugh properly.

Positive Reading

Normally, we read a book in one go from cover to cover and then put it on the shelf. While this gives us an overall idea about the material, for maximum benefit, we need to practice "Positive Reading" In Positive Reading, you approach the book with a deep, driving desire to learn something new from the book, and derive maximum benefit from it as a result. Here are some tips on how to go about it.

• Do not just read as a passive audience. Read actively with a pencil or highlighter in hand. When you come across an interesting idea, pause and highlight or underscore it. This will also help you quickly review the book later.
• As you read, stop frequently and ask yourself how you can you use this information.
• Review a chapter again before going on to the next one and think about what you have learned. At least take a look at the portions you have highlighted.
• Apply the new knowledge in real life situations. Knowledge becomes useful only when you apply it.
• The best way to learn something is to teach it. Try to read as though you are going to teach it to your spouse, your child, or a friend today or tomorrow, while it is still fresh, and notice the difference in your mental and emotional process.

If you approach every book that you read in this way, you will not only remember what you read, but you will have a deeper understanding on the subject, and will be more motivated to apply the learning. Happy Reading !!

The King's Speech - a landmark for meaningful cinema

The King's Speech is all over the news for sweeping the Oscars this year. I went to see this movie today and I really liked it. It is certainly a great movie about a touchy subject. It uses real-life story of King George VI's struggle with his speech problem to create sensitivity about people who stammer.

The King was so badly affected by his inability to speak fluently that every public speech or radio broadcast used to be a nightmare for him. However, he overcame his difficulty with determination, sustained effort, and help from an Australian speech therapist.

This movie assures every young person with speaking difficulty that it is possible for him to get over it, and it is useful education for his near and dear ones.

There have been a number of great movies in the past that have given sensitive treatment to different challenging conditions. Black, Sparsh, Tare Zamin Par, Shor, Koshish are example of some of the great Hindi movies on the subject. But the poor stammerer has remained the butt of jokes and caricatured badly in most movies.

Every one in a hundred persons faces speech dis-fluency. It is very likely that most of us are familiar with someone in the family, or has a friend who faces trouble every time he opens his mouth. We see him struggle with trivial tasks like saying his name, or reciting a text. However, most of us know very little about why it happens, how to react to it, and what we can do to help the person who is facing it.

A typical stammerer himself makes all attempts (in vain) to sweep his trouble under the carpet and hide his difficulties, which makes the matters worse for him. Since he does not talk about it, how will those around him know what he is going through?

That's why this movie has done a great job to bring this issue out from under the carpet and promote healthy discussion and education about it. Movies like this will go a long way to shape the attitude of society towards people who stammer.

I also read the book on the same subject with a lot of interest. The book has much more detail taken from the diaries of Lionel Logue - the man who helped the king with his speech.

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Three years after I wrote this post, I was moved to see very sensitive portrayal of stutter in a blockbuster Hindi film, and who could have done it better than my favorite Amir Khan in the recent super hit Dhoom 3?

Who Moved My Cheese?

This is one of my all time favorite books by the great author Spencer Johnson. This book teaches an important lesson about how to deal with change in our life, and it gives it to us in a very simple and easy-to-understand way.

Very often, we get used to things and situations in life, and dread the possibility of a change. Whether we like or not, changes does happen to everyone - We grow old, change jobs, become parents, kids grow up and become independent, on and on. If we resist any of these changes in our life, it is sure to cause us stress, that is best avoided.

The book contains a story of two mice and two little people who hunt for cheese in a maze. They find a source of cheese and get used to it. On day, they discover that the cheese is gone! The author narrates how they deal with this change, and gives the following lessons along the way:

• Change Happens - They Keep Moving The Cheese

• Anticipate Change - Get Ready For The Cheese To Move

• Monitor Change - Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old

• Adapt To Change Quickly - The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese

• Change - Move With The Cheese

• Enjoy Change! - Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!

• Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again - They Keep Moving The Cheese.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I have been very deeply influenced by this landmark book from Stefen Covey. In fact, I read it over and over again, till I got the hang of it. It was great to meet Stefen in person when he visited Delhi and arranged a seminar on his work.

People who follow the principles advocated in the 7 habits book seem to be happier, and more in control. It is not because they are lucky, but because they have have taken control of their own lives. Here are the seven habits described by Stefen:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Take responsibility for whatever is happening in our life. No matter what is the situation, we have the ability to choose our response to it.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in Mind
Decide our mission in life by discovering our mission statement. This will have both the vision and the values. This tells us what are the most important things in our life.

Habit 3: First Things First
Devote maximum time to the most important things in our life (The first things). The definition of important comes from habit 2. If important tasks are taken care of proactively, they will never become urgent, and we will be more in control of our life and schedule.

Habit 4: Think win-win
Approach inter-personal situation with a win-win mindset. Do not try to achieve 'victory' at the cost of others.

Habit 5: Try to understand first, then seek to be understood
Have focus on listening and emphatic understanding of other's point of view before we put forward our own point.

Habit 6: Synergise
Try to work with others such that the outcome is much better than what it would be if we would have worked separately.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Countinuously make efforts to improve in all four dimensions of our life. Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual.

Ten Great Books to Read

Reading a good book not only adds to your knowledge but can also be a rejuvenating activity. There are so many good books around that it is hard to pick up a few from them. Here is my personal list of books that I liked most. Some of these are all time favorites - and I keep reading parts of them from time to time.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People	Stephen Covey
How to stop worrying	Dale Carnegie
Who Moved My Cheese?	Spencer Johnson
One Minute Manager	Spencer Johnson
Crucial Conversations	Kerry Patterson
The Education of  Millionaires	Michael Ellsberg
Eat That Frog	Brian Tracy
The World Is Flat	Thomas L. Friedman
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari	Robin Sharma
Emotional Intelligence 2.0	Travis Bradberry
The Alchemist	Paulo Coelho

A great Presnt you can give yourself

What is the best gift you can give yourself that will last a lifetime? A great Present.

I am a fan of Dr. Spencer Johnson since I read his legendry books, Who Moved My Cheese and One Minute Manager long back. He is a great author who can express deep insights with simple, easy-to-read stories. Recently I found another of his books, The Present at Chennai Airport. This is an intereting story of a young boy who makes himself more successful and happier once he gifts himself The Present, i.e. learns to make the most of his present moments. Here are some pearls of wisdom from the book. This book is a MUST read for everyone.

• We all know that living in present can make us happier and more successful, and as child, we know how to do it, but we simply forget it when we grow up.
• Even in the most difficult situation, when we focus on what is right in the present moment, it makes us happier today, and it gives us the needed energy and confidence to deal with what is wrong.
• You can not change the past, but you can learn from it. When the same situation arises, you can act differently, and become happier, more effective, and successful today.
• No one can predict or control the future. However, the more clearly you imagine what you want to see happen, plan for it, and do something today to make it happen, the less anxious you are in the Present, and the more is known to you about your Future.

Years ago, Dale Carnegie also advocated living in day-tight compartments, as a way of spending maximum time and energy on your present moments.

Why do we need to read books?

We have to read so many books against our wishes in school days that many of us develop a dislike for books. No doubt we see this dislike coming out in comments such as the following:

• Do not be a bookworm
• This is just bookish knowledge
• Oh c'mon, let's be practical

This reveals a common belief that the books do not teach us anything of practical value, which is not true. Let me illustrate this with the following scenario:

Imagine you are in a new, unknown city, and your goal is to learn about it. You explore the city by going around, seeing places, and asking people for directions. You keep notes of what you discover, and use them when you have to go to that place again. Gradually, you start building your knowledge base about the city. Following this process, you get fully familiar with the city in a few years, and by this time, you realize that your notes about the city have grown into a really useful source of reference information. Now, imagine if you had a map and guide of the city available to you from the day one, would it not be a much faster exercise for you? Would you choose to refer to a map or go around the city on your own the hard way?

Our life is a much bigger area to explore than a city. For hundred of years, many wise people have spent their lifetime discovering truths through hard experience, and they have made this wisdom available to us through books. Why do we insist on ignoring this vast source of knowledge that can guide us like a map, and re-invent the wheel by learning everything from our own experience? Mankind has been able to make rapid progress only by each generation building over the knowledge of the previous generations. Without this continuous learning, we would not be in the Information Age today, but in Stone Age.

Okay, it is not always easy to extract meaningful knowledge of practical value from every book that we read. The most challenging part is that we get a feeling of boredom and sleepiness coming over us as we read a couple of chapters, and it is hard to maintain interest . Here is a simple RAR formula that I have found useful to get the most out of the book I read:

• READ - Read the book to get some new, interesting information
• APPLY - Use this information in real-life situaltions. See how you can apply it for your benefit.
• READ - Go back and read the same part again in the light of your experience. You will find a whole new meaning in the same words now.

When the Things go Haywire

Most of us do not like to have the negative emotions like anger, worry, fear, resentment, and hatred; still we find it hard to keep our cool when things go haywire around us. How can we handle such situations better? Many years ago, I got the answer to this question from the well known author Dale Carnegie through his great book, "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living". He uses the generic term "worry" for a wide range of undesirable emotions and provides excellent advice on how to deal with them. The top three suggestions from this book that I liked the most are following:

• Live in present. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
• Accept the worst. Ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen if I can't solve my problem?" and prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst, if necessary. Then calmly try to improve upon it. Co-operate with the inevitable.
• The Golden Rule For Conquering Worry: Have faith and pray. Always have the thought that you are not alone. Share your burden with God.

फानूस बनके जिसकी हिफाजत हवा करे
वो शमा क्या बुझे जिसे रोशन खुदा करे

The Alchemist - A book that can change your life

I am a member of the India Leadership Network on Linkedin, which held an interesting discussion recently about Which Book has changed your life. This discussion saw an enormous amount of participation, and many people mentioned the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This got me interested in the book, so I went through the book and was really moved by it.
It is a simple and interesting story of a boy who goes after his dreams, but it leaves you with very strong lessons, such as the following:

• The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.
• Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.
• People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.
• Love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love .
• Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

And finally, the most powerful message in the book that is repeated often is When you really desire something, all the universe conspires to help you to realize your dream, which reminds me of the popular dialog from the Hindi movie "Om Shanti Om":

इतनी शिद्दत से मैंने तुम्हे पाने की कोशिश की है
कि हर ज़र्रे ने मुझे तुमसे मिलाने की साजिश की है