4 Blogs I Love

dream, discover, explore, think, understand, innovate, create, empower, inspire, reflect, appreciate, achieve, balance and most importantly love and love for no reason at all...

 

1) Zen Habits

Written by Leo Babuata. Leo writes about simplicity, living healthy, productivity, improved family life, living in the moment and facing challenges the Zen Way. I love this blog for its simple layout and very useful content.

Blog Link - http://zenhabits.net/

2) Derek Sivers

Written by Derek Sivers. Derek is a musician, TED Speaker and founder of an online CD Store for independent musicians called CD Baby. His blog posts are insightful. He writes about his life experiences and lessons, amazing life stories, creation, innovation and finding yourself. He also has a detailed 'Book Notes' section with a summary of the last 150 books he has read. This is a must read.

 

 Blog Link - http://sivers.org/ 

3) Seth's Blog

Written by Seth Godin. Considered the No.1 Marketing Guru in the world by many. Seth is an entrepreneur, marketer, speaker, published author of 11 books and new thought expert. He writes about creating world changing ideas, standing out, starting a movement, creating a tribe, managing change and understanding world trends. His 11 books and many videos available online also must be consumed because it is information worth gold and it will help shape your perspective on a fast changing world.

 

Blog Link - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/  

4) Robin Sharma's Blog

I attended Robin's Lead Without a Title Seminar in 2009.Ever since I have been a fan of his work. He writes about leadership, productivity, innovation, goal setting, creating good habits and more. A variety of free resources available on his website as well.

 

Blog Link - http://www.robinsharma.com/index.php 

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What are your favorite blogs?

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What I Learned from the Fantastic Mr Feynman?

Richard Feynman was described by many in different ways. Some of those descriptions went like this, a theoretical physicist, a nobel prize winning scientist, a life lover, an explorer, an artist among more. But what people will remember him most for was that he was such a great human being. 

 

Read his bio here. The You Tube video titled 'The Fantastic - Mr Feynman' 

 

The video started with a funny looking man playing the bongo drums. The video went on and then I found out that this man was also one of the greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century.

 

Being part of the Manhattan Project (that created the atomic bomb), designing lectures for undergraduate students at Caltech and revolutionizing physics with his theories on Quantum Electro Dynamics were some of his many achievements. 

 

But what amazed me most about him was his love for life, his fascination for the little things and his child like curiosity that he never lost even as he grew old. His Ode to a Flower best describes how The Fantastic Mr Feynman looked at life and all that is wonderful in it.

________

Ode to a Flower

    

"I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe… 

 

I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. 

 

The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts."

 

A few lessons I learned from this amazing person were:-
 

1) Don't take life too seriously - Laugh, play the bongo, fall in love, and look stupid once in a while. It won't hurt you too much. He would be seen playing the bongo drums, computing, painting, safe cracking, writing poetry or doing physics. He did what he enjoyed most and he truly lived a rich life...a life full of rich experiences

2) Make work your reward - When Feynman won the Nobel Prize he mentioned that the Nobel Prize was not so important, the real joy for him was when he discovered his theory and contribute to his field. For him that was the real prize. For him work was the reward.

3) Combine different Disciplines - Feynman taught himself art through his friend Jirayr Zorthian who was a renowned artist of the time. He told Jirayr he would exchange classed of Science for classes of art. He always looked for ways to connect fields and his thinking and contributions to the world reflected this as well.

4) Be the happiest, most enthusiastic person you know - His energy for life was just magical. He was just smiling throughout the video. He was like a little child jumping from one life project to another. Just looking at him would fill you with so many good emotions. Even with all the big scale projects he worked on, he never lost the love for life and all that is wonderful about it.


Henry David Thoreau once said, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die, Discover that I had not lived."Richard Feyman lived in a similar way. He lived life to the fullest, and took every experience with full enthusiasm for life and excitement for the present moment. He put his heart and soul into everything he did. He loved his craft and brought joy to so many doing it.

I leave you here with the thoughts of this great man

 "It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing—atoms with curiosity—that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders. Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate." 

—Richard Feynman The Meaning Of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist, 1998

Thank you Richard for being who you are, and thank you Richard for the happiness you brought in so many people's lives with the work you loved doing:)

Lionel Poilane - The Artist Baker

Today morning I read a wonderful Fast Company Article on a Baker in Paris. His name Lionel Poilane. Fast Company talks about Lionel's Love for Bread as such,

"Lionel Poilâne sells the most famous bread in Paris. In fact, he sells 15,000 loaves of bread each day -- 2.5% of all bread sold in Paris, by weight. But he doesn't think of himself as a mere baker. Most bakers simply mix dough, shape loaves, and shove them into the oven. And while for many years he did all of those things every day, that still doesn't make him a baker."

In an earlier blog post mentioned how people must study their craft. Lionel was a true student of his craft.  I love how Lionel used Retro Innovation to create Bread Magic. He combined the best of the old and new styles on Baking as mentioned in the article.

What amazed me most about this man was his love for the Art of Baking. When he took over the family business from his Father he contacted over 10,000 bakers and amassed a massive collection of over 2,000 books on Bread! That is commitment.

As Fast Company puts it in the article "In the early 1980s, Poilâne decided to tap into the memories of the oldest bakers in the country to see if they could give him advice on how to reproduce the older styles of bread. With the help of two students, he contacted more than 10,000 bakers over a two-year period. "I conducted an ethnography of my own business," he says. "Most of the bakers had only fading memories to offer, but some were thrilled that he was trying to revive older bread-making traditions and offered to bake him sample loaves. By the time he was finished with his study, Poilâne had tried more than 75 different types of bread that he'd never tasted before. He eventually wrote up his findings in a book -- a study that is still used today in baking schools throughout France. He also amassed a library full of books on bread, which today contains more than 2,000 volumes."

Do his customers love him...No...They absolutely adore him..

The article further describes it as such "Poilâne's bread has won him famous fans over the years: Frank Sinatra and Lauren Bacall used to enjoy a loaf from time to time, and Robert De Niro is a customer. The most devoted patron, however, is a gentleman in New York who wants to remain anonymous. In 1997, he agreed to pay Poilâne $100,000, asking that his children and grandchildren receive a loaf a week for the rest of their lives. "Can you imagine?" Poilâne says, with obvious pride. "In 50 years, he'll be dead, but his grandchildren will be feeding our bread to their children and explaining how they are eating the bread of their great-grandfather!"

We all have the chance to be artists in our lives, in our careers, in our daily tasks. Let us commit to being artists. To create not just to create, but to create to actually make a hell of a difference. It is time we brought out the Lionel in all of us. It is time we brought out the Artist in all of us.

Read the full article here - http://www.fastcompany.com/42557/give-us-day-our-global-bread

Book Synopsis and First Look

101 Habits to Greatness

Small Steps to Everyday Change

By Abhishek Shetty

Hey friends, I have some great news, I am launching my second book titled '101 Habits to Greatness' this week. Here is the first look and synopsis of the book.

About the Book

101 Habits to Greatness’ has been released as part of the Empower One Billion Campaign. Like the campaign it has one objective, to empower one billion people to find the Greatness they always had within them.

‘What do successful people do differently?’

The book is an attempt to answer this vital life question. After studying the lives of several successful people, reading books on them and meeting them personally, something struck me. I noticed patterns that were constantly repeating themselves in the lives of these successful people. There were certain things that they did differently and regularly. One among these many was that they utilized the 'Power of Good Daily Habits.'

The quality of your life is most often determined by the quality of your habits. This book consists of such a collection of 101 empowering habits that many of the successful people around the world commit too.

It has changed their lives and it can change yours too. We were all born special and unique. We all have Greatness deep within us. It is just time the world found out. If you pick up this book and it has an impact on your life, this book has achieved its mission. Because to find the Greatness of your life, you do not have to change the world, you just have to leave one person’s life better than you found it. You are that one person and I need your help to leave this planet better than I found it…

About the Author

Abhishek Shetty is a global youth empowerment speaker, published author and founder of the Empower One Billion Youth Empowerment Campaign. He is a young lad on a mission, to leave this world better than he found it, by changing one life at a time.

 
For more detail about the the book and launch date visit the Facebook page -  https://www.facebook.com/Abhishek.Empowerment.Initiative?ref=hl

 #EmpowerOneBillion2013

Do it for the pure joy of doing it

     

101 Habits to Greatness - Habit 78

"We are not a drop in the ocean; we are the ocean in a drop." –Rumi

You are infinite, you are brilliant and you are beautiful, just the way you are. You were meant for Greatness and you do not have to prove anything to anybody. What if the people around Einstein told him, that he must become only Shakespeare? What would the world have lost then? We are all special in our own ways. So you never have to convince anybody about your worth or what you are really passionate about. The only person you have to convince is ‘YOU’. When you believe in your dreams, the world will believe in it too. Never do it for the money, fame or status you get out of it, do it for the pure joy of doing it and you will see the results you really want in your life magically appear before you.

Recently I saw an interview on a television channel of Lionel Messi. He is a football player and plays as a striker for Team Argentina and the Spanish Barcelona Football Club.  He is considered by many as one the greatest footballers alive. The interviewer asked Messi, “How are you so good at what you do? When you started playing football did you know you would achieve so much in the game?”. To this Lionel Messi replied, “I am very grateful for the love I have got. But whenever I played football, I never did it for the fame or celebrity status it brought me. I played it simply to have fun. I wanted to play it all day and score more goals and win more matches.”

This answer of Lionel Messi showed me why it is so important, you enjoy what you are doing. When you do something you really like, it will never seem like work at all. It will be like you are at play all day. If you are fortunate enough to get into such a situation, you will see that it is when you work on your passion that you are most confident. You feel uncomfortable when you do not do what you were born to do. The idle time you have away from the work of your life will seem like work to you now.

Thomas Edison loved what he did. He wanted to spend all his time inventing things. He often worked for 72 hours straight. It is said there were many nights ,when he slept for only three- four hours. This is what he said about doing what he loved best,

“I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.”
Thomas A. Edison

Today Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history holding 1,093 US patents to his name. Both Thomas Edison and Lionel Messi understood the power of doing something for the pure joy of doing it. You can do so too and find the Greatness in your life today.

Do not convince people. Let them recognize your Brilliance

"We are not a drop in the ocean; we are the ocean in a drop." –Rumi

You are infinite, you are brilliant and you are beautiful, just the way you are:)You were meant for Greatness and you do not have to prove anything to anybody.

                                                                                            

 What if the people around Einstein told him, that he must become only Shakespeare? What would the world have lost then? We are all special in our own ways. 

So you never have to convince anybody about your worth or what you are really passionate about. The only person you have to convince is ‘YOU’. When you believe in your dreams, the world will believe in it too.

You do not have to reveal everything about your life to people. There are certain things that are best kept a mystery to the people around you. When something you have been working on for a long time is accomplished, let people be surprised and amazed by what you have done. This is much better than them expecting something you have been talking about for the past few months.  

When I first wanted to go out and conduct my youth empowerment seminars, people never understood what I was trying to do. I made the mistake of trying to convince everyone I knew that I really wanted to do this. I was wasting valuable time. Remember that time can never be brought back even with all the money in the world.

 The Poster...

Then I realized I do not need to convince people anymore. I just have to go out and get this done. So I started approaching school, colleges and youth organizations regarding organizing the seminar for their students. The response was not very nice from most of these places. I decided I was not going to let this stop me. I will go on with this seminar. I am not fighting only for my self. I know the information I share in this seminar can completely transform a student’s life if applied effectively. I went on and decided to hire a hall for a self organized event. I took out some of the money I saved  over the past year and paid for the hall. I printed out my first poster.

 I then went to an academic center to invite the students for the session. I knocked on the door and a representative of the center opened the door. I said, ‘Ma’am would you be interested…’ and before I could even complete my sentence the representative banged the door on my face. I had two friends standing next to me when that happened and it felt really bad. I said this is all right, let us go to the next door. We got several more rejections. I told them we are not going to quit. We went on with the seminar. Fifty students attended the event from over six different schools in Bahrain. A reporter from the local paper had come to cover the event. The next day there was a front page report of the seminar with details about the event and the participants learning experience in it.

When this happened all the people that told me they did not understand what I was doing, came back and congratulated me for successfully doing this amazing event. They said they were surprised.

I was not surprised. I knew this was going to happen from day one. I just did not know how and that is why at the start I needed their validation to confirm if what I was doing was all right.

This was the wrong approach because every time I went up to another person and he or she told me what I was doing would never be successful, I was losing out on a little bit of the spark that got me started on that project in the first place. The problem was that many of the people I was trying to convince did not believe in the magic of risking everything for a dream only you believe in.

When I stopped convincing people and started working on my dream to conduct that first seminar. I felt liberated. I felt so powerful in that moment because I was not scared anymore. I broke all the chains that connected me to my comfort zone. I went out and just did what I had to do.

Eventually when you actually pull off the event, project, book, song or anything you are passionate about, people will look at you amazed and ask you, ‘You are so brilliant at ___________How do you do all of that?’

Your time has come because now they have recognized your brilliance and you do not have to convince them anymore...

Entrepreneurship and The Art of Modeling

I was 17 and I had started my journey into the world of public speaking and writing. Instead of immediately working on my dreams, I decided to model past successes and failures. I decide to observe and learn from the best and worst in my field. 

To become an author, I firstly developed the habit of reading. Then I started reading books in different genres. I then decided which genre I wanted to specialize in.  It was personal development and then I read three hundred books in this specific genre.
To become a youth empowerment speaker, I studied the world’s best professional communicators. I made a list of the world’s top hundred professional speakers. Then I saw YouTube videos making a note about what was unique about each speaker.
Could you apply the same concept to Entrepreneurship? Yes, if you want to start a technology company, why not study the world’s top hundred technology companies.