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
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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