Recommendations for you
Buddhism for Busy People
This book by David Michie is a compelling guide that opens the door to the fundamental teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. It’s particularly accessible to those with hectic lives and offers practical advice on how to incorporate Buddhist practices into daily routines to find lasting happiness and fulfillment.
David Michie, once a top executive in the advertising world, enjoyed wealth, travel and fame, but found himself lacking true happiness. His journey toward a more meaningful life began with his exploration of Buddhism, which he shares in this book. Michie explains how the teachings of Buddhism helped him understand the reasons for human suffering and discover a path to genuine happiness. The book covers several key concepts:
· Meditation: Michie emphasizes the importance of meditation to achieve mental clarity and inner peace. It provides simple techniques that can be easily integrated into a busy schedule.
· Karma: The principle of karma is explained as the law of cause and effect, highlighting how our actions influence our future experiences.
· Bodhicitta: Michie discusses the cultivation of bodhicitta, the compassionate desire to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
· Dharma: The teachings of the Buddha, or Dharma, are presented as a practical guide to living a more conscious and ethical life.
· Compassion: The practice of compassion is shown to be a powerful tool to overcome personal suffering and contribute to the well-being of others.
· The importance of a teacher: Michie also highlights the need to have a teacher in one's spiritual journey. Just as we need teachers to learn piano, cooking, or academic subjects, a spiritual teacher is crucial to guide us through the complexities of Buddhist philosophy. It offers advice on how to find a suitable teacher and how to work with them to deepen understanding and practice.
I found it an easy read while at Kopan Monastery last June in Nepal, resonating with Michie's story of transformation from a life of superficial success to one of deeper fulfillment through Buddhist practices. His narrative is relatable, as many of us have faced similar struggles at some point in our lives.
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Discovering True Joy
I recently had the pleasure of reading during my recent spiritual trip to the Himalayas: "Joy 24x7" by Sadhguru. This book is not a guide or a self-help manual. It doesn't provide an instant formula for joy but invites you to explore your own in a very direct way.
During my time as leader of the India, Middle East and Africa Cluster, I had the pleasure of sharing with another great leader in India, Srinivasan Vijayaraghavan. With his outstanding kindness and generosity, he introduced me to Sadhguru so I was lucky enough to discover this book thanks to him. His teachings, so well and simply explained, have been a source of inspiration and reflection for me.
“Joy 24x7” is filled with short snippets of daily life, connected to what Sadhguru has to say about joy. These fragments will take you on a wonderful rollercoaster ride of joy with the master himself. With Sadhguru's incredible clarity of expression, his brilliant wit and sense of observation, and his ability to present the deepest aspects in a very simple and direct manner, this book is for any human being seeking to be happy.
In my opinion and personal experience, this book is especially important for leaders, particularly those entrepreneurs who understand that their true happiness can transform not only their own path but also that of their families, their companies and, ultimately, the world. . True, lasting joy has the power to inspire positive and meaningful changes in all aspects of our lives.
No matter who you are or what you are trying to do, Sadhguru's words will touch a wonderful wave of joy within you and soon you will be restless to seek joy 24x7.
A Yogi's Guide To Joy
I like to constantly nourish myself and share it with you. I recently finished a book that has given me a lot not only personally but also to apply professionally: "Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy" by Sadhguru, it’s a book about self-discovery, personal development and inner peace.
It offers us content full of wisdom and practical tools for personal growth and explores the intricate relationship between the physical body, mind and emotions and how these aspects significantly influence our experiences.
According to Sadhguru, a significant part of our suffering is due to our inability to manage our internal mechanisms effectively. The book goes beyond simply explaining how we work; it provides practical tools and meditations to manage your inner world including Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya, a powerful 21-minute practice.
A central concept in its content is that of transcending the duality of life. The book suggests that most of our struggles arise from perceiving life in terms of opposites: good and evil, joy and sadness. Inner Engineering proposes methods to cultivate a more balanced and integrated life experience, enhancing inner peace and lasting joy independent of external circumstances.
It makes a difference between happiness, which is fleeting and circumstantial, and joy, which is described as a deeper and more lasting state of well-being.
Personally, I believe that it is not simply a self-help book but has been an invitation to explore my inner potential and experience life from a renewed perspective. As we have shared in previous posts, transformational leadership is based on the idea that an effective leader not only manages tasks and results, but also inspires and empowers his team starting with our own personal development.
The Game Changers
One of the elements of mindfulness is being aware. This is achieved by practicing focus and concentration, especially on the things we are doing in the present moment, on the feelings and sensations in our body at this moment.
By practicing this we become more aware of our body and our health, and then we apply mindfulness to the way we eat and be increasingly aware of what we eat, the quality of what we eat, the color, the smell, the texture of it. That is where we begin to be more aware to understand what healthy eating is all about and how it is impacting my body weight, my skin, my sense of humor and then something similar happens when we do our workout.
We begin to be aware of the little daily things. We notice the effects of a good training session in the gym, doing morning yoga, playing any sport or just riding a bike or walking. All things that are super beneficial to have a better balance between work and daily life. If you feel good with your health and your body, your performance and happiness at work will increase much more.
During these days we are carrying out a health contest in our company where many members of the team voluntarily decided to change their attitude and take responsibility for themselves over their bodies to lose weight and exercise. Through a WhatsApp group the team gets constant motivation sharing the small successes that everyone is achieving day by day. I am so happy to see how many healthy heroes are trying to go the extra mile to improve their health by starting to move.
Having had the opportunity to go around the world, I have to say that I am impressed with the number of people with very harmful eating habits.
I came across this documentary on Netflix called The Game Changers which is a film about plant-based eating directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lewis Hamilton. Super good documentary that will help you think about eating vegetable base and will give you scientific answers and experiences made by many people about their habits and the effects of wrong marketing.
Flexibility is a good leadership skill, and to be flexible your mind has to be too as this will be a reflection of the flexibility of your body. The stiffer your body gets, the more inflexible your mind, I personally experienced it as my diet is mostly plant based.
A good documentary to watch and reflect about it.
What the Health
In this Netflix movie, filmmaker Kip Andersen discovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic disease and investigates why the nation's leading health organizations don't want people to know.
It was very interesting for me to see it, mainly because of the amount of information that comes out about how have a healthier life. Clearly both in the US and elsewhere there are powers and lobbies that are trying to make your business, but with a health-conscious approach to the way you eat and what you eat.
It is close a loop in the mind of a person aware of what is right or wrong to carry inside our body.
It is true that our body gets sick because of our mind, but it is also true that we need understand what we are eating and drinking in order to have a healthy body and a healthy mind that It will bring benefit in our work as private life.
One Second Ahead
One Second Ahead was my summer book this time and I really enjoyed reading it through the pages since it was very easy and enriching to go through them.
As we saw in my previous post, this book explains the existence of the two parts of our brain: the conscious and the unconscious and their corresponding functioning.
Rasmus Hougaard comes up with many ideas on how to have a better performance in your teams, in yourself and in your company using mindfulness as a basis and a more conscious way of interpreting moments due to the labor crisis that everyone is going through especially during these times.
Very good workplace techniques and mental strategies with some basic practices make this book a great job for anyone who is working in a company, leading a team or simply wants to improve. Highly recommended!
Think Like a Monk
A great experience going through the pages full of rich content on how to bring your life to a happier state when thinking and acting as a Buddhist monk does but applied to the Western world.
Jay explains how to work with your mind as a monk. Go from being constantly jumping from one thought to another, being multitasking, busy creating stress in ourselves, to a calmer life, more relaxed, more solid, more stable and happier as the mind of a monk.
It delves into certain key areas of a monk's mind, such as how to let go of certain emotions and welcoming others, how to grow and work with your purpose and ego, and how to develop a grateful heart. In most chapters there is a useful best practice related to the point of the book.
Vivid narration about the experiences of a monk in the Ashram but with a life in the Western world. I highly recommend it!
The Essence of Yoga
“Why should yoga abhyasa be done? […] What are the reasons for and effects of the practice?”
These are just a few questions that Sri T. Krishnamacharya, the father of modern yoga, answers in his book “Yoga Makaranda (The essence of Yoga)” which was written in 1932.
This is a powerful free book left as a gift for all humanity and it is written in such a simple language so that, no matter whether you practice Yoga or not, you will be able to learn about this wonderful discipline that have good benefits for body, mind and soul.
The Playbook
This documentary overwhelmed me by the valuable and accurate lessons about leadership and motivation in life.
Each chapter features a new first-class sports coach, like Dawn Staley (picture), talking about their victories, losses and the life experiences they learned through their careers.
This original documentary series was co-produced by the NBA champion Lebron James.
Our Planet
This documentary series done by Netflix is a great piece of work to understand the power and fragility of our Planet, its beauty and how the human race is doing everything to destroy it.
As Sustainable leaders we should strive and work everyday in improving sustainability and protecting the planet against climate change.
Cowspiracy
Do you know that raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than the emissions of the entire transportation sector?
This documentary film made by Netflix, is a must-see to understand the environmental degradation.
Are you ready to discover the secrets that nobody publish about the agricultural industry?
Seaspiracy
Almost a 71% of the planet is covered by water and a wide variety of animal and vegetal species live there maintaining a special balance with the world. So, what would happen if all the fishes disappeared tomorrow?
Seaspiracy is a documentary series by Netflix that shows us the impact that fishing without any control produces to the world and the importance of keeping the sealife safe to keep the planet healthy and well balanced.