Book Recommendations: Books that can change your Life

Note- You will need 5 minutes but I am sure that it would be worth your time. Summary of the book "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" is the highlight.

The Alchemist-  A book that made me believe in my dreams. It's a must read for someone who is new to reading books.

Malgudi Days- The simplistic writing of R.K Narayan has made me love all his writings. He is just a pleasure to read.

The Home and The World -Collection of stories of Rabindra Nath Tagore - All his writings are a treasure of wisdom. He is a pleasure to read. He will make you love literature.

Old Man and the Sea - Ernst Hemingway has written about an old man and his experiences. It is a classics and you will love this.

Stories of Munshi Premchand- He wrote in hindi and will help you learn about the life of people during his time. His writings are evergreen and all his novels and stories will enrich your life experiences.

Diary of a Young Girl- Anne Frank was 13 when she started writing about her life in hiding during the second world war. She is my inspiration. It is so nice to read about the life experience of a girl living in a different country in a different era and that too during the war and the regime of Hitler.

The monk who sold his Ferrari 

The Monk who sold his Ferrari is a wonderful book written by a great author, Mr. Robin Sharma.

It is a fable about a trial lawyer who was obsessed with his work and more precisely with his life.  He had all the worldly possessions one could dream of, yet he was unsatisfied because something was missing from his life .He sold all his possessions like his holiday home, Ferrari car, etc and decided to go to India on his personal odyssey due to a self-imposed exile. 

He decided to connect with India’s vast pool of ancient wisdom on living a more rewarding, fulfilling and enlightened life. He totally transformed his personality from a over worked tired man to an enthusiastic, radiant and enlightened human being by practising the following 7 timeless virtues of enlightened living.

1.    Master your mind
2.   Follow your purpose
3.    Practice kaizen
4.    Power of self control & discipline
5.    Stopwatch (value your time)
6.    Selflessly serve others
7.    Embrace the present

You can read in detail  about the 7 timeless virtues painstakingly summarized in my article Learning from the Monk who sold his Ferrari. Trust me, it will be worth your time.

Wings of Fire- Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam. It is really inspirational and a must read to learn from the life of the great man.

My Experiment with Truth- The autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and lessons from his wonderful life in India, England and South Africa.

Harry Potter & Philosopher's Stone-This book has taught me the importance of dreams"- Gaurav Munjal, Founder of Flatchat. He gifted me this book and I loved it too. You can read more about this at Rohan Sinha's answer to What are some of the most important life lessons that you've learned from strangers?

Some More books that I have read:

• Old Man and the Sea- By Ernest Hemingway- It is a wonderful piece of literature showing a person's commitment and his experiences
• Around the World in 80 days- A book full of fun and entertainment.  Extremely simply and worth reading
• Rich Dad Poor Dad - Teaches us about financial literacy
• The World is Flat - A wonderful insight on Economics
• Saint, Surfer & CEO- By Robin Sharma
• India Unbound- A book that will provide you good understanding of India's Economics, History and culture in a candid way. It's brilliant!

Picture Source- Google

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3 Things I love to do at home

1. Counselling-  When I was in college, I always wanted someone who could answer my career related queries . I was reliant on google and felt need of someone who can counsel. So, I prefer to counsel others online or offline.
2. I am a startup enthusiast- I write feedback emails to various startups. I feel happy to provide valuable inputs and the founders are happy that someone is interested in their company. Win Win Situation:)
3. Bring a small change- I had face off with big companies in the past when they had put misleading advertisements on TV. The companies failed to prove their tall claims many a times and had to edit or recall their ad. The 30 years old NPO, The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)  has featured me as ASCI Ambassador.

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Learn from Hobby : 6 things I learnt while on my Writing Spree

Photo Credit- Robin Sharma

Rome was not built in a day.

If I can't fly then I will run, If I can’t run then I will walk, if I can’t walk then I will crawl, but I will always move forward.

The pace of my writing has been slow compared to what I have thought of while challenging myself. When I challenged myself some 15-17 days ago, I thought that I can sail through writing 111 posts in 30 days. But, guys, it is really an uphill task. Even my sister politely told me that even 50 posts in 30 days is a big thing. I am still miles away from the finish line. But, I want to share with you that the challenge has really helped me to be on the writing spree and I am sharing my experience and learning while pursuing my hobby of writing.

1.    Passion- While you chase a target, don’t forget that it is the journey which is as beautiful as the destination. We must enjoy the process and if it is not enjoyable then we are not on the right track. Blogging is a passion as it helps me express myself. I am able to pursue things which fascinate me and then I write about them. I am enjoying the process.

2. Keep Learning- Whatever we are doing in Life; whether as a professional or an amateur, it is essential to keep learning new things about the trade. It helps us to get better with time if we make a conscious effort to keep continuing learning. Also Learn the Lessons fromthe Monk who sold his Ferrari

3.   Avoid Distractions- Life is a Journey and distractions are those fearful things which put a brake on our pace.  Distractions are difficult to avoid all together, but we can easily manage our response to them. While pursuing my challenge, I get distracted by thoughts like how to get more audience to my blog, whether I am able to connect with anyone or not, whether my efforts are worth it, is my writing very ordinary, and so on. But, when I remind myself of my purpose, I overcome those distractions.

4.    Time Management- I feel that I am putting more time than necessary. I have to be more disciplined with respect to time. Sometimes, due to over enthusiasm, we don’t realize that we have to optimize the time available with us, effort we are putting and the quality of the work at hand. Just by being more conscious about time, we can do get more satisfaction. These days, I am really not concerned about eating, sleeping or talking to anyone because I am hungry to write more and more. 

I am in flow and the process is really amazing. I need to go now to clean the mess that I have created over these weeks which are a byproduct of my writing spree. My beards have grown up a lot and I have not shaved for 2 weeks. I have piles of cloths that are waiting for getting washed for long as literally my entire wardrobe in now in the cloth bin. Whatever, it may be but this is a amazing feeling and I am experiencing in after long time. I don’t want this flow to die and hence I am planning to be much disciplined to enjoy this Flow forever.

5.    Don’t get overwhelmed- I want to share that while chasing a target like I have set, it sometimes feels overwhelming and chances are that we can quit the challenge in the middle. But, by being a bit careful, we can use such tall challenges to do great wonders. I want to explain it by citing an example; my writing challenge is like chasing the score of 450 runs against Australia in a 50 over Match. I have two options.

Either, I can play aggressively from the first over or I try to make a strong foundation, save my wickets early in my inning and score at a decent rate to scale up after getting closer to the target in the last 15 over to seal the game. In the first case either I will definitely win or I may lost by huge margin like get all out on 180 in 30 over, and fail to play 50 over of my quota. But, in the second case, chances are that I may win or go very close to the target.

I feel that while chasing an uphill challenge like what I set for myself for writing 111 blog posts in 30 days, the second approach is better. Because, it’s all about staying focus and write as many beautiful posts in 30 days. I don’t want to burnout and quit the challenge altogether. I want to go close to the target, as close as possible while enjoying my writing spree. After all, it is first of all about my passion. 

It is not a compulsion but a joy and I want to continue it like that forever. I feel successful in the challenge irrespective of the outcome because it helped me overcome my inhibition to write and I am enjoying what I am doing. You can let me know what you feel about my approach @ Discussion Forum.

6.   Deal with apathy/ negative feedbacks or immediate attention- I am able to write regularly for more than last 2 weeks just because I learned to deal with these three things- Apathy, Negative Feedback & Immediate attention.  Let me candidly explain all these things. Apathy is lack of enthusiasm of my readers, who were coming initially. I have got a couple of negative feedback regarding my style of writing from close friends. It was found to be plain as someone felt I should add some spice in my writing. 

But, again, I am unable to learn how to do it without compromising with my intent to write passionately with my heart rather that sensitizing anything to impress my audiences. I am here to express not to impress. While, I was dealing with a feeling that probably I was unable to connect with my audiences, my two answers on Quora, which were well received helped me to regain my confidence. Many people started visiting this blog all of a sudden and I was feeling very uncomfortable to receive so much attention. It is a very good learning experience for me. Also see my answers on quora which were a morale boosters- What’s wrong with Flipkart ( 145+ up votes and approx. 5000 views) & How does it feels to not quality in IIT JEE ( 55+ up votes and approx 3800 views)

I want my readers to just get the motivation to start doing something they truly want without getting affected by anything. If they are not good enough in something they want to do then by starting doing those things more often they will evolve their skills and eventually become very good in what they want to do. I am feeling proud that I am able to fulfill my passion while reminding others that Life is Beautiful.

By- Rohan Sinha

(This is the 31st blog post in his challenge to create 111 blog posts in 30 days, now 12 days are left for this challenge to get over)

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Mentoring- Writing Exercise for my Siblings

I have given an assignment to my siblings to write about the last movie they saw. Here is what they have written.                

                                     

Last Movie I Saw - By my bro

Last movie I saw was “PK”. It was an awesome movie starring Aamir khan and Anushka Sharma. After the success of 3 idiots, Rajkumar Hirani once again proved that he is an amazing director in Bollywood. Everyone addressed Aamir Khan as PK, actually PK was not his name, and due to his unusual activities, everyone named him PK. In PK, Aamir Khan was an alien who landed somewhere in Rajasthan for researching people on this planet.

 After few minutes of landing, his locket was stolen by a local thief. The locket was only way by which he could return to his own planet. Later on, he realized that only god can solve his problem in getting his locket back.

  He soon meets Anushka Sharma (Jaggu) in Delhi metro while distributing pamphlet in which it was written that if anyone found god please contact PK. Jaggu was a journalist and worked for a news channel. Jaggu decided to help PK in finding his locket. His locket was with a Tapasviji (god men) who purchased it from the thief and spreading rumors among all that it was a part of shivjee but actually it was Aamir’s asset.

 PK is a brilliant movie  which is full of entertainment.  

 Last Movie I Saw –  By my sis

 The last movie I saw was "Bang-Bang". It was a nice movie because Hrithik and Katrina were there . As usual, Hrithik played a nice job. The movie was based on the story of 2 brothers in which one brother (Hrithik) takes revenge from a person who killed his brother. Both of them belonged to Indian army.

 In the very beginning, Hrithik Roshan's brother sacrified his life for the country. When khalifa (let’s say enemy gang was khalifa) was killing him at that time also there were no fear in his eyes. The movie continues, and then there was news on the TV that someone has stolen the XYZ_diamond from very tight security and showed the face of Hrithik in the CCTV footage.

 After that Katrina Kaif was shown searching for some guy on a website. The website arranged a meeting for her with a guy in the restaurant. When she came for the meeting she was nervous but excited at the same time .But that guy was late. After some time Hrithik Roshan came and talked to her as he was the guy she was waiting for. Then he impressed her, suddenly something happened and he went away. Actually some khalifa's member came there by looking after XYZ_diamond thief as they wanted that diamond from  him for ABC reasons(that i don't remember). 

  After few meetings she came to know that he lied to her and she became angry. But till that was too late. Hrithik could not leave her as her life was in danger because of him as khalifa's gang knew about her .After that Hrithik planned something to keep Katrina safe and to reach his destination. He manipulated Katrina and he did not tell her the true reasons and the actual  plan .His aim was to reach the khalifa's head.

  Everything happened according to his plan and he was able to take revenge for his brother's death. And later it is shown that no Diamond was stolen from anywhere. All these were just a part of the plan made by him and his head and he was told to keep it as secret. Then he went to meet his family after a long time who did not have any idea about him. The movie happily ended with Katrina and Hrithik together

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My top 3 Favourite books

I love to read novels. I have read many novels but these three are my favourites till date. So, let us see what I have to say about my top 3 Favourite Books:

1.The Old man and the Sea

It is a wonderful piece of literature showing a person's commitment and his experiences

2.The Monk who Sold his Ferrari

It's a wonderful fable which is reminding us that :

a.  Even the whole world's wealth can't buy internal peace satisfaction and love.

b. We must make our priorities and work accordingly.

c.  Life is a journey not a destination.so don't think it's a race.Enjoy the whole process.

d.  Teaches us to live a more rewarding, fulfilling and enlightened life.

e.  Please have a look at the summary of this life changing book  here

3.Wings of Fire- Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam

In his autobiography, APJ Abdul Kalam has given a message that if we have the burning desire to achieve something then nothing can stop us.This book helped me realise that failures comes to everybody.We must take them as a scope for learning and those who learn from their failures becomes successful.

and showing that Life is beautiful. Success is failure turned inside out. If you are feel good while reading this blog, you can let us know.

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The above post has been written 5 years ago on this blog. It is like a heritage post for me. It reminds me of my humble start as a blogger. I don't want to either modify or edit the above post and would like to retain it in its original form . Anyone can see my current posts and these and get motivated to start writing if they ever wanted to do so. You can always learn and improve your skills if you have passion and determination. Click on the hyperlink above to read learnings from those books. 

This blog is all about originality, truth, passion and the purpose of spreading positive energy all around yourself.

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