MEANING

Book of the Month : October 2022 – Live Life in Crescendo by Stephen R. Covey and Cynthia Covey Haller

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Live Life in Crescendo : Your Most Important Work is Always Ahead of You - Stephen R. Covey
The inspirational, encouraging final book from the legendary leadership expert Stephen R. Covey, internationally bestselling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Stephen R. Covey spent his long and storied career inspiring millions of individuals to make their lives more effective, compassionate, and meaningful. Near the end of his life, Covey felt there was a final component to his work: How to live your best life no matter your age? How to best respond to life-challenging experiences? How to approach the challenges and opportunities of middle to later life—like raising children, caring for your parents, leading and inspiring others, staying on top of your career, contributing to your community, and what follows next?

Live Life in Crescendo is Covey’s answer to these questions, outlining his vision for those in the prime of life, whatever age you may be. Covey urges all to “live life in crescendo,” continually growing in contribution, learning, and influence. In the same way that music builds on the previous notes, life too, builds on the past and unfolds in the future. This crescendo mentality urges you to use whatever you have—your time, talents, resources, gifts, passion, money, and influence—to enrich the lives of people around you, including your family, neighborhood, community, and the world.

Cowritten with his daughter, Cynthia Covey Haller, and published posthumously, Live Life in Crescendo is a life-changing and life-affirming book that befits the generosity and wisdom of the late Stephen R. Covey.

Unblocking the Flow of Abundance

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The flow of abundance can get blocked at any one of six steps:

  1. Clarify your purpose. Have a clear sense of what your life is about and what you value most.
  2. Look for lessons in your areas of shortage. The aspects of your life where there is a lack exist to teach you something.
  3. Learn to be grateful for what you do have. Move beyond distorted perceptions and see clearly the parts of your life where you are greatly blessed.
  4. Give what you can. By joyfully and freely giving, you redefine yourself as someone whose life is abundant.
  5. Expect and accept the good that comes to you. Be alert to the necessary resources in whatever form they may come—expected or unexpected.
  6. Giving and receiving build community. Be open to building or reinforcing interpersonal relations based on mutual care.

Look over the list of six points. Which one of them seems weakest in your life? That is, which one is most in need of further application? Make a personal commitment to do something about it and follow through with your resolution.

–Mark Thurston from Edgar Cayce Handbook of Creating Your Future

Book of the Month – August 2022 : Wisdom at Work by Chip Conley

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Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder by [Chip Conley]
Experience is making a comeback. Learn how to repurpose your wisdom.

At age 52, after selling the company he founded and ran as CEO for 24 years, rebel boutique hotelier Chip Conley was looking at an open horizon in midlife. Then he received a call from the young founders of Airbnb, asking him to help grow their disruptive start-up into a global hospitality giant. He had the industry experience, but Conley was lacking in the digital fluency of his 20-something colleagues. He didn’t write code, or have an Uber or Lyft app on his phone, was twice the age of the average Airbnb employee, and would be reporting to a CEO young enough to be his son. Conley quickly discovered that while he’d been hired as a teacher and mentor, he was also in many ways a student and intern. What emerged is the secret to thriving as a mid-life worker: learning to marry wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to evolve, all hallmarks of the “Modern Elder.”

In a world that venerates the new, bright, and shiny, many of us are left feeling invisible, undervalued, and threatened by the “digital natives” nipping at our heels. But Conley argues that experience is on the brink of a comeback. Because at a time when power is shifting younger, companies are finally waking up to the value of the humility, emotional intelligence, and wisdom that come with age. And while digital skills might have only the shelf life of the latest fad or gadget, the human skills that mid-career workers possess–like good judgment, specialized knowledge, and the ability to collaborate and coach – never expire.

Part manifesto and part playbook, Wisdom@Work ignites an urgent conversation about ageism in the workplace, calling on us to treat age as we would other type of diversity. In the process, Conley liberates the term “elder” from the stigma of “elderly,” and inspires us to embrace wisdom as a path to growing whole, not old. Whether you’ve been forced to make a mid-career change, are choosing to work past retirement age, or are struggling to keep up with the millennials rising up the ranks, Wisdom@Work will help you write your next chapter.

Book of The Month – June 2022 : From Strength to Strength

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From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by [Arthur C. Brooks]
The roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic’s happiness columnist Arthur Brooks.

Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs.

What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success?

At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life.

Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness.

“To the overachievers, success addicts, and tired strivers who are fairly confident you can’t keep it up forever but will try anyway—this book is for you. Arthur Brooks shows you it’s possible to build a life that really does get better with age.” —Simon Sinek, optimist andauthor of Start with Why and The Infinite Game 
 
“From Strength to Strength is a wise and inspiring guide to reimagining the rest of your life. If you’re a striver tired of striving, this remarkable book is for you.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, When, and A Whole New Mind 
 
“Brooks appears to have a clear strategy here: first he horrifies you, then he bucks you up. An alternate title for this book could be The Good News About Your Inevitable Decline. Most of us strivers believe we can keep racing until we run out of road. Arthur is trying to save us pain and maximize our contributions to the species. Every ambitious person should read this.” —Dan Harris, author and former ABC News anchor 

The Seven Habits that Lead to Happiness in Old Age 

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Using data from the Harvard study, two researchers showed in 2001 that we can control seven big investment decisions pretty directly: smoking, drinking, body weight, exercise, emotional resilience, education, and relationships. Here’s what you can do about each of them today to make sure your accounts are as full as possible when you reach your later years:

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The most valuable thing you have in your life is your time and energy, and both are limited…

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′′….. Stop having hard conversations with people who don’t want change.

Stop showing up for people who have no interest in your presence. I know your instinct is to do everything to earn the appreciation of those around you, but it’s a boost that steals your time, energy, mental and physical health.

When you begin to fight for a life with joy, interest and commitment, not everyone will be ready to follow you in this place. This doesn’t mean you need to change what you are, it means you should let go of the people who aren’t ready to accompany you.

If you are excluded, insulted, forgotten or ignored by the people you give your time to, you don’t do yourself a favor by continuing to offer your energy and your life. The truth is that you are not for everyone and not everyone is for you.

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Book of the Month – December 2021

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Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
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Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying?

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Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death? Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes; but it is not concerned about death, it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not? It is we human beings who are always concerned about death – because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living.

J Krishnamuthi – Think on These Things Chapter 17