Manoj's Review on Books

Easwari ammal is 58 years old, a street vendor who still makes use of a traditional 7 kg charcoal iron box to press clothes throughout the day but surprisingly displayed an active rest position that was predominant in the eastern part of the globe a century back, known as Malasana now fashionably called ‘Deep Squats’.  The reason it’s framed as an active rest position is due to the human’s inherent ability to stay put in deep squats for many hours at a stretch. The gymnasiums have recently tagged it as an isometric exercise but sadly the modern man will proudly declare an accomplishment in an instagram post on having performed only a few minutes on the said position, glaringly oblivious to his loss.   In contrast, savasana which involves lying comfortably on the back, is a passive rest position that does not engage any muscles wherein malasana keeps the quads, hamstring and calf muscle in a state of tension. The modern man seems to have retained the subsequent core abilit...

  Focus on what matters is a collection of 70 letters written by Darius covering a range of testing life situations and the underlying stoic principle combined with habits that serve as a foundation to overcome the hurdle. Many times an indivudual's pedigree, privileges, access to opportunities and other uncontrollable external circumstances determine the outcome or success despite an overwhelming scale of effort. With the given context, stoic principles lays the foundation of developing an unconquerable spirit to remain positive despite an change in circumstances.  Qualities like resilience, perseverance and grit form the fulcrum of stoic principles.  A virtue that deeply resonated with me was the willingness to be poor when the need arrives and lead a minimalistic life even when perched on prosperity. To add one more, the true reward is the energy, pride and sense of accomplishment one attains from performing the act and not laid on monetary benefits. In a capitalistic ...

‘Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper’ It means that when we are excessively optimistic about the success of our business, the passage of time with failures can progressively shift the perspective to the opposite end of the spectrum. An individual with soldier mindset guards his beliefs and dismisses details that don’t fit into his theories. In case he succeeds there is triumphant smirk on being right while on a failure the same person classifies the opportunity as a sour grape. Needless to say that soldiers are hard to navigate in an argument.  A scout on the others side understands that maps are imperfect representations of reality, meaning that his belief can be wrong. However, he strives for an accurate map by being aware of limits of his understanding while cognizant of track of the regions in the map that are possibly wrong. It means always being open to change your mind with respect to new information. In scout mindset, there is no such thing as threat to beliefs, if yo...

A beautiful and bushy mid sized tree stood pleasantly a few yards away from my residence. It was home to a lone aves family that designed an intricate web of twigs so that they can rest and procreate at will. The nest provides safe haven to augment the members of their family, a cocoon in which birds can lay their eggs, hatch them, nurture the hatchlings and teach the fledglings to fly. Every morning, the pair composes a rhythmic tune, letting the neighbours know that they are happy and high. The tree showcased itself to be a steady host as well, giving the birds it's shelter during sunshine and rain while the morning musicals proved to be the premium paid by the birds for the services offered by the tree. The harmonious relationship between the two continued for a little over six months before disaster struck.  The withered leaves spread in circular fashion around the trunk of tree, a misaligned rangoli that changes shape everyday due to layers of abandoned falcate that was once a...

4000 weeks spells out the approximate lifespan of human beings on earth, it leads to an important constraint that needs to be highlighted, it's the finitude of life. Having said that Oliver Burkeman hasn't scripted a bunch of productive hacks and methods to organize our tasks, by implementing the Eisenhower matrix. On the contrary, in a life bound by finitude, will it be considered wise to spend the currency of time filled with preconceived notions, which is exactly the question Oliver provokes us to explore.    Pre-modern or maybe even prehistoric humans weren’t troubled by such thoughts for whom life presented a relatively insignificant prelude for an eternity in heaven as German sociologist Hartmut Rosa points out. While on the other end of the spectrum we have modern humans who are driving themselves to be pathologically productive, at least a handful of them. Consider the case of Danielle Steel who has authored 190+ books by 2021, delivering at the rate of 7 books a year ...

Harish Bhat, a brand custodian for Tata Sons, has held diverse roles within the organization for over 3 decades, primarily focused on the marketing aspect of a respective business line. The Curious Marketer is a collection of various articles written for established newspapers for many years during his senior management stint with Tata group. All the articles have a marketing perspective and the insights derived from a curious observation of customer behavior. An observation of customer response which can arise either from proactive or reactive positioning of brands in the market.  From a proactive positioning standpoint, Lifebuoy’s marketing stint during 2013 Kumbh Mela offers a breakout perspective, the choice of occasion is by far the largest human gathering in the world with a turnout of 12 crore. An initiative ‘Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?’ was stamped on 2.5 million hot rotis toasting over heated tawa from a collection of 100 dhabas during the mela. It served as an excellent ...

Do wild animals breed in captivity ? Considering the range of species known and unknown to mankind, there can never be a singular answer. However, the carnivorous animals or the ones predatory in nature have an inclination to express celibacy in confinement. Freedom can be a valuable possession isn’t, the inherent nature of an animal to live or die on its own terms. There are theories of vitiated instincts under captivity but under an evolving nature of species, it's certainly hard to pinpoint.  Why should one refrain from adopting such a beautiful white cat with shining blue eyes ? The whimsical correlations of features come into play, it’s hard to train such cats, they can be hit by a moving vehicle due to lack of ability to dodge or may not even find them if they happen to be lost. Well, such cats predominantly happen to be deaf, they live in their own world devoid of a critical sense to navigate the world.  The attempt of Charles Darwin to explain the origin of species acr...

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...