My mother Olivia was a trail blazer. She was among the first group of women in Karachi to have become a Certified Montessori Administrator. I was in middle school at the time and part of the curriculum for her certification was the book “The Absorbent Mind”, by Maria Montessori (1949). Maria was ahead of her time in realizing the power of child’s mind. The book piqued my curiosity further when I began helping my mother complete her materials and journals for presentation. This gave me insights into how one develops the fertile minds of pre-school kids. The Montessori method is used in pre-schools all over the world even today. This book lit the fire that set me off into the world of discovering how mindsets can be changed to improve our life performance.
It was not until I immigrated to Canada, and embarked on a career in Human Resources that I was able to devour, scavenge, beg for and borrow books on the subject of how the human mind works. Fast forward to, when I completed the Life Skills Coach Certification while employed at the YWCA, I was exposed to the plethora of writings by many a well-known author, which had a profound impact on my own mindset and facilitated my growth as an Intentional Change Catalyst.
I am sharing my Top 10 readings from then till now, and my take-aways with you that have had a profound impact on my journey into experiencing The Miracle of Self Discovery, and hope that it will do the same for you.
# 1 – Are You The One For Me?
Take-away: By the time we are 5 years old we are programmed 85%, add another 5% to age 18 and another 5% to age 21. Does that mean we are doomed to the programming of our past? No, definitely not. Our mindsets are so strong that with the balance 5% we can reprogram our programming. We are not slaves to our past.
# 2 – Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams
Take-away: “You were programmed to be mediocre but born to be extraordinary. “Failure is not a person; it is only a situation”.
# 3 – Wayne Dyer – The Power of Intention
Take-away: Intention is a source of energy that you can tap into, to use as a resource to co-create a new life.
# 4 – Richard Boyatzis – Intentional Change Theory
Take-away: Five major discoveries for intentional change to occur:
The ideal self | The real self | The learning agenda | Experimenting with and practicing new ideas | Developing and maintaining close relationships.
# 5 – Benjamin Hardy – Personality Isn’t Permanent
Take-away: “The more emotionally evolved you become, the less defined you’ll be by your circumstances”. And the practice a daily brain dump through journaling.
# 6 – Steven Covey – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Take away: The we have Independent will – the right to choose what it is we want and these two habits: Begin with The End in Mind & Sharpen the Saw.
# 7 – Peter Bregman – Leading with Emotional Courage
Take away: “If you can feel everything, you can do anything”.
# 8 – Maria Nemeth – Mastering Life’s Energies
Take-away: Once you discover your life’s intentions, you’ll find that you naturally think about how to realize them”.
# 9 – Lorna McLeod – Make Peace with Money
Take-away: How to carry your new peace with money out into the world and make a real difference – developing a positive relationship with money.
# 10 – Brene Brown – Daring Greatly
Take-away: What is shame and what we can do about it?
While we celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada this month, and my friends in the USA will in November, we can express gratitude for the bountiful wealth of wisdom that is bestowed upon us by authors and thinkers by paying it forward and sharing.