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November 2020

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“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” – Josh Billings

Anytime you say: “yes” to one request, you might have to defend it over time with 100 NOs. There is always a trade-off. If you say yes to mindless social media scrolling or picking up your phone to check WhatsApp messages every 15 minutes, you are saying NO invariably to your dream of writing a book or a blog post article. Many of us find it hard to say NO to people’s requests because we do not have clear goals, values, priorities, and boundaries.

The key to saying NO is to say it graciously and with utmost sincerity. You can say something like: Thank you for the offer/invitation but due to my other commitments, I can not do this right now. Honesty is the best policy, mean what you say and say what you mean. No need to promise people what you know you are not going to do, this eventually leads to resentment and loss of trust in the relationship.

Here are some great quotes on Saying No:

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. – Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker  (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) is considered the father and founder of modern management. He was an Austrian-born American management consultant, author, and educator, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation.

He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning.

‘In most areas of intellectual life nobody can quite agree who is top dog. In management theory, however, there is no dispute. Peter Drucker has produced groundbreaking work in every aspect of the field.’ – Good guru guide’, Economist, 25 December–7 January 1994.

All results are on the outside. The inside is only cost and effort. – Peter Drucker

 From 1971 until his death, he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont. Claremont Graduate University’s management school was named the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987 (later renamed the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management). He established the Drucker Archives at Claremont Graduate University in 1999; the Archives became the Drucker Institute in 2006. Drucker taught his last class in 2002 at age 92. He continued to act as a consultant to businesses and nonprofit organizations well into his nineties.

“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”- Theodor Seuss Geisel

You are either living a storm, going through a storm, or entering a new storm. Whatever would go wrong would always go wrong (Murphy’s Law). Life happens to all of us. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: ” The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”- Viktor E. Frankl

Life is a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs, twists and turns; sometimes you are down, sometimes you are up, sometimes you want to smile, but the tears come rolling. At one point in our lives, we are going to be faced with challenges and tribulations. There is no trouble-free life, life is in seasons, and whatever is happening to you right now, it has not come to stay; this too shall pass.

The road to success is not straight. There is a curve called Failure, a loop called confusion, speed bumps called Friends, red light called Enemies, caution lights called Family, You will have flat tires called Jobs, but if you have a spare called Determination, an engine called Perseverance, a driver called willpower, you will make it to a place called Success.

Daniel Pink is one of my favorite authors; his 2001 book Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, changed my worldview about the future of work and freelancing. After reading the book, for a funny reason, I tried to be ambidextrous but had to give it up after a while.

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink in his Masterclass Session shares tactics for becoming a stronger motivator and communicator- all drawn from behavioral science for effective selling.

Daniel Pink has been exercising the art of persuasion for decades, first as a law school student, and later as a political speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. His bestselling books draw on behavioral science to better understand how humans are motivated and gain more effective and ethical selling in dramatically changing business environments.


Named one of the most influential management thinkers in the world by London-based Thinkers 50, Daniel is the author of six books on business and human behavior, including two No. 1 New York Times bestsellers: Drive and To Sell Is Human.

Here are my favorite takeaways from viewing Daniel Pink’s Masterclass Session on Sales and Persuasion:

“We can learn to live without the sick excitement, without the kick of having scores to settle.”

American Writer, Kurt Vonnegut who is most famous for his darkly satirical, bestselling novel Slaughterhouse-Five(1969), delivered a very thought-provoking speech to the 1999 graduating students of Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia. He tried to answers the question that Freud asked, but never could figure out: “What do women want?” For good measure, he also reveals what men really want.

“The World Owes You Nothing—Except Opportunity”

Print | Kindle(eBook) | Audiobook

Shark Tank is my favorite Business Reality TV Show and Robert Herjavec is my favorite shark. I have been a fan of the show since 2011 and I find the show to be both entertaining and educational. In You Don’t Have to Be a Shark, Robert transcends pure sales techniques and teaches “non-business people” what they need to know in order to sell themselves successfully. The book’s theme:

Great salespeople are made, not born, and no one achieves success in life without knowing how to sell.

No matter what you want to achieve or who you want to become, the ability to sell anything—including yourself—is one of the most rewarding talents to acquire in life. Why? Because it is universal. It is difficult to imagine any aspect of life that would not benefit from knowing and practicing the skills of making a sale.

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, You Don’t Have to Be a Shark by Robert Herjavec:

“Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom” –  Jim Rohn

It is easy to stay motivated when things are going as you expected, but life is not a bed of roses. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when, whatever would go wrong would go wrong (Murphy’s Law). When things go wrong like they often do, the key is to keep your head up high; this can be a daunting task during these trying times. As the saying goes, tough times don’t last, but tough people do.

Here are some great quotes on staying motivated:

  • “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
  • “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
  • “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
  • “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
  • “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.” –  Seneca
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