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Top 30 Quotes on Adversity.

March 21, 2021 In Quotes 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“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.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

When things go wrong, they seem to happen all at once, back to back; like murphy’s law states, whatever would go wrong would go wrong. Life is a roller coaster ride; sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down, sometimes you want to smile, but you can only cry. Life can be extremely rough and tough, but the key to navigating life’s vicissitudes is to know that everything in life is impermanent. Tough times don’t last, but tough people do; this too shall pass; whatever does not kill you makes you stronger. The sun will rise tomorrow, every wound would heal, and the challenges are not here to stay; they are here to make you a better version of yourself.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Here are 30 great quotes on Adversity:

30,000 Days to Live.

March 11, 2021 In Life 15 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” – Indian Proverb

Depending on the part of the world you live in, you have about 30,000 days to be alive. According to Life expectancy and Healthy life expectancy data published by World Health Organization in December 2020, Japan has the longest life expectancy (84.3), and Lesotho has the shortest life expectancy (50.7). The average life expectancy is around 82 years; if you multiply 82 by 365 days, that equates to roughly around 30,000 days, and if you are lucky, it could be more.

Life Expectancy: The number of years a person can expect to live.

We cannot control the length of our lives, but we can control its width and depth. Our time here is limited, but we mostly live like we have all the time in the world, so we waste it. As the Buddha once said, “The trouble is you think you have time.” We overestimate what we can achieve in the future and underestimate what we can achieve in the present. We delay living; we say someday I’ll, and we eventually realize that someday becomes never.

Book Summary – 20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course for Mastering Your Life Right Now by Robert D. Smith.

March 10, 2021 In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” – Indian Proverb

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In 2009, the author Robert D. Smith had a paradigm shift about his life on his 54th birthday; he realized that he has been alive for nearly 20,000 days, 480,000 hours, 28,800,000 minutes, and 1,728,000,000 seconds. 20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D. Smith is a short and precise book on the art of living life to the fullest. Robert shed light on the need to use our time efficiently, live a legacy in the world, and become better every waking day of our life.

The Basic premise of the 20,000 Days and Counting book: Live every day like it could be your last, and do not take any moment for granted because life is very transient and temporary. We overestimate what we can achieve in a year but underestimate what we can achieve in a day.

“One of the illusions [of life] is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday. – RALPH WALDO EMERSON AMERICAN ESSAYIST, LECTURER, POET B. MAY 25, 1803, D. APRIL 27, 1882 (HE LIVED EXACTLY 28,827 DAYS

Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, 20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D. Smith:

The Power of Micro-Habits.

March 4, 2021 In Life 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

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.

Book Summary: What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture by Ben Horowitz.

February 28, 2021 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do.

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In What You Do Is Who You Are, Ben combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. Ben Horowitz is the co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building―the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture.

“Culture is about actions. If the actions aren’t working, it’s time to get some new ones. ”

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading,What You Do Is Who You Are;

Book Summary: The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel.

February 26, 2021 In Book Summaries 15 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

A genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster. The opposite is also true. Ordinary folks with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.

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Author and Partner at Collaborative Fund Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money; the book’s major theme is that we can better understand money through psychology and history than finance. In 2018, Morgan wrote a report outlining 20 of the most important flaws, biases, and causes of bad behavior towards money titled The Psychology of Money; the report went viral; the book is an expanded version of the report.

In investing you must identify the price of success—volatility and loss amid the long backdrop of growth—and be willing to pay it.

The Book’s premise is that doing well with money has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. A genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster. The opposite is also true. Ordinary folks with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates

Here are my favourite take-aways from reading,The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel:

The Elusiveness of Happiness.

February 18, 2021 In Life 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“Success is getting what you want; Happiness is wanting what you get.”

Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome; if you win, you become happy. If you don’t, you become unhappy. It is an if-then, cause-and-effect proposition that is not sustainable because every time you attain a certain level of happiness, you raise the bar, and it is an endless loop. We also schedule and delay our happiness; we say when this happens, I will become happy. If this then that, Someday I’ll when so and so happens, I would be happy when I get married we change it to when we have kids, then when the kids leave home to when there are grandkids, there is always a reason to postpone. It is a constant moving target.

“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Author Gary Keller, in his book “The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results,” shares a great anecdote on happiness through the story of the begging bowl:

Book Summary -Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz.

February 3, 2021 In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

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Former Yale Professor, William Deresiewicz in his book Excellent Sheep delves into the issues facing the Ivy League admission process, the facade, the pressure on students to succeed, the American elites, and other thought-provoking insights on higher education. The book was inspired by an essay William wrote in the American Scholar: “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education.”

As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.

“The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.”

Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz:

Top 30 Quotes on Attitude

January 24, 2021 In Quotes 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Your attitude determines your altitude, how far you go in life is determined by your outlook in life. Attitude (noun): a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior. The word Attitude is equal to 100, A + T + T + I + T + U + D + E (1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 = 100%) Attitude is everything.

Author John C.Maxwell, in his book Today Matters writes:

A mother and her adult daughter were out shopping one day, trying to make the most of a big sale weekend before Christmas. As they went from store to store in the mall, the older woman complained about everything: the crowds, the poor quality of the merchandise, the prices, and her sore feet. After the mother experienced a particularly difficult interaction with a clerk in one department store, she turned to her daughter and said, “I’m never going back to that store again. Did you see that dirty look she gave me?

The daughter answered, “She didn’t give it to you, Mom. You had it when you went in!”

When we interact with others, our attitudes often set the tone for how we treat one another. Smile at people when you meet them, and they often smile back. Act combative, and they are likely to snap back at you. If you want to enjoy mostly pleasant interaction with people as you go through your day, treat others well. It works more often than not.

“Your attitude is a choice. If you desire to make your day a masterpiece, then you need to have a great attitude. If it’s not good now, you need to change it. Make the decision. ”

Here are some great quote on Attitude:

Book Summary -The Motivation Manifesto: 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power by Brendon Burchard.

January 18, 2021 In Book Summaries 20 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

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In Motivation Manifesto, high-performance coach and trainer Brendon Burchard reveals that the main motive of humankind is the pursuit of greater Personal Freedom. We desire the grand liberties of choice—time freedom, emotional freedom, social freedom, financial freedom, spiritual freedom. Only two enemies stand in our way: an external enemy, defined as the social oppression of who we are by the mediocre masses, and an internal enemy, a sort of self-oppression caused by our own doubt and fear.

The Motivation Manifesto is a pulsing, articulate, ferocious call to claim our personal power.

The Author identified three sets of people we should be wary of on our path to greatness and freedom: The Worriers, The Weakling, and The Wicked. He highlighted some of our limiting behaviours such as fear, Loss Pain vs anticipation of hardship. Life Roles: Observer, Director, Guardian, Warrior, Lover, and Leader.

The 9 Declarations of the Motivation Manifesto

Meet Life with Full Presence and Power
Reclaim your Agenda
Defeat your Demons
Advance with Abandon
Practice Joy and Gratitude
Do not break Integrity
Amplify Love
Inspire Greatness
Slow Time

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading “The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard”

Top 30 Quotes on Integrity.

January 17, 2021 In Quotes 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” – Albert Einstein

A lot of us talk a great deal, but talk they say is cheap. At the beginning of the year, we are all pumped up about all the goals we will achieve in the year. Still, as the day goes by, we begin to renege on the promise we made to ourselves; we do this because of a lack of deciding what we really want and a lack of commitment and the integrity to follow through.

When it is time to execute, we do not follow through with relentless work habit, when you honour your word, you build pride and joy for yourself and respect from other others, but if you do not honour your words, you begin to lose pride and also lose respect from others. I am a firm believer in showing and not telling, let your results speak for you: Your Results would cancel the Insults. If you say you will do something, go ahead and do it: Honour your Word.

Here are some great quotes on Integrity:

Lessons Learned from Edward F. Stuart’s Great Courses Class – Capitalism vs. Socialism: Comparing Economic Systems.

January 15, 2021 In Great Courses 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Edward F. Stuart is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Northeastern Illinois University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1986. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Oklahoma, specializing in International Economics and Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Capitalism vs. Socialism : Comparing Economic Systems

The course covers the important economic systems in the world today. It also addresses the historical background and big ideas that created the different economic systems.

Book Summary – Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.

January 4, 2021 In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

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Blue Ocean Strategy is a book published in 2004 written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne are Professors of Strategy at INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools, and co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France.

The Blue Ocean Strategy is one of the most impactful business book have ever read, my first reading was around 2010, and have since read the book more than 3 times, and it keeps resonating each time. Blue ocean strategy breaks from the stranglehold of competition. At the book’s core is the notion of a shift from competing to creating new market space, making the competition irrelevant.

Blue ocean strategy challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant. Instead of dividing up existing—and often shrinking—demand and benchmarking competitors, blue ocean strategy is about growing demand and breaking away from the competition.

Here are my favourite take-aways from reading, Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne:

100 Books Reading Challenge 2021

January 1, 2021 In Book Challenge 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Goal: Read 100 Books by December 31st 2021.

100 Books Reading Challenge 2020

January – 8

February -10

March – 11

April – 11

Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline by Peter Hollins.
Real Estate Titans: 7 Key Lessons from the World’s Top Real Estate Investors by Erez Cohen.
Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle.
Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation by George Westerman et al.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell.
The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore.
Why Digital Transformations Fail: The Surprising Disciplines of How to Take Off and Stay Ahead by Tony Saldanha
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom.
Competing in the Age of AI by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.

May – 14

Leaving the Tarmac: Buying a Bank in Africa by Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.
Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day by Jay Shetty.
How a Nigerian Entrepreneur from Humble Beginnings Grew a Business to $16 Billion by Jim Ovia.
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.
No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity by John C. Maxwell.
Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You by Susan Forward.
The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain Are Challenging the Global Economic Order by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
The One Sentence Persuasion Course by Blair Warren
The Joy of Missing Out by Tanya Dalton.
The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb
Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel Popper.
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google by Scott Galloway.
The New Case for Gold by James Rickards
Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis Ph.D.

June – 12

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist by Margalis Fjelstad.
Stop Walking on Eggshells by Paul T. T. Mason MS and Randi Kreger.
New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World–and How to Make It Work for You by Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans
Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by Admiral William H. McRaven.
Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World by Annie Lowrey.
No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder.
Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Dr. Gordon Livingston
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown.
5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life by Bill Eddy.

July – 13

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland.
Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us by Will Storr.
$ 2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer.
In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People by Dr. George K. Simon Ph.D
The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement by Jean M. Twenge Ph.D. & W. Keith Campbell Ph.D.
Kintsugi: Finding Strength in Imperfection by Céline Santini
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin.
The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout Ph.D.
Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection by Haemin Sunim
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own by Joshua Becker.
Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door: How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator by Martha Stout Ph.D.

August – 11

Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People by Jackson MacKenzie.
Kaizen: The Japanese Secret to Lasting Change―Small Steps to Big Goals by Sarah Harvey.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks
The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed-in Your World by Jeffrey Kluger.
Gaslighting: How to Avoid a Narcissist’s Mind Control and Heal from Narcissistic Abuse by Patrick K. Simon.
The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers by Alex Banayan.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A guide to reclaiming yourself by Nedra Tawwab.
Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse by Jackson MacKenzie
The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential by John C. Maxwell.

September – 13

Out of the Fog: Moving From Confusion to Clarity After Narcissistic Abuse by Dana Morningstar.
How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self by Dr. Nicole LePer.
Healing from hidden abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse by Shannon Thomas.
The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People by Shahida Arabi.
Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young
Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin by Anne Katherine.
It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn
The Courage to be Happy: True Contentment Is In Your Power by Ichiro Kishimi.
Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward by Henry Cloud

October

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski Ph.D. & Amelia Nagoski DMA.
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal.
The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life by Dr. Robin Stern.
Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn.
Fear of Missing Out: Practical Decision-Making in a World of Overwhelming Choice by Patrick J. McGinnis
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles & Ted Orland
Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets by Andy Stanley.
You’re Not Crazy- You’re Codependent by Jeanette Elisabeth Menter.
The Power of Diverse Thinking by Matthew Syed.
The New Codependency by Melody Beattie.

November

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John C. Maxwell.
You Are Awesome by Neil Pasricha.
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.
Leadership Gold by John C. Maxwell.
Never Go Back: 10 Things You’ll Never Do Again by Dr. Henry Cloud
Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky.
The Messy Middle by Scott Belsky.
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay.
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander.
You Can’t Send a Duck to Eagle School by Mac Anderson.
Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff.

December

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.
Too Much Information by Cass R. Sunstein.
Rethinking Narcissism by Craig Malkin.
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui.
Disarming the Narcissist by Wendy T. Behary MSW LCSW
How a Shark, a Suckerfish, and a Parasite Teach You Leadership, Mentoring, and Next Level Success by Walter Bond.
Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman.
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson.
Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon

Barack Obama’s 2008 Commencement Speech at Wesleyan University.

December 30, 2020 In Speech 16 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Then presidential aspirant, Senator Barrack Obama stood in for Senator Edward Kennedy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and Barrack delivered an inspiring commencement speech to the 2008 graduating class at Wesleyan University. He implored them to be of service to their community and make the world a better place.

Barack Obama’s 2008 Commencement Speech Transcript at Wesleyan University.

Thank you, President Roth, for that generous introduction, and congratulations on your first year at the helm of Wesleyan. Congratulations also to the class of 2008, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of your graduation.

I have the distinct honor today of pinch-hitting for one of my personal heroes and a hero to this country, Senator Edward Kennedy. Teddy wanted to be here very much, but as you know, he’s had a very long week and is taking some much-needed rest. He called me up a few days ago and I said that I’d be happy to be his stand-in, even if there was no way I could fill his shoes.

I did, however, get the chance to glance at the speech he planned on delivering today, and I’d like to start by passing along a message from him: “To all those praying for my return to good health, I offer my heartfelt thanks. And to any who’d rather have a different result, I say, don’t get your hopes up just yet!”