Manoj's Review on Books

Is a long youthful life possible? Can ageing be arrested or even reversed? Can we truly desire for an immortal life? A few deep questions that can have significant impact on the human population at large if it’s proved to be possible. David Sinclair believes to have found the secret sauce to counter aging and live a long life of vitality. A quick look on David’s qualification will bring in semblance of credibility on the outcome attained through decades of research, he has a Phd in molecular genetics, postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. and held the position of co-director in Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School. He starts of his book with an extremely bold statement, 'aging is a disease'. It took some time to realize the gravity of the statement since for millenniums of human existence, we are taught to believe aging as a natural progression of life. However, the fundamental belief is set to change if David’s research outputs are proved ...

It looks like Ernest Hemingway has an inclination towards anti-climax stories, something that can leave the reader with a heavy heart.  I was wondering what’s the message in the end, isn’t it not a futile exercise to be beaten down every time despite the hard attempt? An old man skilled in deep sea fishing, has been running on dry luck for over 80 days. His neighbouring fishermen are able to get good catches every few days but the old man’s dry days in the sea looked never ending. As being the case, he becomes a ridicule amongst the fishermen community and gets labelled as someone who will never be able to catch any fish. However, the old man keeps his hope intact and ventures into the deep sea for his next attempt. On this attempt, he happens to catch the longest sword fish ever to have caught in his community, measuring eighteen feet in length. The fish keeps him in deep sea for 3 days and 2 nights, emerging to the surface a few times to display it’s enormity and size up the ...

Let me start with a bunch of case studies which will showcase the importance EQ carries in our day to day life, the pressing question however is, does it weigh well over the IQ component. A successful advocate known for his compelling arguments and high win percentage towards his clientele gets a tumour detected on his right hemisphere. He undergoes a surgery to get the tumour removed along with a certain portion of amygdala. In theory, it shouldn’t disturb his life a great deal since the primary function of amygdala is towards detection of threat and the subsequent flight or fight response. However, the advocate lost complete sense of decision-making to a point wherein he couldn’t even decide fixing appointment given a choice of dates. His IQ had compelling reasons for and against both the dates which led to an endless indecisive swing between both the dates. With just a small portion of EQ removed, IQ proves to be useless. Let's take the case of Bell labs, which is world’s re...

  When a large organization tumbles down a survival crisis, the complexity to deal with, happens to be of enormous proportions. When it occurs to a crown jewel like IBM which was seen as a pride of US nation, it had to be rejuvenated and necessary course correction brought in place, because it wasn’t just another firm, IBM was an ecosystem in itself and the repercussions could be felt across the industry. Between 1990 to 1993, IBM had 1.2 lakh employees either resigning or getting fired, it was a significant break in trust since the organization was known for paternalism which is in short means a job for life that was literally guaranteed during the hay days. On top of it, the flagship mainframe product System 360 was dropping in sales and seriously getting out of customer’s preference. Given the context, how can a individual with no IT industry background survive at the helm of affairs, let alone bringing in a turnaround? Louis had similar doubts himself and didn’...

  Carol is an American psychologist and has been a faculty in Columbia, Harvard, Illinois and Standford university. Her key contribution relates to implicit theories of intelligence which refers to an individual's fundamental belief whether his or her abilities or intelligence can be changed and developed over a period of time. Carol makes an in-depth statement in her book,” "The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life." Her introduction itself sets some level of context on what she has set herself to deliver through the book on mindset. The fundamental premise are two distinct mental construct which can be observed in different individuals, it’s the fixed versus growth mindset. The broad idea of a fixed mindset points to belief in individuals that abilities and intelligence are an inherent trait while the growth mindset nurtures the belief that just about any ability can be cultivated through consistent effort. The primary part of Ca...

  The forty rules of love refer to an approach in one's life when they encounter painful and emotionally perplexing situations. I sense that the title along with the front cover image can be misleading as these rules doesn't restrict itself just within the nuptial relationship but cover a wide range of relationship that a human is likely to face in his or her lifetime. There are two stories that runs in parallel, one of them narrates the relationship between Rumi, well known Persian poet of the 13 th  century and a dervish Shams-e Tabrizi while the second story narrates the unexpected love affair between Ella, a 40 year old married women with 3 children and Aziz, a modern day dervish of the 21 st  century. Elif Shafak tries to narrate the course of different events happening 7 centuries apart. While the social setup and personalities are an absolute contrast between the two stories happening seven centuries across, the crux of the storyline remains the...

Creativity is meant for every professional and can be applied even in domain that are hardbound on rules and regulations. The underlying belief that a person is born with creative talents is a myth that needs to be broken and latent creative expressions can be opened up even with advocates, doctors, accountants and range of professional who are hardwired in analytical traits. The crux of the book drives the above-mentioned point right till the end and I must admit there is a compelling nature to the creative potential that David and Kelly desires to crack open. Any successful business needs to strike a sweet spot with respect to three critical components and the same can be understood through the given Venn diagram.   While there are plenty of financially well off businesses meeting mostly the 2 components of business and technical viability, it’s the third angle of human factor that provides the necessary fillip to raise as an enterprise. A prime example can be invention of MR...