Manoj's Review on Books

Lori Gottlieb is an established psychotherapist who encountered a break in relationship that overwhelmed her. She found it hard to endure the breakup and eventually took the funny option, consult a therapist for herself. In the year-long consulting process, Lori was taking therapy sessions for herself and consulted her own patients on the other side.  During the sessions, she understands that loss tends to be multilayered, actual loss is one part of it but what the loss represents is far more critical. A solution to the loss lies in completely acknowledging it’s representation, an aspect that’s easier said than done.  As the sessions progressed, Lori understood that the crux of many of her patients' issues happen to be reflected in her own life as well. A spark of thought that never occurred to her before undergoing therapy sessions herself.   Overall, the book walks a respective reader through the mental construct of Lori’s patients and her own self while drawing a ...

The title of the book is definitely intriguing if not provoking, how can someone be against empathy? It’s the ability to feel the pain, happiness or other forms of emotions experienced by another fellow human. The definition itself will provide sufficient defence in it’s favour while an argument against the said trait can at best be weak, which was my initial reaction. Having gone through Paul’s impressive online course on psychology, I was curious to understand his counterpoints.  When a large section of people have an inclination towards an emotional rather than rational appeal, can empathy prove to be an effective tool towards social equity. Empathy became a topic of discussion after a gun shootout against strangers by a juvenile student in the first decade of the 21st century. A clamorous public outcry with repeated media coverage of the said incident led to the projection of empathy as a critical tool for prevention of crimes thereby creating space for a fair and peaceful comm...

It was an interesting title that made me pick the book, more in anticipation of a funny novel that’s bound to showcase comical interplay of events between a couple and their relatives. However, once I dipped into the first few pages, it dawned on me that Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and am about to read interesting titbits of true stories cherry picked from the long list of the author’s patients. A curious case was brought in for Oliver’s diagnosis of the problem and identify a solution. The gentleman came in for a session with Oliver and exhibited remarkable expression of intelligence while having displayed noticeable competence towards his associated domain of work. Even after a long conversation no issues emerged to the surface until he was asked to recognize personalities. The gentleman was completely at sea and the idea of a face recognition seemed far fetched to him, a neurological condition named Prosopagnosia. As he turned to retreat back home after the session, he strangely...

  Chris Voss had spent 24 years in the FBI with a predominant role of negotiating life threatening hostage situations. Contrary to negotiation involving a business deal or even a low stake rental agreement, a ransom demand in return for release of hostages is a different ball game altogether. However, Chris having negotiated countless hostage situations, picks up the nuances learnt during those tense encounters and draws a framework that can be applied in non hostile environments as well.  In the 1980’s, business schools even with the likes of Harvard proposed the theory that humans are rational actors and try to gain maximum value for themselves during a negotiation. However, research during subsequent decades proved to be contrary for the following reasons (i) Framing Effect - Depending on how a proposal is framed, the response evoked from the recipient can be different (ii) Loss Aversion - An inclination towards unwarranted risk for the sake of avoiding a loss (iii) Cogniti...

Whenever a group of Giraffes feed on the leaves of acacia trees, scientists observe an interesting response, they release toxic substances into their leaves to ward off the feeding animal. An appropriate response to save oneself but the sequence of response doesn’t stop at that point, the respective acacia tree emits a scent called pheromones. It’s meant to alert the neighbouring acacia trees of an upcoming danger in the form of Giraffe and the community soon begins to release toxins in their leaves. It’s a classic example of a synchronised community at work, leading to a flip in our understanding that trees are sentient beings after all.  When a caterpillar takes a hearty bite of a leaf, the damaged tissues around the leaf sends electrical signals on the negative impact. However, the signals are sent at the rate of a third an inch per minute which establishes the fact that they live on a really slow lane. More aligned towards Satyajit Ray’s mode of unhurried film making rather tha...

A look at a few of Brianna Wiest interviews makes one wonder how such a young individual who has barely crossed her thirties can exhibit calm demeanor to a stream of questions posed against her. A deeper dive into her writing journey stuns us with the fact she has already authored ten books, with a clear focus on the self help section.   'The Mountain is You’ can be broadly split into two parts, the first one deals with an individual's inclination towards self sabotage and the latter part narrates on ways towards self mastery. Now, what’s self-sabotage, if there is an ongoing gap between current and desired state while the respective individual’s effort to close it is consistently met with their own resistance, pain or discomfort, it means self-sabotage is a dominant function of mind. Brianna provides the bridge towards mastery in a three step process which leads to a transparent emotions assessment. (i) Be clear with what happened (ii) Validate your feeling (iii) Determi...

The clouds aspire to cover the entire mountain range and accomplish a wholesome deflection of sunshine. A glory that calls for all the fragmented floating cloud formations to come together. Umpteen times the pack of clouds are just able to patch over the mountains while the sun comfortably shines through. An united front on the troposhere proves to be elusive for month's together but the clouds perseveres through the separation.   Eventually, the clouds succeeds to roof over the mountains providing a seamless shield from the rays of the sun. Our fellow human beings refer to such an act as gloomy conditions, quiet an irony when even a little retrospection could lead us to understand the cloud cover is anything but gloomy.  Millions of positive and negative ions interact to strike a lightening horizontally establishing an united cloud formation. While a vertical strike signifies that the floodgates are open for trillions of tiny droplets to fall over the landmass bringing a...

Dear Professors / Evaluators, A review of my work profile will give clear indications that I am a professional who has scaled from the lower to middle management rungs of the corporate ladder. I would recollect myself as a green horn back in 2014-15 when I had stepped into the IT services industry, those were the days when I would read through corporate slide decks and abruptly disconnect client calls under the fear of being questioned. As I push forward a decade, having interacted and negotiated with countless CXO designates, won marque million dollar accounts, strategized on conducive market segments, resolved dozens of professional relationships under conflict, the feedback that attracted many brickbats followed up by laurels, I paused to reflect upon my journey. A simple question popped up, “Since when did I stop reading from the slides?” My second paragraph is enough to validate the fact that my professional experience has certainly refined my character and capabilities in profoun...

A stream of drainage can be converted to a free flowing river, a muck of stench producing stagnant pool of water can be converted to a beautiful lake or even a garbage filled section of landmass transformed to a beautiful garden. It's a transition from an point of undesirable and problematic state of affairs to a blissfully desirable one, an act all of us deeply long for. Apparently, the reverse is also true, all of us have been witness to a deteriorating environmental conditions to a place once recognized as garden city, our own Bengaluru. A beautiful landscape that was dotted with gardens, sported clean roads merged with sidewalk on both sides, wells that swelled with water and importantly possessed an efficient rainwater drainage system that seamlessly collected in low lying areas that formed large sections of waterbodies or even extended itself as a lake. Today, we have regressed ourselves in a steep downward spiral wherein water shortage is widespread and sadly created chemic...

When a book garners over 2.9 lakh reviews in amazon portal alone, the need for judgement becomes unnecessary but the part that blows someone's mind is that it’s the author's debut novel. Certainly rare for a debut novel to be such a superhit amongst fiction lovers, maybe it’s Bonnie’s passion in open water swimming, rowing, copy writing and creative direction that’s manifested itself into a bold and outstanding storyline.  Setup in the backdrop of midwestern US state of Iowa and during the 1950's era, the female folks were confined within the limits of household duties which was the norm. In the given context, protagonist Elizabeth Zott proves to be an outlier that was far from the social boundaries of what a male’s counterpart is expected to be. She was ambitious, smart, confrontational while being excessively bold and on top of it being a working professional in a scientific field meant she had all the traits that the society detests in a female. On the other hand, Calvin...

Morihei Usehiba (1883 to 1969) was a master martial artist and founder of Aikido. The principle behind Aikido is to utilise the momentum and energy of the opponent, eventually neutralising their opposing force. In simple terms, Aikido means the way of a harmonious spirit and Morihei believes that the ultimate victory occurs in a state of peace.  Art of peace is a collection of over 160 different quotes by Morihei, which focuses on aligning with the energy of the universe, understanding that every human soul is a part of the universe and how to arrive at a state of peace with opponents. The quotes are originally written in Japanese and have been translated into English by John Stevens.  I have mentioned some of the quotes that I had liked from the collection.  “Those who are possessed by nothing attain everything” “Conflict between material and spiritual worlds creates exhaustion in both physical and mental aspects. The solution lies in setting both of them in harmony.” “L...

When we can bring in coherence and orderliness in our respective inner world, the universe aligns the outer world accordingly, making our life happy, joyous and fulfilled. It's the crux of what Joe Dispenza has tried to elucidate in his book ‘Becoming Supernatural’ and by the end of his narrative, I was fairly convinced on the wonderful path laid by the author.  Joe begins the first chapter of his book referring to the story of Anna Williams, a married and settled women with two adolescent kids. However, one day life takes a traumatic turn when her husband decided to jump off the tallest building in the town, killing him on the spot. The incident sent shock waves within Anna mixed with tornado of negatives emotions ranging  from sadness, guilt, hopelessness, victimization, grief, isolation, betrayal and anxiety. An obsessive recall of her horror moment countless times meant that she kept pumping her body with a never ending stream of cortisol, a stress hormone.  In 9 mont...

  Not many would have heard about spontaneous remissions in cancer patients, less than a few dozen cases are captured in medical literature each year and hence largely underplayed or rather unknown. Spontaneous remissions means that the disease has reverted itself to normal conditions without treatment and the reasons for reversal can’t be explained from a medical standpoint. Well, I am just giving a gist of the immense powers of the mind and for the curious one’s do check Sam J Shelly’s ‘I don’t dwell’ book wherein he explains how he got out of cancer without formal treatment. Our mind operates or dwells in one of the 4 category of brain waves  (i) Delta (±0 to 4 Hz) (ii) Theta (4‐8 Hz) (iii) Alpha (8‐13 Hz)  (iv) Beta (13‐20 Hz) Most of us operate in the Beta zone during our active time period which can comprise a range of activities like walking, working, eating, driving or any other form of physical pursuit. However, to tap into the enormous powers of mind, an individ...

In Jan 2010, Steve Jobs unveiled iPad, a device that provided incredible digital experience. For a gamut of digital activities right from niche keyboard to draft mails, using social media apps, iTunes or even to play high resolution games, the iPad proved to be a league above the rest. However, there was a catch, Steve never allowed his kids to use the device. The Apple inc CEO was only following the golden rule, never get high on your own drug. The only difference is that when drugs can be banned, digital media is deeply intertwined in our lives with 7.2 billion smartphone consumers as of 2024. About four decades back, the predominant hooks ranged between cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, maybe even a game of cards on a lighter level. However, during the digital age, the common man is exposed to instagram, facebook, amazon shopping, email, netflix and the list is practically endless. To compound the problem, digital media over the years has evolved to provide a deeply addictive experienc...