Category: Books

Struggling with two book titles

As on date, I’m having roughly 3-4 book ideas.

I was struggling with which one to pick. 2-3 had great potential on selling THE moment I picked them up. One, which is the closest to my heart, will sell way better than these, if I market them right.

Guess which one did I pick?

The quick sell one or the huge sell one close to the heart?

Random thoughts on the go

1. Went to the mall after 20 months perhaps. Had to buy chappal. Went to Crossword Book store, got lost there and came back 🙂

My today’s shopping

2. Good to see life back to normal. I feel good for dahi papdi waale bhaiya, SIM card waale bhaiya, e rickshaw waale bhaiya, shakarakand waali Didi, and all those people whose employment depended on going out.

3. As I was going through the Crossword Book Store today, I also thought of fundamental rules of life. Here we go:

4. A good question for you: What parts of “normal” are even worth returning to?

How our environment impacts us

I usually read e-books on the Kindle device, instead of the app.

Few days back, I happened to open the Kindle app on my phone to show it to my Mom.

Since then, I haven’t closed the app, and I happen to read 2 pages daily.

We don’t need a new life. We simply need new hooks to the existing life.

Open, by Andre Agassi

Sometimes I find myself walking to my bookshelf, pick up Andre Agassi’s memoir Open, and look at this back cover pic of Agassi.

The kid is quite confused.
The kid hated tennis.
The grown-up Agassi hated tennis.

But with the weight of that racquet too much to handle, he managed it for one of the greatest careers in history.

And perhaps even found himself in the process.

This kid gives me power, strength, and often vulnerability, to not resist what’s coming.

In what lies unseen, you will see yourself.
In what you don’t know, you will know more.
In what you hate, you will end up loving yourself.

A relationship of 10 years!

It was June 2011 when my friend dragged me to a seminar after college.

It was “Aadarsh Amdavad”, a 15-day self-help workshop, that consisted of:

  • Daily 2 hour sessions by an acclaimed speaker
  • Had a spectrum of audience instead of a narrow group
  • It did not want us to “get better”, but the way it was designed, ended up making us better.

After that fortnight of daily wisdom, I felt a surge of happiness that I didn’t want to let go of.

So I started walking to Crossword Book Stores near my college, after the workshop got over.

For hours, I would just sit there and read, not knowing I was getting into an affair it would be impossible to get out of.
For hours, I would not care about anything in the outside world, just me and the books.
For hours, daily, it was a retreat from everything else in the world!

That love affair has lead to a lifetime partnership with books now.

More than anything else, keeping myself lost in that world has lead me to find myself, over and over again, peel by peel, page by page.

Here’s to a decade of that relationship 🙂
Here’s to a relationship that is with you ALWAYS…
Here’s to a lifetime of companionship!!!

One of the best books I’ve ever read

“As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen This is one of the tiniest books I’ve ever read, containing just 56 pages, however, each time I pick it up, I get a new direction to my thought. Here’s sharing the 18 timeless lessons from the book:

  1. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts,
  2. The alteration in a man’s circumstances is in the exact ratio to his altered mental condition.
  3. The soul attracts what it secretly harbours, that which it loves, and also that which it fears.
  4. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
  5. Circumstance does not make the man, it reveals him to himself.
  6. Men are anxious to improve their circumstance but are unwilling to improve themselves, they therefore remain bound.
  7. Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results, bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.
  8. A perfectly pure and enlightened being could not suffer.
  9. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallises into habit and habit solidifies into circumstance.
  10. Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts.
  11. He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.
  12. Those who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self pities, all of which are an indication of weaknesses.
  13. As a man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.
  14. Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought.
  15. Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
  16. Into your hands will be placed the exact result of your thoughts.
  17. The strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in storm.
  18. Self Control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.

The book is easy to read, and needs to be read over and over again. If you could do yourself and your life a favour, get one here, today, PLEASE!

And when you’ve read it, reach out to me to let me know which one line are you going to take with yourself as a reminder. I’d look forward 🙂