Lazy Writer.

Today has been so lazy. I didn’t do anything productive or completed a worthwhile task. I didn’t even feel like typing all this, but it needs to be done, so I dragged myself to write this script”, said an exhausted writer to his secretary.

“Why are you like this today? What did you do all day that you are so tired? I want to know”, the secretary asked wondering what the reason could be.

“What did I do? Well I went and studied for a couple of hours, talked to a couple of managers regarding the production and then…well…”, said the writer as he recalled his activities for the day.

“Well…?”, questioned the secretary curiously.

“Well then I played about four hours of game. And it got me mentally tired because I had to repeat a rank because of a couple of stupid mistakes. I mean, why? People aren’t playing good and then we have to suffer as a group. A team needs to work together and in a disciplined way to attain victory”, the annoyed writer spoke.

The secretary smiled after hearing this. “I suppose you can act normal as well at times. And yes, mistakes are stupid. Even worse are cases when you get dragged down by others not performing well. That happens all the time and no one can control the actions of another person. That’s just how it is. So you need to deal with it, no other way around”, explained the secretary calmly.

“You are correct. I don’t play much, but for some reason I played for four continuous hours today, probably because I wanted to win after those bad matches. And yet, I couldn’t catch a single victory today”, chuckled the writer as he spoke about his own loss.

“And anyway you shouldn’t play this much. Focus on writing something better for next time instead of wasting time like this. You need to get back to your senses”, scolded the secretary.

“Fine, you don’t have to tell me like that. It was just today, a spur of the moment if I might say, it won’t happen again. I am already thinking of the book I was planning to write, and thanks to the games, I finally got an idea of what could I include in that book”, said the writer proudly, “It will be about this world, and the games we all play with each other.”

-Siddarth

Book Review: HBR On Strategic Marketing

This is an eye opener to the techniques of marketing. Whether you are a Sales person, a marketer, a manager, an executive or a business owner, this book can give you an insight on how to manage the Sales, generate better leads, how to integrate marketing with sales, asking the right question, marketing digitally and much more.

The way each problem is explained carefully and systematically with real life stories/experiments in the case studies, makes the topic itself much easier to comprehend.

In a chapter encouraging people to think about the best metric for brand perfect ability among the people, the main question that comes to mind is that, “How many people are willing to advice your brand to others?”

This book is not meant for beginner, but for people who are somewhat familiar with the marketing world and its jargon.

At the same time, HBR encompasses many of the bright minds, and getting an opportunity to read the case studies, that are rarely released by colleges, is a good opportunity to revitalize your curious mind, and learn more!

Journal #20

Day 20. April 2nd.

“Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.” – Drew Barrymore

Today was a decent day again. Woke up and meditated, did some yoga and then freelectics. It feels refreshing after that. I did also box (after a long time) for 5 minutes today just to get my body used to it. Think I can wake up half n hour earlier from tomorrow?

Then went to office, and met with a customer. It is hard to hear about all the issues that come up every now and then but it is a big relief when they are resolved. I suppose that is the essence of business, to have something going on now & then while fixing other issues. That’s how you gain experience.

I did get to finally open a axis bank account for trading today. Kudos to that!

Back home I went through some news articles, and then read the HBS book on Strategic Marketing. It is an interesting read for sure.

Book Review: Discipline Equals Freedom

Wake up. Plan. Just do it. – These are the words that come to your mind after reading this book. It is an aggressive but motivating book aimed at bringing out the best of you.

Many of us keep pondering over what we want to do, and some who do know – they keep planning for it. It is just useless unless the activities that you thought of are executed. People can think of high dreams but they only realize the intensity of effort needed when they start taking action.

During those days of action, all of us face the dilemma of not moving forward to the goal, not seeing any results. So what you do? Most of us – Give up. NO. That shouldn’t be. Always be persistent and keep at it whether you like it or not. And slowly and steadily, you will reach your goal.

If you need some serious motivation to get up and work, especially work out, then this is the book for you! It also includes a set of exercises, with equipment’s and stretching techniques, which some people might find useful.

Lastly as Mr. Jocko Willink has written:

Don’t just talk.
Don’t just think.
Don’t just dream.
No. None of that matters.
The only thing that matters is that you actually do.
So:
DO.

Book Review: 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do

Interesting. Although the explanations seem a bit long at times, I believe it points out the main points that a person shouldn’t be doing.
Obviously no one is perfect, and after reading the book you will realize that you probably do more than a couple of points that have been explained, however, it never is bad to point out what exactly is the wrong or right in your thought process.

It is interesting how the author Amy Morin explained all the points with considerable amount of examples, particularly taking instances and problems from her own life as well as her patients, marking the issues as well as the solutions in the case.

Most of the points mentioned are ones that I am sure readers have had the opportunity to have heard from someone, perhaps an elder. However, until and unless given an example along with it, it doesn’t feel ‘worthy’ enough to be implemented/corrected in your own life. I believe that is the strength of this book in particular.

The book: Buy at Amazon

1Q84, worth a read?!

1Q84 is one of the best books I have read. The story has a good amount of romance, mystery, murder, family, history and tragedy. The author Haruki Murakami divided the story in three books in which the first two parts were published on May 29, 2009 and the third part on April 16, 2010.

The story takes place in 1984 in Tokyo with each book having a in-story time period of three months each, starting from April to December. The story has two main characters: Aomame, a 30 year old female, and Tengo Kawana, a male opposite Aomame. Through the entire three books, Murakami switches the story from the viewpoint of Aomame and Tengo (and sometimes Ushikawa, a private detective). The book starts with Aomame cataching a taxi, after which certain events make her go to a parallel world. She realizes this when she sees two moons in the sky, a white round moon and a smaller green lopsided moon besides it. At some point of time Tengo also switches track to this parallel world.

The story is about these two people realizing their love for each other from years ago, and trying to find each other in this strange and eventful world. They face several obstacles, many of which are life-threatening, but still manage to reach out to each other in the end.

I liked the flow of the story, though in my opinion the writing in the first book was the best. The story seems to flow slowly in the second book but regains the sped in the third book. However, the character description in the first two books is much better than that in the third book. The author described everything about the two main characters till the end, and in the end you would have the question, “What happend to them after this?”. It made you want to read more about them. However, I was disappointed how the author completely disregarded the supporting characters (except Ushikawa) at the end of the book. You would have the question about what happened to Fuka-Eri, or Tamaru, Nurses at the hospital, Komatsu and Professor Ebisuno. But besides this, I think the story is worth a read and I will surely recommend it to others.

For now, I will be reading The Art of War (Sun Tzu) but I will be back to other books by Murakami after that.