Category Archives: Books and FIlms

The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma

I have never found that reading personal development (pd) books enlighten me to a whole new way of living, a whole new theory, ground breaking results, astonishing returns, etc.

I don’t think this is what change is really about, or really that it’s realistic to think that a human will grasp onto this kind of alteration to life. I feel that change – and learning – is a direct result of connecting with what we are learning, associating our own lives and acts with what we’re reading, and being able to take away new techniques that we might be able to use in our quest to get stronger.

Though drastic change is required and necessary at times, people are much more susceptible to change on a gradual basis. Say, over a year or even 10 rather than cold turkey.

“Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could have planned for.”

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The Leader Who Had No Title – by Robin Sharma – discussed the importance of realizing that change happens one at a time. Each day if we pick one thing to focus on and grow and nurture, after a year there will be 365 things we’ve learned!

“Leaders are those individuals who do the things that failures aren’t willing to do – even though they may not like doing them either.”

If you’re looking for words of inspiration, with take home notes that will have you returning again and again to re-find tips to find personal success, to re-learn how to lead without a title, then this is your book.

I really appreciate the underlying message of the book, that we can not afford to wait until we have a title to start acting like a leader. Make every day a day where you’ve been sticking your neck out there, leading.

The book guides the reader through a fantastic and life changing day Blake is taken on by an unexpected life guide, Tommy – an old friend of his fathers, who helps enlighten him to the ethics of a leader without a title.

I have talked to some people about this book, and they’ve mentioned how they dislike the authors delivery, which I can associate with. I think for a lot of people this is the awkward feeling of introspection. Reading a pd book really does make you look inside to your own actions, associating with your activities and assessing how your actions can be changed. However, the repetition Sharma employs can at times make one feel a bit silly.

I appreciate what this book is delivering though, the message. It was almost too easy for me to associate with. To me, that is the power of this book.

I suggest reading The Leader Who Had No Title, and if you have read it, I would love to hear how you felt about the book in the comments below!

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho

I read the Alchemist and I was completely moved as a person, as a human, who was also on a quest to learn my own way in life. I was struck by the raw serendipity of the main character, and the almost coincidental / too wild to be real events that continually happened to the main character.

The Devil and Miss Prym was no different.

When we are first introduced to the book, we learn about an old lady, old Berta, who sits on her front porch waiting for the Devil to arrive. She knows this because she’s talking with her dead husband who shows her the answers, and coincidentally the future.

Old Berta is not Miss Prym. Miss Prym is the young woman, the last young person, living in the small and aging town of Viscos, a community isolated from the rest of the modern world and extremely content with this fact. An honest village working hard for their money. Miss Prym is the young lady sitting by the river looking to accidentally bump into the new stranger in town – yes, who’s the Devil.

As with all Coelho books, this book ends with a clear message or lesson about the way of human life. A message. Gospel to live by. It was a nice break from the more serious non-fiction books I’ve been reading as of late.

Have you ever read The Devil and Miss Prym? How do you find Coelho books?

 

Iris by Hermann Hesse

I have just read one of the most endearing pieces of literature I’ve ever read, and I thought it would be a good thing to share.

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse has a very tender and beautiful story in it called Iris.

The short story sends the main character, Anselm, in search of the memory that he has lost that stirs within him when he hears the name of the woman he wants to ask as his wife, whose only condition for her hand is he find that memory:

“However, the task was much too difficult for this man of learning. He was supposed to remember something he had long ago forgotten, he was to find once more a single golden thread in the fabric of the sunken years, he was to grasp with his hands and deliver to his beloved something that was no more than a vanished bird song, an impulse of joy or sorry on hearing a piece of music, something finer, more fleeting and bodiless than a thought, more insubstantial than a dream, as formless as morning mist.” – Hermann Hesse

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