Here’s an idea.

Is it better to continually improve upon the quality of your production, and ship the product when & only when it’s become the best work of yours?

Or is it better to have stringent timelines & ship the product when the due date has arrived, whether or not “you think” it’s ready to be shipped or not?

In this world of information & choice overload, who wins? The one who has the best offering? Or the one who has a huge string of good enough offerings out there in the market?

Elizabeth Gilbert, best selling author of Eat Pray Love says “Done is better than Good”.

*In a product related company’s context, ‘to ship’ means to introduce/launch your product in the market.

*In a creative context, it means to share your ideas with an audience. It may mean posting your blog/article, whether or not you think it’s a perfect encapsulation of your ideas or not.

Is it not that having a ‘shipping’ mentality is a matter of discipline?

For some reason, people tend to think that if they commit to a set timeline they’d end up compromising on quality. But is it not a common aspect of human behaviour to delay taking action using whatever justification is available? Can this weird obsession of bringing quality be just another action-delaying-mechanism?

As I write this, I’m struggling myself to find the answer to the above questions. I invite the reader to take a minute and ponder on this thought herself, to put it in context of her own situation, and come up with her own answer.

Is done really better than good?

Here’s the list. Almost in chronological order.

1. iCon: Steve Jobs – Biography
2. Losing My Virginity – Autobiography of Sir Richard Branson
3. Stay Hungry Stay Foolish – Rashmi Bansal
4. Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
5. Rich Dad Quadrant – Robert Kiyosaki
6. Richest Man in Babylon – Samuel Clason
7. The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
8. Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
9. Harry Potter (the entire series) – JK Rowling
10. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
11. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
12. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
13. Angels & Demons – Dan Brown
14. Digital Fortress – Dan Brown
15. Social Intelligence – Daniel Goleman
16. Mind Over Medicine – Lissa Rankin
17. Awaken The Giant Within – Tony Robbins
18. As A Man Thinketh – James Allen
19. Strengths Finder 2.0 – Tom Rath, Gallup Inc.
20. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari – Robin Sharma
21. The Pathfinder – Nicholas Lore
22. The Four Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss
23. Money: Master The Game – Tony Robbins
24. The Philosophy Book – Will Buckingham, DK Publishing
25. Neurologic – Eliezer Sternberg
26. Frogs Into Princes – Richard Bandler
27. NLP: The new technology of achievement – Steve Andreas & NLP Comprehensive
28. The Structure of Magic 1 – Richard Bandler
29. Positive Intelligence – Shirzad Chamine
30. How to Fail at almost everything and still Win Big – Scott Adams
31. The Six Figure Speaker – Brian Tracy
32. The Four Hour Body – Tim Ferriss (work in progress)
33. The Effective Executive – Peter F. Drucker (work in progress)
34. Stealing Fire – Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
35. Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
36. Anything You Want – Derek Sivers
37. The Obstacle Is The Way – Ryan Holiday
38. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
39. Unlimited Power – Tony Robbins
40. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman (work in progress)
41. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Manson
42. The World’s Fittest Book – Ross Edgley
43. Don’t say Yes when you want to say No – Herbert Fensterheim Ph.D
44. Own the Day Own your Life – Aubrey Marcus
45. 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
46. Linchpin – Seth Godin
47. 12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson (work in progress)
48. Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferrazzi
49. Wheat Belly – Dr. William Davis
50. The Way of the Superior Man – David Deida
51. The Game – Neil Strauss
52. The Imposter Syndrome Remedy – Dr. EV Estacio, Ph.D.
53. Atomic Habits – James Clear
54. The 5 AM Club – Robin Sharma
55. Vagabonding – Rolf Potts
56. The War of Art – Steven Pressfield
57. The Millionaire Fastlane – M.J. DeMarco
58. The Million-Dollar, One Person Business – Elaine Pofeldt
59. 40 Rules of Love – Elif Shafak (work in progress)
60. Total Recall – Autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger (work in progress)
61. Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss (work in progress)
62. Getting Things Done – David Allen
63. Men, Women & Worthiness – Brene Brown
64. I thought it was just me, but it isn’t – Brene Brown
65. Designing your life – Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
66. The Rational Male – Rollo Tomassi
67. Focus – Heidi Grant Ph.D. and Tory Higgins Ph.D.
68. The Easy Way to Stop Smoking – Alan Carr
69. Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
70. Personality & its Transformations – Lecture series by Jordan Peterson
71. Maps of Meaning – Lecture series by Jordan Peterson
72. The One Thing – Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
73. The Little Book of Happiness – Miriam Akhtar MAPP
74. Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman
75. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint Exupery
76. Digital Fortress – Dan Brown
77. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
78. $100 Million Offers – Alex Hormozi
79. Mastery – Robert Greene
80. The Dip – Seth Godin
81. Beyond Order – Jordan Peterson
82. Codependent No More – Melody Beattie
83. The Gifts of Imperfection – Brene Brown
84. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

It was a year ago that I discovered that I have a natural inclination to speak to (or in front of) people and that I am better at it than most of the other things I do. Since the time I found this strength of mine, I’ve dedicated countless of hours to nurture this talent and hopefully have come a long way.

I do this because it is one thing to be talented at something, and that can take you far in life. But it is entirely another thing to work hard in that talent and make it a skill. A skill is something that you’ve cultivated, and not just inherited. It’s something that you can keep perfecting with practice. It’s something that you can put to competition with the rest of the people who’re also talented. It is this skill that will surely take you to the highest levels of your chosen endeavour.

Like any other skill, you can learn a great deal by just observing ‘the best’ players in that game. And if you observe with enough attention and curiosity, your brain models the behaviour of these people and automatically begins to mimic it in your own behaviour.

For this purpose, I began listening to more and more speakers. (Though I already used to listen to a lot many talks)

I watched numerous TED Talks, Debates, Conferences, Interviews, Presentations, Motivational Speeches, Keynote Speeches, and even famous scenes by some very well renowned actors. I wanted to expose my brain to as much speaking as possible, so that it could unconsciously pick up styles and strengths of these great speakers. Some people that I ended up following (and I think you should too) are Werner Erhard, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Russell Brand, Sam Harris, Scott Dinsmore, Sir Ken Robinson, Tom Bilyeu and Marie Forleo also has become my recent favourite. And then there are speeches by Shashi Tharoor and Prime Minister Narendra Modi that I couldn’t admire enough.

So for anyone who’s looking to learn public speaking, my first suggestion would be to watch, immerse in and admire a lot of good speeches. And let your curiosity do the rest of the thing. Doing just this exercise would put you in a much better space than you’d be in without it.

Considering you’ve come this far, I want to come to the second step, that is action. Or should I say, practicing what you’ve observed.

My mode of choice was to join Toastmasters International, that is a global organisation, which has structures for developing people in communication and leadership capabilities. How it works is that you join any local Toastmasters club, which is essentially a group of people who come together once every week and hold a meeting where people either deliver speeches or work in various leadership capacities. Once you’ve joined such a club, you too get to deliver speeches and work in various leadership capacities.

Let me elaborate Toastmasters structure for developing people in public speaking. Each member is given a communication manual that has 10 speech projects. Every project deals with one specific skill that a public speaker must possess. So as a member, you have to deliver these 10 speeches, while working on and demonstrating the specific skill your current speech project deals with.

Let me explain this with an example. One of the speech projects is about ‘body language’. So while delivering this speech project, you have to specifically work on various body language skills and weave some of these skills into your speech. One key body language skill is the use of hand gestures. So while preparing for and delivering this speech you have to carefully integrate the use of hand gestures throughout the speech. Once you’ve done this, you instantly add one tool to your ‘public speaker toolkit’. And with enough practice of this tool, you can begin to utilize as and when you desire. And each tool you add to your toolkit, adds to your effectiveness and grace as a public speaker.

There are 10 speech projects in the first communication manual you get after joining toastmasters (including the project about body language). After you’ve completed these 10 speech projects, you proceed to other sets of manuals which deal with certain advanced aspects of public speaking.

Today as I’m writing this, I know that completing those 10 speech projects have added immense value to me as a speaker. Among others, one key benefit is that you get a checklist of the things you have to integrate in a speech you’re creating or preparing for. I will mention some of these checklist items (that I got from those 10 speech projects) that I always consider while preparing for a speech.

• Objective of the speech (what’s the general purpose and specific purpose, what outcome do I want after having given this speech)
• Structure of the speech (planning an impactful opening and closing. Keeping the body of the speech engaging; attention span of the audience is like that of 3 year old’s. Is it chronological in nature, a problem-solution piece, anecdote, or an abstract unstructured one)
• What literary devices can I add? (simile, metaphors, repetition, other rhetoric devices)
• Body language (how can I add the use of stance, movement on stage, hand gestures, facial expression to better communicate my message)
• Vocal variety (where can I employ variation in my voice’s pitch, volume, speaking rate and tonality)
• Research (is there any research needed. Can I add some statistics, facts etc. to validate my point)
• Visual or auditory aids (do I need to add any visual aids like PPT or props, or auditory aids like music playing in the background)

All of this might seem overwhelming but really is not. That is because of two reasons. One is that while practicing these speech projects, you deal with one specific skill at a time. So you can really isolate it and focus on just that skill instead of a 100 other things. The other reason is that in a very short while you begin to incorporate all the above aspects intuitively and don’t have to consciously think about them too much.

All the above things I’ve written deal with the question “how do I become a good speaker”. But now I want to deal with the more important question, “what do I speak about”.

I want to introduce you all to Dale Carnegie here. He was a visionary writer and lecturer who lived through late 80’s to mid-90’s. Much of Dale’s ground-breaking work has been in the subjects of self-improvement and he has been like a founding father throughout the public speaking movement.

He advised to young speakers that “if you want to be a great public speaker, speak about something that makes you angry about the world” (not verbatim).

This basically means that if you look inside, find out something that you really care about, and then speak around that topic or subject, you instantly infuse your speech with most of the necessary components of a great speech i.e. authenticity, reliability, credibility, passion, drive, emotion etc. Your speech moves from an informative announcement to a heartfelt story. This, I believe is at the heart of all speaking. Because the purpose of all good speakers is to make some change in their audience, or the whole society. And if you find that one thing that makes you angry about the state of this world, you have taken a quantum leap as a public speaker, almost instantly.

And do not worry if you can’t find something that maddens you or you’re not that kind of person that gets angry at stuff. I’m sure if you ask yourself this question you can find that thing for yourself, this question is “what thing in the world I would absolutely change, if I had all the time, money, capability and resources with me?”

All of us have an answer to that question buried deep inside our hearts. Do yourself a favour and ask yourself this question. YOU can thank me later.

FINALLY, I want to leave you with one perspective. I often get disturbed when people utter the words Public Speaking. I get disturbed because everyone believes that when you are on the stage it’s all about speaking, hence the name ‘Public Speaking’, but giving a great and effective presentation is much more about Listening than it is about Speaking. Someone who’s on the stage is constantly listening to his audience. The words the audience is using during interactions, their eye movements, their body posture, the overall mood and energy of the room, all of these are feedback for the speaker. And for a speaker to be really effective he has to constantly remain in this feedback loop. Otherwise it’s just like reading out from a piece of paper, which is boring, monotonous and ineffective. So I’d like to replace the title Public Speaker with Public Communicator.

Because it is in the act of ‘Communicating’ that the true magic of Public Speaking reveals itself.

Let’s start from the beginning.

A guy whose content I follow religiously, Scott Dinsmore, explained in his famous Tedx Talk (4 million views on YouTube) the importance of setting ‘Physical Challenges’ for personal growth. His view was that if it’s a challenge/goal that you consider impossible for yourself, the pursuit of it pushes you to expand as a human being and opens up a world of possibilities once you achieve it.

As I’m very much interested in personal growth, I resolved to take this up as an experiment. I’ve been doing strength training since many years (on and off) but I hadn’t ever ran anything beyond 2kms. So running a Half Marathon seemed like a pretty impossible deal. And hence, it fit the profile. Immediately I registered in an upcoming Half Marathon.

There was just one catch. I had to run before the end of 2016 (for different OCD reasons) and the most appropriate marathon I could find was on December 11^th. This means I was left with just 5 weeks to train, while ideally you should prepare for at least 12 weeks for a 21k.

I was compelled to find out a solution. (Note: Running a 21k is serious business. It’s a strenuous physical activity and attempting it without proper training might result in the runner fainting on the track before completing or even long lasting overuse injuries)

Well as they say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Enter Tim Ferriss (find him on fourhourworkweek.com) and the concept of ‘Minimum Effective Dose’.

His famous adaptation of Pareto’s Law explains that in almost all contexts, 80% of the desired results occur as a result of just 20% of actions. Minimum Effective Dose is this 20% of actions that’ll make 80% of the difference. I just had to figure out these 20% of actions. (Given the scarcity of time I had to train)

After reading about 20 webpages, 2 chapters from a best-selling fitness book, and talking to 2 friends who are regular Ultra-marathon runners, I think I figured out my minimum effective dose. These are the things I focused on for the next 5 weeks.

1. Nutrition: As a rule of thumb I increased my daily carb intake to facilitate my cardio sessions. Some specific changes that I made were eating a handful of cashews and almonds first thing every morning, multi vitamin capsules once every day, 2 bananas or 2 peanut butter sandwiches on long run days. The key was to remain properly hydrated, 2-3 litres a day. (A DIY yardstick for measuring hydration levels is to check urine colour, details available online)
2. Sleep: A very less appreciated fact about sleep is that its most important function is to repair and recover the body (and the brain). Hence sleep quality cannot be overlooked. Apart from sleeping on time every day for a minimum of 6.5 hours, I also downloaded an app called Flux (available on getflux.com). It removes Blue light from your phone and laptop screens. Staring at bright blue lights a few hours before sleeping inhibits the production of melatonin, a hormone critical for sleep quality. Simply speaking, Blue Light at night equals screwed up sleep.
3. Work-Out: As an amateur I used to think that to prepare for a marathon I’ll have to run every day. But very soon my research showed that the most important aspect of marathon training was RECOVERY and STAYING AWAY FROM INJURIES. With a lot of help from a friend, I created this training regimen. In each week I’d do – 1 Long Run Day, 3 Days of HIIT, 1 Day of Breathing Exercises, 2 Days of Rest (So many rest days because training with a full time job adds strain to the body). Yes, you read it right. For completing a 21k, my training consisted of only 5 ‘run’ days in 5 weeks. On these ‘Long Run Days’ I’d push my body to the limits and increase my distance at moderate pace. {6k – 10k – 11k – 13k – 15k; this is what I ran on those 5 days}. Again, the key thing was Recovery and Staying Away From Injuries.
4. Body Form & Posture: I learned very soon that running a marathon is a game of conserving energy on race day. Apart from the common suggestions of maintaining a regular pace, starting slow etc. I found that people expend their most energy due to ‘bad posture’. The correct way to run, I found, is with your back straight, chest out, shoulders pulled back and relaxed, eyes staring at a distant point far ahead, equal weight on both the glutes (grounded), arms at 90 degree angles, very short strides so that frequency of strides increases and energy expended decreases, and hitting the ground very ‘lightly’ with your feet (because the ground hits back). I added one practice of my own in this mix. I found that keeping a ‘Poker Face’ throughout the run helps you remain calm and hence conserve even more energy.
5. Breathing: Since what I was going to attempt (training for a 21k in 5 weeks) was not recommended on any of the webpages I had read, it was a first. And I had to take a ‘leap of faith’ to survive this experience. The premise I decided to move ahead with was “My body can take the strain, my job is just to not lose my breath”. So while running, no matter how difficult it was, I had to follow these rules. To breathe only through my nose, to breathe smoothly and calmly (minimal sound created), and to breathe coherently (maintain a consistent ration i.e. 4in-4out or 3in-3out).

December 11^th came and went. And how I related to myself changed forever. A person who could not even run 2kms without getting exhausted, completed a course of 21kms, with no injuries and a smiling face.

Right now, as I’m writing this post, my body is recovering from the run but my mind is set free.

For all intents and purposes, a new question has arisen “If this was possible, what else can be?”

The best I know to describe life is, that it has a drift.

It’s very much like a stream of water moving in a particular direction. And all people (most of them unknowingly) keep drifting along in that stream. So for most people the direction of their lives is driven by whatever circumstances show up. Which is, by the way, very much valid. I KNOW that circumstances can be tough.. Very tough… But there is a very clear distinction in knowing that they are not chosen by us. We’re given our circumstances. And most people never have any say about their life.

They have a wish for their life. And for sure, this wish doesn’t get fulfilled ever, unless one’s willing to fight for it.

Very few people even realize this. This in itself requires very high order thinking.

You must know that all these structures that we entangle ourselves in, especially our jobs or any other engagement for an economic pursuit, these structures were meant for a specific purpose.

Let me break it down for you.

People work very hard at their job to get better at it. They want to get better so that they earn more. They want to earn more because they think with this money issue sorted, they could finally be happy, spend time with their families, have a little freedom to roam around in the day, and just be. FREEDOM.

But what most people don’t realize that the demands placed on them by today’s jobs have them sacrifice all these freedoms TODAY. Do you get the futility of a human life!

For this reason, it is utmost important that every human being knows specifically, what is he living for? What are the emotions that he wants to experience on a daily basis. What activities does he want to spend his time on daily. What kind of people does he want to spend his time with. What problems does he care enough for, and can contribute towards solving.. Merely knowing all of this is 50% of the solution.

But once you do figure this out for yourself, you’ve got to stake even your existence for the pursuit of this.

If the current conditions of your life don’t serve you, it’s time they got changed.

Of course this change theory doesn’t work so simply when there are other people involved. Like your spouse, parents, in laws, close friends etc.

And that’s the part where each individual has to figure out his own way of tackling the problem.

Some leave the people who bring them down. Some lift the others up to their level.

But one thing is for sure. You are doing everyone a disservice by not living a life which is truly authentic to your purpose. This is the key phrase.

And finally, how to know your purpose? It takes both, discovery and invention.

Just know, that you owe this much to yourself and everybody else whom you love.

I often wonder if I were ever called to a convocation ceremony and was asked to deliver a speech to motivate the graduating class.

I think of tons of strategies through which I could possibly make a difference to the listeners in the short time available.

Tony Robbins says ‘Rituals equal Results’. This simply means that our habits shape our destiny. Surely enough, a person who always stays in impeccable shape, is full of energy and rid of disease will definitely have a different set of habits than that of other ‘unfit’ people.

So following would be a few habits that I would make a case for. I have learned through personal experience as well as by reading about successful people that these habits can make all the difference in the quality of one’s life.

1. Exercise
2. Meditate or Go in the state of Gratitude
3. Refrain from indulging in gossip
4. Say ‘I love You’ and ‘Thank You’ more often
5. Eat more Greens & less Sugars
6. Keep & Invest at least 10% of whatever you earn, Always
7. Read quality books
8. Contribute to others in some way (The more the merrier)
9. Deliberately surround yourself with quality people
10. DON’T multi-task
11. Take personal development courses/seminars
12. Spend unbelievable time to figure out your passion & ideal career
13. Allow yourself to be happy, smile!

If you like, do further research into all the above points. But even if you blindly believe all of this and begin practicing these habits for only 30 days, you’d see your life magically shifting towards better.

Happy Living!

Questions, I believe, are a powerful tool to uncover something. And a very powerful question to uncover what someone cares about in the world is to ask what pisses you off about the condition of the world? What is it that if you had the power to, would change?

When I ask this question from myself, I somehow get very passionate about some dormant opinions of mine.

See I have been very big on education. I believe that is the single force that can elevate lives of people and as a result, it is what has been one of the most meaningful factors in pushing the human race forward. And I don’t even mean the conventional K-12 education. I mean the act of education. Learning. Study. And mastery. Education in the literal sense, straight from the dictionary.

So for that matter, education can never end after formal college education. These institutions only lay the foundation for a life long education. They provide the individual with a mental faculty and a framework of getting information and making sense of it, to make it usable or actionable.

And we do teach our people great subjects like Maths, science and humanities. Problem is that no one teaches personal development. No one even talks about goal setting or growth in life. Or what is the science of achieving goals, and mind you there is a science. No one even teaches achievements, hardly do we study great men and model their formulas for success in their careers or personal lives. We don’t even teach our people about the mind and what is the ontology of us human beings. What are our primary and fundamentals characteristics, motives, needs and what is our thrust towards. We hardly teach relationships and God forbid if there was a formal class on Love and Empathy. Or operating with harmony in a group. See these topics are so taboo that people think that only those who have some ‘problem’ in life should take such education. Rest of us, they assume, are natural masters in the above mentioned topics.

But I ask, is it so? Do we naturally know why our mind keeps running into self-sabotaging thoughts and action patterns? Do we get out of school and naturally know how to find a career of our true passion and also how to build a money empire with what we earn?

If we take a real look inside, all of these topics are of utmost importance. And we naturally don’t have any expertise in these, nor do our parents or conventional school teachers, because they too didn’t get a formal education in these. But I kid you not, there is substantial amount of research and knowledge available in these topics and with the advent of internet its even accessible to all of us. But what is truly needed is that these topics come into the conventional education system. So that a professional, along with learning how to run a business well, also learns how to learn his life well. To have amazing relationships, mastery on personal finance, is vibrant and enjoys great health and fitness, contributes to community and is over all an emotionally and socially intelligent being. A truly civilized citizen if you will.

And this can happen only with a culture change. Culture is a very powerful force to get conformity. If a lazy, procrastinating child (even though children are not lazy at all) was abruptly put in a school where all the other children were freaks in continuously creating personal development goals and then creating an environment of support for fulfilling these goals (consequently achieving these goals too), this child would feel a sudden pressure, a phenomena called eustress, to positively change his life. What all your peers do, is cool. And you better do it with them, even outperform. But sadly, the current condition is that there is no culture of personal development or growth, and that’s what people normally conform with.

So what I am an advocate of, is getting life education in the main stream. And making it ‘cool’ to study these topics. Get educated yourself and then teach your surroundings.

It’s about time that we as a society were amazing at this thing called ‘quality of life’, both individually and in communities. (Mind you, there was a time when we were not so good at ‘warfare’. And over time we did make advancement and breakthroughs in that discipline and right now we as a society are pioneers at warfare)

All I ask for is that we become pioneers at peace, love, contribution, growth, success, vitality. Eutopia can be made, no big deal!

I am more of a ‘words’ person than a ‘numbers’ person.

That’s why when the pressure of my high octane sales job used to be too much to take, I would resort to go to a cafe or a lake side, and read a good book. It was the way in which I relaxed myself. There was one very critical decision I made along the way though, that changed the whole course of my life over the past one year. I decided to read quality books. International bestsellers, the most thought provoking concepts, autobiographies of some of the most spectacular men & women in the history of the world. And what I read started to open up a world for me. I instantly became aware of a possibility. That life can be much more than just doing the mundane tasks of an already ill managed organisation, only because your well intending yet clueless boss wants you to do it. And you listen to these instructions only because you’re too scared of even the prospect of your paycheck not arriving the next month.

Let me be clear, I did not work in an ill managed organisation, nor my boss was clueless. But I found a whole new level of intention that these great men operated with. They didn’t just play for the next month’s target. They played for changing the way the world worked. They played for pushing the human race forward. Who are these men? Well let’s see. Martin Luther King, George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller, Mark Twain, Henry Ford, Napolean Hill, Tony Robbins, Steve Jobs and countless more have come in fields of art, science, philosophy, medicine, warfare, technology, business, politics and philanthropy that have did something that pushed the world forwards.

And make no mistake, this level of greatness is contagious. You can’t just read about these people. You instantly get infected with the high standards these people must have had.

And one of the most pivotal standard that each one of these people had must have been, to make a difference with this life. I can bet that if I had the opportunity of talking to any of these men, they would have told me that they are clear that their life has some purpose, some calling, something that puts them out of bed and in action. That their life has to be for something. Not because it has to. Not because it should. But because they say so.

And by catching, even if in meager amounts, these standards I became aware of a need I have. To create a life that is worthy of my being here. To move and align all my living situations, all my circumstances to match and be fully congruent with who I truly am.

This is what started my journey. Funny thing is that later I found out, almost every accomplished person in the world fully vouches for reading good books. All the people who have achieved something know that there is immense value to be gained by words of great men and women before us. Leaders are readers they say. They also say that if you spend one hour daily, reading in your area of interest, withing one year you will be an expert in that area. And if you want, you can be the top most authority in that area of expertise, just be reading. Reading quality books.

Hope this gets you started!