‘Happiness writes in white ink on a white page.’ – Henry De Montherlant
Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie teaches his techniques for crafting believable characters, vivid worlds, and spellbinding stories. Salman is a British Indian novelist and Essayist whose work combines magical realism with historical fiction. His story has many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, with much of his fiction being set on the Indian subcontinent.
“Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.”
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New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle, writes about highly successful groups’ secrets. In the Culture Code, Daniel chronicles what makes the world’s most successful organizations tick. He profiles great executives and teams in organizations such as Google, Disney, the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, San Antonio Spurs, etc. According to Coyle, cultures are created by a specific set of skills. These skills tap into the power of our social brains to create interactions.
The Premise of the culture code is that group chemistry and building a successful team does not happen by accident; it results from strategies that enhance collaboration and trust-building, leading to positive change. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.
Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle.:
Aristotle once quipped, “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act but a habit. You do not need to be great to start, but you need to start to be great. We get rewarded in public for what we refine and practice in private. We are what we do when no one is watching; we develop character, integrity, and strength by following through with our commitments day in and day out.
Earl Nightingale once said: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal.” We all have different goals in life; one of the greatest things about successful people is that their success leaves clues that we can all learn from. One of the major traits most of them exhibit is a bias for action. Former USA President John F. Kennedy commented, “There are risks and costs to action, but they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.
We don’t beat the reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well and living fully, for the Reaper will come for all of us.
Professor Randy Pausch made a surprise return to Carnegie Mellon University to deliver an inspirational speech to the Class of 2008 at the Commencement ceremony on May 18, 2008. Pausch was included in TIME Magazine’s 2008 list of the world’s 100 most influential people. His book, “The Last Lecture,” co-written by Jeff Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal and based on Pausch’s now-famous talk “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” is a New York Times #1 bestseller.
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How to win friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is one of my favorite books of all time. The book was first published in 1936 and has sold over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide. The book contains lots of insights and nuggets on getting along with people, key strategies of human relations. The book is one of the few books I have read at least more than five times, and with every reading, I realize I still have a long way to go and will highly recommend it for anyone trying to understand human behavior and relation.
Here are my favourite take aways from reading,How to win friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie:
It was a noble Roman,
In Rome’s imperial day,
Who heard a coward croaker,
Before the castle say,
“They’re safe in such a fortress;
There is no way to shake it!”
“On! On!” exclaimed the hero,
“I’ll find a way, or make it!”
“Want to make big life changes? Look at the small picture.”
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Getting your shit together is organizing what you have left (in the form of time, energy, and money) and deploying those resources wisely—not only on things you need to do, but on those extra bonus-level things you want to do and just can’t seem to afford or get around to. Big change, small change, whatever. It doesn’t start with cleaning out the garage. Change starts with cleaning out your mind.