Month: May 2023

Create your own book of wisdom

Neera

I started my first journal at thirteen. It was an old hardback notebook that belonged to my father.

I started collecting quotes, little anecdotes, and bits of writing that inspired me.

As my collection grew, and I had a bit of money, I bought a nice notebook and transferred everything on it.

That journal stayed with me all my life. Whenever in a conundrum or needed the company of a wise counselor, I would open it randomly and would always find something to soothe me.

After that journal, I started several more. So many that I am running out of space to store them.

I know, one day, when I move to a smaller apartment or move on to another existence, they are going to end up in the recycling bin.

I want to save the wisdom collected in them. It has served me well over my life. I want it to serve others as well.

Today, I came across a book, where Kevin Kelly (of 1000 true fans fame) has collected hundreds of bits of, advice, in the form of aphorisms, concise observations, and quiet insights.

The project started with him collecting insights to share with his children.

He writes on his website: “I’ve been jotting down bits of advice I wished I had known earlier in my life, and then sharing them with my children. Each one is like a tweet — a wisdom tweet. This year I have put 450 of them into a pocket-sized book.”

Kelly is not claiming to have originated all the advice he presents in the book. Instead, he says, “I am primarily channeling the wisdom of the ages.”

The book is a pleasure to read straight through or jump around at random.

It has been put together in an effortless way. Not overthought, not made to look overly intelligent.

His book gave me the idea!

I, too, should turn the wisdom collected in my journals into a book. It will survive much, much later than me. And might end up helping someone else.

Here are some nuggets from Kevin Kelly’s book:

“For a great payoff, be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.”

“That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult – if you don’t lose it.”

“If you are stuck in life, travel to a place you have never heard of.”

“Taking a break is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.”

“Don’t keep on making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.”

“If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.”

Make every day, a sexy day

Neera

“You can’t have each day as a ‘sexy’ day,” said my friend.

We were coming back from a parlor after having a facial. It was the highlight of the day for us. Something we wanted to do for months. Something we were looking forward to all week.

“Why not?” I protested.

“Because most days are mundane. The same job. The same housework. Even the entertainment is the same. There is nothing new. The same stuff over and over again.”

“Give me something to look forward to.” I said. “I don’t want to wake up each day to cook and clean and tire myself with mundane routine. I want to wake up to do something special each day.”

“Good luck to you then.” She said.

We had this conversation before I finished working and became a full-time writer.

In my new life, I wanted to do interesting stuff, so that I had something to look forward to each day.

I was determined to make each day count.

So,
I learned new skills.
I started my website.
I wrote a blogpost a day.
I wrote and self-published books.
I enrolled in several online courses.
I wrote on social media platforms.
I interviewed interesting people
I got interviewed.
I made friends.
I sketched.
I traveled.

I am a published author now.
People all over the world are reading my stories.
I have made friends in countries I still haven’t visited.
If I ‘Google’ my name, there is a ton of content with my name on it.

I am having a ‘sexy day,’ every day.

Some nights I am so excited, I find it hard to sleep.
I want the day to continue.

How are your days?
Are you having ‘sexy days?’
If not, what are you doing to make them ‘sexy days.’

Let me tell you a story…

Neera

In June 2018, a rover, lovingly nicknamed Oppy, fell silent after getting stuck in a massive dust storm on Mars. NASA officials beamed up hundreds of commands to the little rover, asking it to call home, but with no success. Oppy was officially pronounced dead in February 2019. But such a significant incident didn’t get most people’s attention.

Neither did the fact, that Oppy operated on Mars for over 14 years, well past its 90-day lifetime. Nor was the record-breaking 28 miles it traversed on the red planet, far more than any other extraplanetary rover.

What took the world by storm was the rover’s final transmission to Earth, reported in a tweet by a journalist:

My battery is low and it’s getting dark.

The tweet went viral, generating a media frenzy across the globe. Designers on Etsy jumped on the bandwagon, rushing to sell T-shirts, mugs, and coasters emblazoned with Oppy’s final words. Numerous people had the words tattooed on their bodies.

For 14 years, the little rover dutifully obeyed human commands all alone, millions of miles away, in space, while getting whipped around by fierce Martian winds and dust storms. The dust was slowly swallowing it. Its batteries went low. And it started getting dark. Poor Oppy. Your heart cried for it. You cursed NASA engineers for not sending a rescue mission to save it.

Here’s the problem.

This was not the message Oppy sent home. Right before it went silent, it beamed a bunch of routine code to Earth that reported, among numerous other things, its power levels and the outside light reading.

The journalist took a small part of this random code, paraphrased it into English, and tweeted it to the world. And everyone fell for it.

Why?

Because it generated emotions. Oppy’s message resonated with us in part because we all feel, from time to time, like our batteries are low and it’s getting dark out there. To have the same sentiment expressed by a machine practically made us connect with the machine as we connect with other humans.

Every time, we hear a story that generates emotions in us, we throw the logic out of the window and rush out to get a tattoo.

Stories do that to us. In the book Sapiens, the author Yuval Noah Harari writes, homo sapiens used “gossip” to be able to grow into tribes of at least 150 people … but gossip could only take them so far. To grow larger, they needed a stronger “glue.”

That “glue” was “stories.”

Storytelling is the most important skill one can learn.

Incorrect. Allow me to rephrase.

Storytelling is the most important skill humans have. It is inbuilt into us since the cave days. It allows us to connect, inspires uplifting feelings, and enables people to cooperate on a large scale. the only thing is, with our isolated lifestyle, we are no longer using it and hence we think we are not good at it.

My next book will be on the art of storytelling. While researching the topic I am also learning to find stories from my everyday life. Yesterday, I was walking on the hill behind our home, lost in my thoughts, on a perfect day bathed in a beautiful winter sun when I had an epiphany. I finally figured out how to find stories in everyday life.

Of course, I will reveal the story of my epiphany in the book and the several others I have been collecting in my personal knowledge management system. This book is becoming an absolute joy to write. I already have so much material in my personal knowledge management system that it will take me much less agony (and time) to write it.

Dare to create

Neera

Twenty-something years ago, a forty-something, overworked full-time middle manager, mother, wife, and daughter-in-law wrote a story in her head while washing dishes. She then typed that story and saved it on her desktop.

That little story gave her confidence. So she wrote another one. Then another.

Work, home, and family commitments took all her time and energy but she vowed she will continue to write little stories even if she gets to do them in the cracks of her busy days.

She didn’t share those stories with anyone. She just let them sit in a folder on her computer.

Each story boosted her confidence a little. So much so that one day she quit her job and became a full-time author.

She went on to write books and publish them.

Today she got an email from Medium.com, telling her that she is a verified author and that, one of her books will
feature on her profile page and a blue ‘Book Author’ badge will appear next to her name across Medium.

All because she dared to create.

Don’t just consume information as if it is food. While you are focused on consuming from the outside, you’re losing nourishment already inside you. Don’t make learning an excuse for not creating. Creating is more valuable than consuming.

Write a story.
Draw a sketch.
Create a melody.
Paint that painting.

There is no better teacher than a failure

Neera

All my businesses failed to be profitable.

At age 28, I started an artificial jewelry business.

Imitating a friend who had a successful jewelry stall in a busy shopping center, I bought jewelry from India and tried to sell it at a local school fete. I barely recovered my money.

At age 37, I got into the real estate business. That was the year Australia experienced its worst recession. Needless to say, I didn’t sell a single house.

At age 41, I established a network marketing business with a reputed company. I spent thousands of dollars setting it up and advertising it.

I even went part time at my job letting go of half the salary for six months.

After giving it to my heart and soul for six years, I had to give it up.

For years, I saw myself as a failure.

Then one day, thinking about them from a different perspective, I realized they were not failures.

They were the stepping stones for bigger and better things in my life.

From the jewelry business, I learned how markets worked. I learned more by doing it and failing at it than I would have by succeeding at it.

From the real estate business, I learned about negotiations and my local housing market.

I saved thousands of dollars down the track when we bought our house and several investment properties.

From network marketing, I learned confidence in presenting ideas, self-mastery, and people management skills. They helped me to win leadership roles in my job.

I owe a lot of what I became in life to my network of marketing business mentors.

The monetary gains are not the only gains you should seek from endeavors you take.

You learn more from failing than you can from succeeding.

Treat every new idea as an experiment

Neera

We are surrounded by endless knowledge, yet more often than we’d like, we are starving for wisdom.

We are exposed to countless strategies and solutions to every problem under the sun, yet too often, we don’t apply them.

Slow down to treat each new idea as a practical experiment, and to wait to see what results it produces before rushing on to the next fascinating concept.

Three weeks ago I started an experiment. To share 100 insights on LinkedIn with a splash of humour.

I was struggling at first to come up with ideas and to illustrate them. But it is getting easier now and I am enjoying it.

I called it a challenge then, but it is in fact an experiment. You can fail in a challenge and feel miserable. But if an experiment fails, it’s no big deal. You start again.