It has been a long time that I read any book completely. This time I picked up a self-help book (first time for me in this genre). I came across this wonderful book by Marshall Goldsmith through the recommendation of our Professor in Leadership and Organizational Behavior course in my MBA program. Though I could not read it that time, but now that my MBA is over, I managed to go through this book.
I am not an avid reader of self help books because I found that I could not complete any of them (though I started many). The reason is that I used to feel disconnected somewhere in between. But this book is different in two ways; first is that this book is not too voluminous (only ~200 pages) and so it is easy to complete the book in a short period of time and secondly, the ideas in this book are presented in a very systematic manner. I feel that we can write the summary of this full book in the form of a tree with multiple branches. I will not do so because of two reasons, one is that it will be a violation of the copy right of the book and second, it will not inspire you to read this book in full. My objective in writing this review is to inspire you to read this book and to do that, I will put forwards few points from the book that will help you to get a feel of what this book is all about.
The word Mojo as defined by the author is a positive spirit towards what we are working on that should originate from within and radiate to the outside world to be appreciated by others. We do many such activities in our professional and personal lives when we experience this feeling (that is also reflected in the feedback given to us by the people around), be it in family, society or work. We also experience the opposite in many cases when we feel ourselves burdened by the drudgery of the task. If we experience more of the former, we feel happiness and meaning in our lives and when we experience more of the latter, we feel that we are going on a dead-end road. This book helps you identify or rather introspect the kind of tasks that fall into which category. The point that needs to be appreciated here is that any given work can be a source of Mojo for some and at the same time can be Nojo (negative of Mojo) for others. So, it is definitely not in the work per se, but rather one's reaction to it. We are all wired differently and so our preferences and level of maturity also differs and that is why our experience out of any activity also differs.
The question that arises is, do we need a book for this or what is the role of any self help book in this? Well, the self help books (this book as well) pose some questions and give some frameworks using which the analysis can be done. According to me that is the value add of any self help book. This book builds the framework on the foundation of Identity (What we perceive of ourself), Achievement, Reputation and Acceptance. The book further lists some of the reasons what are called as Mojo killers (behaviors and actions that result in making us dwell in the negative spirit) and then takes it further by listing some tool-kits under the four categories as mentioned above. The emphasis of the book is to find and get oneself involved in the activities that gives happiness and meaning to the life. The book inspires readers to analyze every activity that one gets involved in terms of long term benefit or meaning and short term satisfaction or happiness. The author finally takes the readers through some of the tool-kits (action items) under the heads of Identity, Achievement, Reputation and Acceptance. Marshall Goldsmith has given enough number of examples in each of the topics and sub-topics to illustrate the ideas better.
In my personal opinion, this is a good book to be a part of one's collection. I could personally find few points that became food for thought for me. Hope this review encourages some of you to pick up this book and use it for self-improvement.
I am not an avid reader of self help books because I found that I could not complete any of them (though I started many). The reason is that I used to feel disconnected somewhere in between. But this book is different in two ways; first is that this book is not too voluminous (only ~200 pages) and so it is easy to complete the book in a short period of time and secondly, the ideas in this book are presented in a very systematic manner. I feel that we can write the summary of this full book in the form of a tree with multiple branches. I will not do so because of two reasons, one is that it will be a violation of the copy right of the book and second, it will not inspire you to read this book in full. My objective in writing this review is to inspire you to read this book and to do that, I will put forwards few points from the book that will help you to get a feel of what this book is all about.
The word Mojo as defined by the author is a positive spirit towards what we are working on that should originate from within and radiate to the outside world to be appreciated by others. We do many such activities in our professional and personal lives when we experience this feeling (that is also reflected in the feedback given to us by the people around), be it in family, society or work. We also experience the opposite in many cases when we feel ourselves burdened by the drudgery of the task. If we experience more of the former, we feel happiness and meaning in our lives and when we experience more of the latter, we feel that we are going on a dead-end road. This book helps you identify or rather introspect the kind of tasks that fall into which category. The point that needs to be appreciated here is that any given work can be a source of Mojo for some and at the same time can be Nojo (negative of Mojo) for others. So, it is definitely not in the work per se, but rather one's reaction to it. We are all wired differently and so our preferences and level of maturity also differs and that is why our experience out of any activity also differs.
The question that arises is, do we need a book for this or what is the role of any self help book in this? Well, the self help books (this book as well) pose some questions and give some frameworks using which the analysis can be done. According to me that is the value add of any self help book. This book builds the framework on the foundation of Identity (What we perceive of ourself), Achievement, Reputation and Acceptance. The book further lists some of the reasons what are called as Mojo killers (behaviors and actions that result in making us dwell in the negative spirit) and then takes it further by listing some tool-kits under the four categories as mentioned above. The emphasis of the book is to find and get oneself involved in the activities that gives happiness and meaning to the life. The book inspires readers to analyze every activity that one gets involved in terms of long term benefit or meaning and short term satisfaction or happiness. The author finally takes the readers through some of the tool-kits (action items) under the heads of Identity, Achievement, Reputation and Acceptance. Marshall Goldsmith has given enough number of examples in each of the topics and sub-topics to illustrate the ideas better.
In my personal opinion, this is a good book to be a part of one's collection. I could personally find few points that became food for thought for me. Hope this review encourages some of you to pick up this book and use it for self-improvement.
No comments:
Post a Comment