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Day-59-101 Day Reading Challenge-Write a Legacy Statement-Who will cry when you die

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Day-59- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428 Write a Legacy Statement Someone once said to me that the first fifty years of life are dedicated to building one’s legitimacy while the last fifty are devoted to building one’s legacy. How true. So many of us spend the first half of our lives striving for achievement and struggling to gain respect. Once we have this legitimacy, whether it comes in the form of prestige or material possessions, we soon realize that something is missing. We then spend the remaining years of our lives trying to do what we should have done from the beginning: create a legacy. One day, my father posted a poem on the door of our fridge. It had been translated from Sanskrit and it read simply, “Spring has past, summer has gone and winter is here. And the song that I meant to sing remains unsung. I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument.” These words were written by a man whose heart was filled with regret over a life...
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Day-58-101 Day Reading Challenge-Listen to Music Daily-Who will cry when you die

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Day-58- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428 In the most memorable scene of the wonderful movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise’s character, a hard – driving sports agent, has just signed up one of the hottest draft picks in football. As he drives away form the athlete’s home in a state of utter joy, he impatiently searches from station to station on his car radio for the kind of song he can turn up loud and sing along to at the top of his lings. Finally, to his great delight, he finds it – Tom Petty’s hit “Free Falling.” And he begins to sing his heart out. Do you remember those times when you heard just the right song at just the right moment? Like Jerry Maguire, you started singing out loud and dancing with reckless abandon. In those moments, you felt fully alive, full of energy and truly happy. And all because you heard a few chords strung together in the right sequence. Music can do that to you. Music can lift your mood, put the smile back on your face and a...
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Day 57-Find your Six Degrees of Separation-Who will cry when you die-101 Day reading challenge

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Day-57-101 Day reading challenge -Who will cry when you Die  Find Your Six Degrees of Separation In John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation, the character Ouisa has a conversation with her daughter Tess in which she offers the following insight: I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that a) tremendously comforting that we’re so close and b) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It’s a profound thought how every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people. Ousia was right. It is profound to think that you and I are separated from all the other people living on this planet by at most...
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Day-56-101 Day Reading Challenge-Become a Volunteer--Who will cry when you die

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  Day-56- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428   Become a Volunteer I find a great deal of wisdom in the ancient Persian proverb “I wept because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” It is so easy to magnify our problems and lose sight of the many blessings we all have to be so very grateful for. Giving the gift of your time by volunteering to serve those who have less than you is an excellent way to remind yourself on a regular basis of the abundance that exists in your life. After a keynote speech on leadership I delivered to the sales team of a large insurance company, a man came up to me and told me he was one of the firm’s top producers. One of the reasons for his success, he said, was his habit of spending a few hours a week helping those less fortunate than he was. “Seeing what others don’t have keeps me awake to all the good things I do have. It prevents me from taking things for granted and,even more importantly, helps me make...
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Day-55-101 Day Reading Challenge-Take a Mini Vacation--Who will cry when you die

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    Day-55- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428   Take a Mini Vacation While you cannot go on a major vacation every week, you certainly can go on a minor one. A mini – vacation begins with closing the door of your office, holding all calls and relaxing in your chair. Then close your eyes and begin taking deep breaths. Once you feel deeply at peace, begin to imagine you are at your favorite vacation spot. Vividly see the colors, hear the sounds and feel the emotions that this special place evokes. After only a few minutes of this mental escape, you will be rejuvenated, ready for the rest of the day ahead. When I take my mini – vacations, I picture myself walking through a mountain meadow. I visualize my feet on the dewy grass and savor the splendor of the snow – capped mountains that frame this ideal scene. In the background, I hear the sound of water from a water – fall and imagine what the flowers that fill this field smell like. Our minds ...
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Day-54-101 Day Reading Challenge-Walk in the Woods--Who will cry when you die

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      Day-54- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428   Get a Coach One of the most effective ways to improve your personal and professional effectiveness and to rise to a new level of excellence is to find a mentor to coach you. Success in business and in life is a “connect the dots.” Process. All you need to do is find out the habits, disciplines and strategies that others have used to obtain their results and connect the dots by duplicating their actions. Once you follow the steps they have taken, in the order they have taken them in, you are bound to get the same results. A personal coach can illuminate your path, encourage you when times get tough and shave years off your learning curve. In my own life, I have been blessed with many mentors, people who have shown me the fundamentals of effective living and guided me in the right direction when I reached a crossroad. I found most of these special advisers by asking people whom I admi...
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Day-53-101 Day Reading Challenge-Walk in the Woods--Who will cry when you die

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              Day-53- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428   Walk in the Woods You will never go wrong by spending time enjoying nature. There is something particularly special about walking in the woods. Your steps will feel lighter, a deep sense of inner quiet will flood your entire body and your creativity will flood your entire body and your creativity will flourish. As the famed Italian architect and painter Leonardo da Vinci said, “Through the window of the eye, the soul regards the world’s beauty… Who would believe that a small scene of nature could contain the images of the universe?” My favorite time of year is autumn. The leaves on the trees reflect the brilliant colors of the season and it’s the perfect time for long walks in the woods. Away from the noise of the city, the values I hold dearest grow clearer and I can contemplate some of life’s larger questions, questions that never seem to get answered in th...
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Day-52-101 Day Reading Challenge-Create a Pure Environment--Who will cry when you die

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            Day-52- 101 day Reading Challenge- a Mine2Shine initiative-9789186428   Create a Pure Environment One of the timeless truths of successful living can be stated simply: your thoughts from your world. What you focus on in your life grows, what you think about expands and what you dwell on determines your destiny. Life is a self – fulfilling prophecy – it gives you just about what you expect form it. As Helen Keller said, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” Given this principle, the first step to becoming a happier, more serene person is to manage your thoughts and purify your thinking. One of the best ways to begin this inner work is to improve the quality of your personal environment. After a speech I gave to a large gathering in San Francisco, an elderly woman slowly walked up to me and held my hand, as people in their golden years often do. Loo...
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