On to the next one…

My latest book is as girly as they get.

Sarah Ban Breathnach’s ‘Something More – Excavating Your Authentic Self' is a book for finding out about yourself. A book that ‘encourages you to become an archaeologist of your Self’, as the book so eloquently puts it.

Sarah makes no pretences about who this book is targeted towards. Only the feminine pronouns are used and its quite clearly addressing women.

However, so far, its quite interesting, I actually bought this book based on the recommendations and praise at the back of the book and thought to myself, this should make for an interesting read…

And so far, its already made me realise something about myself, to be honest, the author was going in a different direction, she was recommending that the audiences start a scrap book (how girly is that!) and collect all things (random) they like and glue them in that book, and my thoughts just drifted in a different direction. And you know what, it occurred to me that one of the problems I have with myself is that from the very start, I have thought of myself as a leader, I always imagined myself doing grand things, not socially but morally (which I’d rather not share at the moment as they are still rather raw & personal to me), and all that I have done up to now is try to follow other’s examples, other’s suggestions and live up to other’s opinions.

And lets make so pretences, a major part of the problem is my insecurity which itself breeds competitiveness. My 15 years of gaming stint was just that, now that I think about it. It was an ambition to prove that I could have fun and win against anyone who came within connection distance. A leader leads, carves his own way out, right? I just followed and took-on other people’s leads.

When I befriended my college friend, I remember, both of us were very much into PCs and everything to do with PCs. I, instead of studying my normal subjects, would read up on how monitors, graphic cards work etc, while he realised that its more sensible to focus on his subjects and that was the point where we both went our separate ways perhaps (not friendship wise but achievement wise).

Now that I think about it, I just feel that all these years of following has sub-consciously taken its toll. I do not have anything to stake my name on and all of this (and probably few things more)has cumulatively enforced my opinion of myself, upon myself.

A leader has to lead as that is what his purpose was.

Success Literature

For a few months now, I have been eagerly sifting through ‘success’ literatures in search of that secret formula that all successful enterprises and more notably successful people use.

  One of the best & most inspiring sources was Stephen Covey’s classic ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. The problem I noted to myself about this book back then was that its too open and too deep, meaning to say, its not something that I can read today and hope to enact tomorrow and be on my way to achieving success. ‘7 Habits’ is the kind of book that reminds us about the fundamental principles of life. To establish those principles, one needs a lifetime. And so my search continued…

I turned to Guy Kawasaki's ‘Art of the Start’, which was almost totally devoid of any ‘principles’ and thus soon forgotten. Michael E. Gerber’s ‘Awakening the Entrepreneur Within’ for all its recommendations was founds to be mildly inspiring at times but mostly self-adulation of a non-arguably successful man. Not great or recommendable.

Few more books aside, I stumbled upon Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outlier’ in a bookshop in Lahore and decided to hear his argument. And wow, what an argument the man presents.

In a nutshell, Malcolm presents that no one in this world makes it alone, success is a cumulative of hard work, opportunity outside on one’s controls and events & circumstances (which are again outside one’s control.

If anything, this book rejuvenated my faith in Allah. There is so much one can do and at the end of the day its Allah who has decided what each of us gets. Hard work will be my way of staking a claim for his mercy.

I really could not be happier with the book. Its a wonderfully written, richly explained and all round a wonderful read. I love this. I intend to re-read this book (along with 7 Habits & Don Tapscott’s absolutely revelatory Wikinomics).