Poor people have big TV's. Rich people have big Libraries...

This is one of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes. Do you spend more money on books or big televisions? One thing that has always amazed me is when an individual will not think twice to purchase a new car or dress, yet choke on his tongue when he consider spending a small amount of money on books.

Let's see why successful people spend time on books, education and knowledge.

Desire vs Ambition : A difference 

We all desire a bigger house, a better job, and a newer car, but only very few are willing to do what it takes to get there. The habits of the most successful people in the world are not a secret. In fact, they are pretty widely known. Every self-made millionaire and billionaire businessperson invest in their own education. They have ambition, not just a desire. This means they read books and trade publications, attend seminars and workshops.

Gear up for success

If you have the ambition, you will set the conditions up for your success. If you don’t read, if you don’t attend conferences and workshops, it’s not too late. Start now! As they say, the best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is NOW!

Below are few home libraries for some CEOs of leading companies

Bill Gates Library 

An enormous library houses a manuscript Gates paid more than $30 million for.

The 2,100-square-foot library has a domed roof and two secret bookcases, including one that reveals a hidden bar. On the ceiling you'll find a quote from "The Great Gatsby" that reads: "He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it."

The library is home to the Codex Leicester, a 16-century Leonardo da Vinci manuscript that Gates bought at auction for $30.8 million in 1994.

Elon Musk Library

Billionaire Elon Musk says he was 'raised by books'. Books have been an important part of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s life. In an interview with Esquire magazine, Musk said when people ask him how he learnt to build rockets, he often likes to say it is because he reads books. He have a towering library with white selves in his 20,000-square-foot French Nouveau mansion. Musk also use his iPhone for reading books

As a child, he would often retreat into fantasy and science fiction, to cope with being picked on, according to a profile on him in the New Yorker magazine, and these books helped him shape his future self.

Jeff Bezos Library

In 1994, attracted by the rapid growth of Internet, Bezos quit his job as VP of D.E. Shaw & Co. and moved to Seattle. During the cross-country drive from New York to Seattle he wrote the business plan for an online book store that was called Cadabra. Which he later renamed as Amazon. The e-commerce billionaire bought a 26,900-square-foot former museum-turned-residential home in Washington D.C., which is now the largest house in the nation’s capital. The house have two large libraries which act as Study for Bezos

I would like to end this article with another famous quote from Jim Rohn…

”Formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you a fortune.”

The Productivity Booster You Have in Your Pocket, But Probably Don’t Use

The world’s 230 million knowledge workers are frazzled. Modern life is an interminable cacophony of emails, notifications, messages, alerts, feeds, data and information. 70% of us look at our phones within 30 minutes of waking up. All this causes stress. With multiple notifications on multiple apps on multiple pages of our devices, where do we start? Who will help us?

Fortunately, almost all of us already have a personal assistant. It’s a piece of software on a device you own: the intelligent assistant (IA). We carry IAs around on our laptops (Microsoft’s Cortana), phones (Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Samsung’s Bixby) and smart speakers (Amazon’s Alexa, Baidu’s Little Fish). You probably have more than one. There are an estimated one billion IA-enabled devices in the world today. With smartphone penetration in the UK and US approaching 70%, it’s easy to believe that there will be as many intelligent assistants as human beings in a just few years. That billions of people will soon have an assistant 24/7 is a staggering prospect.

Leading Virtual Assistants from Tech Giants

Driving this change, of course, are the tech giants. IAs are one of their top priorities. Google Assistant stunned the crowd at I/O 2018 with natural-sounding phone calls to unassuming restaurant and hair salon staff. Siri is now making recommendations based on your activity and schedule. Alexa is starting to understand general user intent. Google’s big advertising slogan on digital billboards today is “Make Google do it.”

Source: HBR  July 19, 2018

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8 Reasons You should be Running Regularly

1. Helps you live longer
A study published in Archives of Internal Medicine concluded that runners tend to live longer than those who don’t perform this form of exercise regularly. The study followed 1,000 adults (aged above 50) for 21 years. At the end of the study, 85% of runners were still alive while only 65% of non-runners were active.

Another study by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology showed that running or walking for even 5 – 10 minutes a day reduces the risk of death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease.

2. Endorphin levels rise
Running causes your brain and nervous system to secrete neurotransmitters called endorphins. These feel-good chemicals are responsible for that euphoric "runner's high" that makes you feel like you're on top of the world. Endorphins also prevent the transmission of pain signals, letting you feel nothing but good vibes. See you later, crummy feelings.

3.Running strengthens your knees (and your other joints and bones, too)
It’s long been known that running increases bone mass, and even helps stem age-related bone loss. But chances are, you’ve had family, friends, and strangers warn you that “running is bad for your knees.” Well, science has proven that it’s not. In fact, studies show that running improves knee health, according to Boston University researcher David Felson in an interview with National Public Radio.

According to Felson, They know from many long-term studies that running doesn’t appear to cause much damage to the knees, When we look at people with knee arthritis, we don’t find much of a previous history of running, and when we look at runners and follow them over time, we don’t find that their risk of developing osteoarthritis is any more than expected.

4. Running is easy and convinient than other Sports/Gym
Running doesn’t require a ton of equipment. “If you’ve got shoes, shorts, and a shirt, you are good to go". You can’t say that about many other workouts. No machines, dumbbells, or even mats required. You can run anywhere, Running will take you a heck of a lot farther than the four walls of your gym. “You can run anywhere in the world. There are literally races in Antarctica and the Sahara Desert,” You can run at any time, The trail is never closed. Whether you want to get in a workout at 2pm or 2am, you can go for it.

Your dog can run with you, Dogs typically aren’t welcome in the gym. But they are right at home on the trail. They even get endocannabinoid-fueled runner’s highs similar to those of their two-legged friends.

5. Sleep is better
Running uses up your energy in a healthy way. It also regulates your sleep schedule and limits insomnia. As a result, you'll be ready to curl up once bedtime comes around. Running also improves the quality and duration of your shut-eye, ensuring that your mental and emotional integrity is in good shape. The American Psychological Association even shares that if most Americans slept more, they would be happier and healthier. Running can help you with just that.


6. Setting goals becomes easier

Becoming a regular runner takes self-motivation and focus. It also happens to double as excellent practice for creating goals and pushing yourself to meet them. After all, every single running achievement comes with the realization that you have what it takes to go the extra mile (pun intended). Remember, it doesn't matter if these goals are big or small. Everything adds up in the end. And when you gain experience setting and meeting goals, you'll be more likely to apply it to other areas of your life. Cheers to that.

7. Keeps you healthy
Surprisingly, apart from overall health and mental benefits – walking and running are good for our vision as well. A research conducted in 2013 showed that those who walked or ran an average of 5 miles per day had 41% lower risk of developing cataract and age-related vision loss or blindness.

Although the exact reason for the benefit is still unknown, most health experts suggest that running decreases the probability of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure which can contribute to the development of cataracts.

8. You’re Born to run

Running is the best workout because it’s the most basic human form of exercise, using your own body, weight, and two legs to propel yourself forward. It’s as functional as workouts get. Running can help your disposition all day long. study done in  Switzerland found that running for just 30 minutes every morning for three weeks significantly improved subject’s mood and concentration levels throughout the day.

Want to be a CEO? 7 step-guide to prepare at the C-suite level

Different times call for different leadership skills. If one wants to be a C-suite executive, there are certain skills young aspirants need to hone in order to move up the ladder. 

The journey towards getting a senior executive role often starts long before their first managerial experience. With lots of people aiming for the top and only a few positions available, it's important to understand what professionals need to keep in mind during their transitional journey to reach a high-ranking executive title. 

For starters, take responsibility for your decisions, communicate well, don't be averse to taking risks, and create healthy work environment that encourages understanding, opportunity and enthusiasm. 

Here are some other skills one needs to master to climb up the ladder. 

Getting the team right
At the beginning of their C-level tenures, executives rely on the inputs shared by their direct reports when determining solutions to the strategic problems. Having the right people on the team is extremely crucial for the C-level executives. 

Strong leadership

At senior roles, it's vital to be able to lead others effectively. However, having leadership skills is not just about giving orders or having power and control. Leadership is about motivating teams to perform better, inspiring them to be more innovative, and driving them forward to meet and exceed business goals. 

The art of self-management 
During transitions, executives struggle with self-management. They often spend less time-management. They often spend less time preparing themselves for their new role and focusing on their personal growth/development. Executives with most successful transitions are usually the ones who spend more time preparing themselves for their roles. This helps them to perform better than others at their job. 

Goal-oriented

C-level leaders should set clear goals that will give directions to the business and the teams heading different departments. Part of being goal-orientated is also taking accountability that key performance indicators of line managers or team leaders are met. It is also important for them to step in if necessary they need help in hitting those set targets. 

Bold 
To see real breakthroughs, corporate leaders need to have the confidence to take bold decisions. 

Business expertise and flexibility
At the 'chief' level, professionals need to have a broader range of expertise. While it's important to oversee operations in different departments, senior leaders must also understand market share, customer trends and industry shifts. While working in a global economy, the aspiring leaders must understand the challenges associated with international negotiations and impact of economic trends. With businesses developing, industries changing and globalisation, top bosses should be able to adapt quickly to different situations. 

Creating a shared vision on business priorities
Business-related activities play a critical role in a transition's overall outcome. It is extremely important for professionals to create a shared vision and alignment in sync with their organisation's business goals.  

Source: Economic Times

Research: Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them

It’s a concrete fact that women earn less than men do. The true gender pay-gap is not known with certainty, but, when comparing equally qualified people doing the same job, most estimates by labor economists put it at 10% – 20%.  The crucial question remains its cause. One common explanation is that women are less likely to negotiate their salaries. We’ve seen this in both bestselling business memoirs like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and in previous studies like the research-based Women Don’t Ask.

Gaining access to a more recent, and more detailed, dataset allowed us to investigate this question anew. What we found contradicts previous research. The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results. We had expected to find less asking by the females. Instead, we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful. Women who asked obtained a raise 15% of the time, while men obtained a pay increase 20% of the time. While that may sound like a modest difference, over a lifetime it really adds up.

We also examined the idea that women act less assertively in negotiations for fear of upsetting the relationship with their boss or colleagues (some evidence for this has been found in previous research, notably by Emily Amanatullah and Michael Morris in a 2010 paper). We found no support for this in our data. Instead, we found that although employees do sometimes say that they do not ask for a raise because of concern for their relationships in the workplace, this is equally true of men and women. Both 14% of males and 14% of females say they have done this.

Source: HBR June 25, 2018

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