John C. Maxwell's Book

The other day, I was lazing around when my hands accidentally stumbled upon John C. Maxwell’s book, “The Power of Attitude and Thinking Big” – a compilation of positive statements from various influential leaders. Maxwell, who is better known for his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, is an interesting writer whose forte lies in writing books that help individuals become effective leaders. Although most of his books carry different themes, they generally converge at one point – leadership.

“The Power of Attitude and Thinking Big” is one such small book replete with positive quotes good enough to ignite one’s passion to work on characteristics that build the leader within. As is evident, all distinguished leaders have traits that are not merely enviable but also worth emulating. Therefore, it’s important to build one’s character. This book eggs you on in this direction giving you inspiring quotes of Gandhi, Bernard Shaw, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill… and more.

One of the quotes that had a profound affect on me was Walt Disney’s “All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” I like it because Walt Disney himself faced bankruptcy in business twice and was once even kicked out of a job for lack of ideas. But, as we know, today he is a superhero of kids, having built a mesmerising world like Disney Land. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto are all his creations, which every kid in every nook and corner of the world is familiar with.

So, when Walt Disney says pursue your dream…I’d rather not waste any more time…

Le Van Vu … A man with an indomitable spirit

Any book of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series is worth its weight in gold or possibly more. The reason for this is unlike myriad other paperbacks; these books tend to leave a lasting impression on the heart.

With interesting tales that are drawn from real life, one will find it a bliss to discover Chicken soup for the soul actually is a series not just one ad hoc book. From one of these books is the life story of Le Van Vu, a Vietnamese business man, whose hard work and determination has left an unfading impression on my heart.

Born in a wealthy family, Le Van Vu had everything going fine for him…but only for a short while. While he was still a teenager, his father was brutally murdered and all the wealth he thought he had, suddenly changed hands. With nothing to fall back on, his life was an indescribable struggle all through his academic years. After finishing his graduation as a lawyer, he started investing in real estate in the southern part of Vietnam to provide housing for the Americans during the wartime. Soon he became wealthy again.

On one of his business trips, when he was in the northern part of Vietnam; he was captured and incarcerated for aiding the Americans. But he miraculously escaped after killing five guards. When he returned to South Vietnam, he was again captured and put in prison stating that he was a plant from the north. After serving the sentence, he found himself poor again. But he rebuilt his empire strategically again. And when the Americans were leaving Vietnam he traded his entire fortune with them for a safe passage to Philippines. There, he was able to convince the president into letting him handle the fishing business. In a few years time, he developed the whole of the fishing belt in Philippines. But as luck would have it, he abandoned all his wealth in order to settle in America.

After sometime, he was so frustrated that he had to start all over again from the scratch again, he seriously contemplated suicide. But encouraged by his wife not to give up, he and his wife started working in a bakery. The bakery owner promised to sell them the bakery provided they pay a huge sum. The sum was so large that it meant sleeping in the bakery and eating bakery items for one full year. Which they did. Amazingly, after a year, they paid of the bakery owner and started churning in profits.
Today, as you could have guessed, Le Van Vu and his wife are multi-millionaires. No wonder his story touches many a fainting soul.

Winds of change

“Monsoon will reach on June 8” This is a subhead of a weather report that caught my attention in one of the dailies a couple of days ago. I am appalled at how the weather bureau could be so dead sure even about the date, when nine out of ten times they bungle up with the prediction of the rainfall itself. Sometimes you come across these predictions as so silly that you feel, you could do a better job by merely looking at the cloud patterns in the sky.

And imagine, someone actually paying the weather bureau to do this terrible work!

So, it’s not a surprise anymore when the weather report predicts a good rainfall and exactly the opposite takes place. When it says it’s going to be sunny all day, you can expect showers good enough to drench parks in the nearby vicinity. On the other hand, the weather bureau doesn’t flinch or even bat an eyelid when it knows the prediction has gone wrong for the nth time. Instead, it stubbornly puts forth few more predictions to cover up mistakes. Which, as we know, are bound to fail.

One fails to understand what technology goes into making predictions that are so preposterous and untrue. Furthermore, looking at all this, one might even think, things would improve if the officials actually start casting chits to predict weather. The following could be written on these chits: Rain, Sunshine and Chill. Whichever is picked up could be announced as the weather for that day. Thus, keeping the chances of a blunder somewhat to minimum.

Currently, the only worry that nags me is that the weather bureau is predicting a good rainfall this year. I am keeping my fingers crossed, hoping it would be right, at least… this time.