A Learning a Day

The book(Alchemist) is about a boy who has a dream, which is his personal legend – his big purpose of living on earth and it is the story of him following his personal legend and going on a journey of adventure and learning. While the learnings are many, I hope we never forget that we all have our own dreams(esp from when we were kids) and as we grow older, a fear of failure begins to convince us that this is impossible.. but nothing is unachievable.. especially if we want it more than anything else in this world! :)

1) Seek to understand before seeking to be understood: Try.. period! :)

2) Sharpen the Saw I: 4 things need to be going right for us to function well –
1) Physical: via exercise ob. :)
2) Mental: via fodder for the mind i.e. learning, books etc
3) Spiritual: Renewing faith and ourselves..
4) Emotional: Friends, family etc..

3) A woodcutter was sawing for 4-5 hours when a traveler passed by and asked – ‘How long have you been sawing?’. ‘4 Hours’ the woodcutter replied..
The traveler suggested ‘Maybe you should stop sawing and take some time and sharpen your saw’
‘No, I’m too busy sawing – the woodcutter replied’

Outliers are just ordinary people who grasped extra ordinary opportunties and used them to work very very hard. Basically, all success stories have a story of extraordinary opportunities behind them like Bill Gates, whose school had a main frame when most universities across the US didn’t, like the fact that Jobs, Gates, Khosla and numerous other IT dons were born in the same year and hence were at the right age, like sports men who generally fall into date of births from 2-3 months in a year depending on when the yearly selections take place(this is interesting.. will elucidate some other time)

So, in a way, what I got is that we could work as hard as possible and may never be as successful as the above and that’s still ok, as long as we aim to become an expert in what we do and make sure we put in our 10,000 hour shift somewhere…

Realizing more and more that I need a stick! haha

but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln

make people happy..

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there’s a reason they exist..

Just because we seem to ‘get’ them, doesnt mean they are meant to be laughed at..

looks like i’m going to learn this the hard way..

one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Leave the rest..

understand what that means.. :)