March 2023 - My Favorite collections.

"Win Your Inner Battles," by Darius Foroux

A light yet powerful read and one of the best books I have read and listened to so far. If I must pick one book as a treasure, I will go with Darius Foroux's gem "Win your inner battles." Darius Foroux walks through various principles in easy-to-understand language with multiple motivational quotes from celebrities and leaders. He helps us understand the ways to win our inner battles and win our enemies within. An exciting 2 hours audiobook that I enjoyed listening to multiple times while walking and driving. Darius Foroux's work must be in your library collection to realize, understand and conquer the enemy within. Here are a few critical takeaways from this book:

• Instead of constantly thinking of your purpose, please realize that the objective is inside you and afraid to expose itself. You must trust it will seemingly appear one day, and that day you plan to celebrate and focus on your purpose.
• If you want to compare yourself with others, Compare for the right things, and don't get disappointed while comparing yourself with others. Instead, look at other people's achievements, work styles, and motivation from them. The worst thing we can do is compare our paths and life circumstances with other people's paths and lives.?
• To bring peace, happiness, and satisfaction, one must control their mind, which helps one gain virtue.
• There are many things in life you cannot influence, so stop worrying about something that you cannot change. Being negative is easy, and everyone can be cynical. However, staying vivacious is complex and requires persistence, and using positive thoughts makes us strong.
• It is not vital in achieving a goal, but the process that motivates and leads to your destination and the positive changes it brings to your daily life and pushes you to have new habits makes a big difference.
• When we achieve freedom from anxiety, fear, and stress and become more optimistic, We can live joyfully. One can accomplish this by exposing ourselves to different things, reading about things we never considered, traveling, and hanging out with others.
• We don't need to be world leaders to impact someone's life positively. You can get everything you want if you help others get what they want.
• Take your time making a decision and be prepared to face the outcome. The outcome may be what you expect or may not meet your expectation. It is not a success or failure either way. The learning based on the development will help us finetune our judgment and decision going forward.
• Consistency is the only path to obtaining results. That is a problem for all of us.?

These are not new rules that Darius created, but he reiterates the golden rules we read or listened to in various books and forums. He helped by consolidating and sharing an easy-to-understand presentation to help us focus on our purpose and what we want to be and fight the enemy within all of us, which is fear and anxiety. Read it once, and you will recommend this book to others.

"The 4-hour workweek," by Timothy Ferriss

When I first read the title of this book, I thought it was a fairy tale story or something like one of those late-night TV infomercials. Initially, I stopped after a few minutes of listening, but when I continued to listen, I slowly got glued and could not stop listening until the end. The essential nuggets from the book are Escape 9 to 5, joining the new rich, living anywhere, and becoming an entrepreneur. While I am still yet to digest some of the vital chunks, Here are some of the few takeaways:

• Set your ideal life today, and one does not need to wait until you retire.
• Live Proactively and not reactively.??
• 80% of our daily work is unnecessary, and only 20% results in productive hours.
• Life is meant to be lived, not shelved.
• Eliminate before delegate, never automate something that requires elimination, and never delegate something that can be automated.
• Being effective does not mean being serious all the time. It's fun being in control for a change.
• Get rid of a low-information diet by removing unnecessary information that is time-consuming, negative, and irrelevant to one's goals.
• Being financially prosperous and living a Millionaire life are two different things. The ideal life is not based on one's monetary wealth but also on the way of life one leads and how one enjoys life.
• Timothy lists nine habits to stop now, and he says a "Not-to-do-list" is more effective than a to-do list for upgrading performance. Here are the Nine mantras:
• Do not answer a call from unknown numbers.
• Do not email first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
• Refrain from agreeing to meetings or calls with a clear agenda or end time.
• Do not let people ramble.
• Do not check email constantly, and check at set times only.
• Do not over-communicate
• Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness - prioritize your work.
• Do not carry a cell phone 24x7
• Refrain from expecting work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should.

An Interesting read. It may take a couple of times to read and understand the depth of knowledge Tim Ferris shares and to practice his valuable ideas and guidance. Enjoy this priceless gem from Timothy, which industry leaders widely appreciate.

"Measure What Matters," John Doerr

In this book, legendary Venture Capitalist John Doerr explains how powerful goal-setting with a clear vision and focus on crucial results helps organizations achieve significant results.??

With multiple examples from various industry leaders like Intel, Google, Intuit, and many leading organizations, he sets the context and strong foundation to build meaningful OKRs(Objectives and Key Results). While the author highlights examples from various industry leaders, the OKRs apply to everyone in every walk of life. Whether you aspire to run a marathon, want to play football, or run a successful organization, OKRs are critical. John Doerr's book is a gem, a valuable asset, and a ready-to-go reference.; John Doerr walks through and helps us set OKRs applicable for every walk of our situation.

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John Doerr makes it an exciting read by writing each chapter based on a story of successful organizations that follow OKRs. My favorite one is the story of Myfitnesspal. CoFounders of MyFitnessPal, Mike and Albert Lee, learned that OKRs help different aspects of the same large company stay aligned despite their various functions and focus. Here are a few excerpts from the MyFitnesspal story told in this book by their founders, Mike Lee, and Albert lee, "Every decision we make needs to square up with our vision. When there is a trade-off between our customers and our business goal, We align with our customers. When an objective seems out of line with our mantra, it gets extra scrutiny. That keeps us walking the walk and connected with the people we serve. That's what makes us who we are."

Here are a few takeaways from this interesting read:

• OKRs provide a framework that can help set inspirational objectives you want to accomplish.
• Micromanagement is mismanagement. A healthy OKR environment balances alignment, autonomy, shared purpose, and creative latitude.
• OKRs must be transparent, transformative, and trackable, and a suitable platform will help in the following:

1. ?Users gain seamless access to OKRs for their boss, direct reports, and the organization.?
2. They drive engagement. Staying motivated is easier when you know you're working on the right things.?
3. They promote internal networking. A transparent platform steers individuals to colleagues with shared professional interests.?
4. They save time, money, and frustration.

• OKRs framework helps to stretch for more challenging Goals.

John Doerr walks through numerous examples. If you need to learn what OKRs are and want to implement them in your organization, this is a great book to understand more about OKRs. OKRs, The most robust and powerful system, help manage accountability and allows every team member to extend their arm and support the team to achieve the common goal.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these three audiobooks this month and am happy to have shared my views. Please post your book recommendations, and I will add them to my listening or reading list.

See you next month with the next set of 3 books. Until then,

Cheers.

#personaldevelopment ?#motivation ?#gettingthingsdone ?#inspiration ?#leadership ?#whatinspiresme ?#gettingthingsdone ?#success