Saturday 9 January 2016

Free Sample Chapter ― Professor M.S.Rao’s Award-Winning Book “Short Stories on Life Leadership: Life is Beautiful!”




Dear friends,

Here is the sample chapter of my award-winning book, “Short Stories on Life Leadership: Life is Beautiful!” (Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd) Roland Sullivan (Original 100 Change Agent) wrote foreword for this book. Here is the link to buy this book:  You may share your thoughts about this book on social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Also, I appreciate a review on your blogs, websites, Amazon or other online bookseller sites.  


Lead Your Life with Purpose and Meaning

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Welcome to   Short Stories on Life Leadership: Life is Beautiful!  As you are aware that leadership is close to my heart, I highlight life leadership in this book through storytelling. It explores various aspects on life leadership such as attitude, empathy, perceptions, personality, communication and behavior. It helps you understand life from practical perspective. It shares messages at the end of each story to lead your life with purpose and meaning. 


Strive for Happiness, not Success

Everyone craves for happiness and success. However, presently, most people prefer success to happiness which is not in the right direction. In fact, people love to be happy with their lives. At the same time, they cannot ignore the human need to be recognized by others. In order to be recognized, people often crave for success. During the course of their success journey they sacrifice many aspects and at the end, they realize that they lost so much including happiness. It is like losing too much for too little. They must learn the fact that life is very short and they must make it sweet. They must treat success as a journey to achieve the end of happiness. If the priorities are changed, there is no meaning to life.

There are people who work hard only for satisfaction, not for recognition. They treat satisfaction as an end product and recognition as a byproduct. They don’t work with an intention to get recognition as their basic drive is satisfaction. They work hard and smart irrespective of the outcome.  They strive hard to achieve outcome through excellence. Finally, they achieve everything including satisfaction, success and recognition.  Hence, it is always desirable to strive for satisfaction rather than recognition and success. To summarize, success is something far away whereas happiness is in your hands.  There are people who search for stones leaving gems at home.  They regret at the end of their lives.  Hence, emphasize on means, not ends. Emphasize on satisfaction, not success. Emphasize on journey, not destination. Remember the sage words of T. S. Eliot, “The journey not the arrival matters.”


Reflect Regularly

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.” - Confucius

People are busy with their hectic lives. They are busy with their challenges. Some are busy facing cut-throat competition. Some are busy with their financial or family problems. Likewise, everyone is busy in this world. Before the advent of internet technology, people had a lot of time and spent with their family members, friends and neighbors. They enjoyed more of human relations. But presently people are beset with lots of challenges and they don’t find any time to reflect on various things including life.  If they reflect regularly, they can lead their lives with meaning. Dorothy Canfield Fisher rightly remarked, “If we would only give the same amount of reflection to what we want out of life that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.”

One day when I was going by a car to deliver a leadership training program, the car developed a technical problem. I have the habit of reading newspapers and books during my travelling time. After completion of reading newspapers, I take a book and read. But due to the car breakdown, the car driver went outside and phoned someone for assistance. I phoned to my training consultant and informed him that I would be delayed for sometime due to car breakdown. My consultant relieved me by rescheduling my training program accordingly.

It was highway and I came outside the car to have a glance at the nature. I started to enjoy the nature. The driver informed me that he would get the problem fixed within an hour.  I was thinking what to do at that time. I wanted to read a book as I am a professional book reviewer for several prestigious international journals but I did not have any mood to read the book. Then I started reflecting. My mind was still for sometime as I was suddenly free from activities. I thought for some time and started to reflect. Fresh ideas flashed in my mind. It was really an amazing feeling as I got lots of great ideas in my mind. I felt energetic and captured the ideas gradually. I started to think about my life; how to provide meaning to my life; and how to make this world better with my knowledge and experience. I also got great ideas to focus on niche areas that have not been explored by others. I captured all those thoughts on my note book as I have the habit of maintaining a journal. I decided to work in a new direction on new triggers to lead a more meaningful life to make a difference in the lives of others.  Hence, it is essential to reflect once in a while to recharge your mind with new ideas and insights not only to achieve success but also to provide meaning to your life. Remember the sage words of Aristotle, “The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.”


Lead Your Life with Purpose

You can provide purpose to your life if you can discover your passion and unlock your potential to make a difference in the lives of others. Write down how you want to lead your personal, professional and social life and trifurcate your goals accordingly with actionable steps.  You must bring the change the way the world wants to provide meaning to your life.  You must align your inherent talents and acquired skills as per the expectations of your existing times. The world appreciates your actions, not excuses. Hence, get into action and take responsibility to lead your life with purpose. 


How to Lead Your Life Greatly?

You must learn how to lead your life with purpose to make it beautiful and great.  Here are some actionable steps to lead your life greatly:
  • Give your best to others. Remember, what goes around comes around.
  • Spend 24 minutes visualizing the day ahead – one minute for each hour of the day.
  • Count your blessings, not blisters.
  • Be on the move, towards higher levels of fearlessness and creativity.
  • Look at life for opportunities, not obstacles.
  • Shed limitations to raise your bar.
  • Have an attitude of gratitude.
  • Don’t brood over your unpleasant past and don’t worry about future. In contrast, learn to live in present.
  • Learn lessons from your mistakes and move on.
  • Don’t expect from others as you don’t know their constraints.
  • Make others feel important.
  • Eat balanced diet.
  • Exercise your body regularly.
  • Enjoy good sleep regularly.
  • Balance your personal, professional and social life.
  • Strive for peace, not happiness. Happiness depends on external stimulants whereas peace comes from within.

Appreciate the fact that a young person looks at the future, middle aged person looks at the present, and old person looks at the past. All these three stages are an integral part of human life. In the following chapters, you enjoy reading short stories from various perspectives of life to make your life beautiful and great. 

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ― Diane Ackerman

References
Short Stories on Life Leadership: Life is Beautiful! (ISBN :) (Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd)





Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Recipient of 10th International Prestigious Sardar Patel Award―2015
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI





Thanks for reading!

Kindly share your thoughts and comments below, I’m sure someone out there will find your story useful.



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