After a particularly dull meal at my parents’ home, I went into the kitchen opening tins of chips and biscuits to look for something to excite my taste buds. One moment, my hands were busy, but the next moment, I froze. Something had just occured to me. I had found my main course boring, so I was looking for distracting tidbits. I wasn’t even hungry. What my mom had made was healthy and good for the long term. I was looking for short term gratification. I started reviewing. How often do I look for distractions that are gratifying for the short term, while I should be working on something that moves me towards my long term goals. In fact how often does everyone do it?
Book Summary: The Pledge by Michael Masterson
Book title: The Pledge
Author: Michael Mortenson aka Mark Ford
ISBN 10: 0470922400
ISBN 13: 978-0470922408
Buy here
What this book is about
If you have been unsatisfied with your life or you are happy but feel that you can do more, then Michael Mortenson (his real name is Mark Ford, so I use the name Mark in all references to him from this point forward), the owner of several multi-million dollar business, teaches you a technique to get back on track with a process that helped him get his own life back on track. The process helps you approach your life deliberately planning each day of your life upto the next seven years. The seven years comes from the fact that Mark has observed repeatedly that the said period of time is perfect for making major changes in your life and be highly successful. The method approach will transform you as a person for years to come. After reading this book and the methods described in it, you and solely you will be responsible for how your life shapes up. The process is hard work and requires plenty of discipline, but that is the secret of successful people. Continue reading Book Summary: The Pledge by Michael Masterson
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What is your Networth?
Forbes list of Billionaires and their net worth never fails to gather interest of one and all. We often read with great interest, news that ‘Mukesh Ambani ‘s net worth is 36 B USD, Sachin Bansal is over $1 B USD etc. Let’s explore what this means and why it is important.
What does a Net worth Mean?
Net worth is the net of what you own over what you owe, i.e Assets over the liabilities. For a company this information is captured in the Balance Sheet and is updated at the end of an year.
Why is Net worth Important?
While your personal Income and Expenses statement that we earlier saw captures your current earning, spending and savings on a monthly basis, Net worth is the end result or your progress card of how well you have done so far with your Income and Expenses.
Your Personal Balance sheet/Net worth is an indicator of your resilience to impact in your earning ability. This is why bank’s ask for surety when they extend a loan.
Continue reading What is your Networth?
What losing my smartphone in the Himalayas taught me
My wife, Priya, and I were on a 3-month trip in the Himalayas. 25 days into the trip, I lost my smartphone. I carelessly left it behind on a bus and realised the folly only an hour later in our hotel room. The word ‘smartphone’ seems like just one object. However, it is much more. It was my my phone, our Internet connection, our reference book, our compass, etc. We had 65 days to go until we would be back to Mumbai, where I could get a duplicate SIM card. SIM cards are only replaced in a phone number’s home zone. I could have got a new smartphone and used it without the SIM, for other purposes like camera. But it didn’t make monetary sense to buy a smartphone from a showroom in Uttarakhand, when an Internet purchase can be much cheaper. Being on a backpacking trip and staying in different lodges every two or three days, I couldn’t even furnish a postal delivery address. So I decided not to buy a new phone until reaching Mumbai. In this post, I will narrate my experience of life without a smartphone for a little more than 2 months. Continue reading What losing my smartphone in the Himalayas taught me
How to travel the world in a Bicycle at under $10 a day with JKB
Two and a half years back, Jonathan @ JKB set out in his bicycle from his home in London to meet his mom in Denmark. He has since cycled across 4 continents and ___ countries on his bicycle. Before the journey,he had never cycled more than 10 Km at a time. He truly set off with no experience or even a plan and has literally come miles together. He travelled across Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand and is currently pushing his pedals somewhere in USA. I had been closely following his FB page and blog for a while.
JKB’s blog has a wealth of information for any novice biker aspiring to prepare for a long distance cycling trip. It immensely helped me in planning my recent 405 Km bicycle trip where inspired by JKB, Hari (my husband) and I biked and camped on our way. JKB’s humble beginning and story gave me a lot of confidence that anyone can do this. But how? I had a million silly and not so silly questions and he generously responded to all of them.
Continue reading How to travel the world in a Bicycle at under $10 a day with JKB
Book Summary: Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath
What the book is about
There are moments in life when we have to decide between choices that we have. Moments like these are pivotal in determining which direction your life will take. From which school a child should go, to decisions on work, relationships and even retirement plans, there are decisions to be made. Very few of us actually give a conscious thought to our decision making process. In fact, there are places where we let our mind follow intuitively as if we were on autopilot mode. The brain is not even aware that there are choices to be made. Even those of us who are aware that a sound decision is to be made stick to a primitive method called moral algebra. This is a method where we divide a sheet of paper into two columns. On side, we write down the pros of a decision and on the other side we write the cons. We do this for every possible choice. Finally we pick the option where the pros outweigh the cons more than in any other choice.
In their book Decisive, Dan and Chip Heath, the authors of other books like Switch and Made to stick, argue that we cannot approach decision making as if it were an algebric problem. We must apply a conscious process that allows us to be certain that a choice is the best possible that we arrive at. Even after a choice is made, we should be able to prepare for mistakes. Continue reading Book Summary: Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath
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Why reading is a unique experience
At Amritsar, the Golden Temple looks magnificent inside a sparkling lake. The Harmandir Sahib Gurdwara is the most sacred place for the practitioners of Sikhism. Under its golden dome, in the centre of the sanctum sanctorum, lies an artefact that the Sikhs consider their Supreme Being. It is called the Guru Granth. It is a book. It is considered the ultimate Teacher to the Sikhs, prescribing how a Sikh should lead a life of honesty, respect and dignity. For the Sikhs, the Guru Granth is not just a book, it is a living being with a soul.
While other religions do not directly worship a book, they too revere books which teach them the way of life. Christianity swears by the Bible and Muslims look upto the Quran. Hindus do not hold any one book as their chief scripture. While modern Hinduism heaps a lot of praise on the Bhagawat Geeta, there are plenty more such as the Upanishad and the Vedas.
I am agnostic with no belief in religion. However I cannot help praising the fact that every religion revers the ‘written word’. Every religion I am aware of respects the experience of the people bygone and recommends that we read their ‘written word’ and try to make our life better by using that repository of knowledge. It is also what our parents told us during our childhood and what all successful people keep saying time after time. Let me make it short and sweet. “Read Books”! Continue reading Why reading is a unique experience
Choose your Words, Choose your life
I had just boarded my flight, tucked my bag under the seat and messaged my parents.
“We managed to board the flight”
PAUSE
My tryst with Astrology
Priya, my wife, often talks about a sparsely, but meticulously practised branch of astrology named ‘Naadi Josiyam’ (Naadi Astrology), practiced in Tamil Nadu. She and her mother had found peace in the past after visiting and consulting a genuine practictioner of Naadi astrology. Astrology is complicated science. Much of what we know about astrology is fake and hearsay. In reality, it takes a really knowledgeable and skilled practitioner to make reasonably good predictions. Most of these predictions really materialise. Still, I don’t believe in astrology. But after Priya told me multiple stories about Naadi Josiyam, I wanted the practice tried on me. I wanted to keep an open mind and look at the process as a science. Continue reading My tryst with Astrology
It’s My Fault !!
Child’s Play
Ananya, my friend’s four year old daughter was caught throwing away her socks and when questioned why she did so, she quickly blamed it on her sister who had left for school at least three hours earlier. This was how I too was as a Kid, and am afraid as an adult too for a very long time. I fall into this habit even now a number of times if I don’t catch myself in the act.
