The Hindu Business Line : May there be a love affair between you and your work

WHO doesn't want to be successful? But when can that happen? "When you are connected emotionally to your daily tasks, and to the people you serve," says Nancy Anderson in Work with Passion, a book on `how to do what you love for a living'. The love affair between you and your product and service makes itself known to your customers, she adds. They'd be "magnetised by the feeling and effort you put into your work."

The right `fit' in a job comes when the work satisfies your inner needs, is a check you can apply to your job. "If your current job or business is not meeting this need, you try to make up for it on the weekend, with hobbies, friends, perhaps overindulgence in drink or other escapes. By noon on Monday, you are deflated, counting the days until next Friday. You wonder if this is all there is to your life." Today is Monday, and so if this sounds true, you know where to look for help.

Easier to maintain your health than regain it

"PEOPLE today are living shorter and dying longer." This line from Ray D. Strand's Death by Prescription can make you sit up and read `the shocking truth behind overmedication' that the book discusses. "An adverse drug reaction is five times more likely to kill you than an automobile accident or AIDS," is just one such shock. But there is hope: "By combining the best that traditional medicine has to offer and incorporating healthy lifestyles, everyone has the best chance of protecting his health."

Ray rues the fact that most physicians are too "disease- and drug-oriented" to discourage their patients' use of any `complementary medicine' even though they are aware that "eating habits and lack of exercise are at the core of many diseases". Remember: "It is much easier and safer to maintain your health than to try to regain it once you've lost it." Healthy read.

Inside the introverts' world

EVERYBODY around is jumping but you're in your shell. You're in a meeting, and even as everybody is expressing his or her opinion, you are waiting to be asked for views. Let's face the fact: you're an introvert. Don't go into your shell once again, because you can thrive in an extrovert world, says Marti Olsen Laney in The Introvert Advantage.

Many introverts don't feel as if they know enough about a subject until they know almost everything, and this happens for three reasons, explains Marti: "First, introverts can imagine the vastness of any subject. Second, they have had the experience of their brain-locking, so in an attempt to avoid that awful blank-mind moment, they overprepare by accruing as much information as they can. Third, since they often don't talk about what they are thinking, they receive no feedback to help them gain perspective about how much they already know." Useful read, for those who want to come out of their small shells.

Burnout means passion is running dry

CREATE a safe space for dangerous feelings, and those feelings will always lead you to the source of the problem and its solution. When a previously successful executive starts to fail, something in his life is interfering with his potential. An executive must first take responsibility for experiencing a crisis before he can begin to work on resolving it. Suppressing a crisis keeps the executive locked into a repeating behavioural pattern.

These are some of the secrets that Alan Downs shares in Secrets of an Executive Management Consultant, a bunch of "proven methods for helping leaders excel under pressure". The crisis of passion is one of the most painful experiences of an executive's lifetime, cautions the author. "If the crisis remains unresolved, it can destroy careers, marriages, and virtually everything the executive has worked for throughout his life." A telltale sign of `crisis of passion' is burnout or boredom. "Executives who are passionate about their jobs don't get burnout — they get tired, maybe even exhausted, but not burnt out." Find the book, if you're not too tired!

Choose a second life

STORIES of extraordinary achievement form the core of Double Lives by David Heenan. The book "reflects the growing concern that the demarcation between profession and passion — between vocation and avocation — is being blurred to the point of obliteration." David adds that the twin goals of satisfying work and multiple interests go hand in hand. "The challenge is to make choices that convert the opportunities the twenty-first century provides into more diverse and fulfilling lives." A double life, as Hal Lancaster of the Wall Street Journal had said, "requires abundant energy, extraordinary time-management skills and lots of `self' skills: self-discipline, self-sacrifice, self-marketing, and enough self-awareness to know your own limits." A book you can trade for a double sundae!

Let nothing stop you

OFTEN, what once seemed impossible was achieved by people who are like you and me. So, to inspire, here are "45 powerful stories of perseverance and triumph" from Cynthia Kersey in Unstoppable. She lists seven characteristics of such people: They, "Devote themselves to their true purpose; follow their heart's passion; believe in themselves and their ideas; prepare for challenges; ask for help and build a support team; seek creative solutions; and persevere, no matter what the challenges."

Here are ten steps to developing an `unstoppable belief system': Take immediate action — do it now! Acknowledge your untapped potential — "push yourself — even a little bit — outside your comfort zone". Watch your internal language — the `yeah, buts?' Neutralise fear and risk — "identify the fear and prepare for it". Well, there are six more but you know where to look for them...

Books courtesy: Magna Publishing Co Ltd (www.magnamags.com)

Tailpiece

"I stopped reading joke books when I found... "

"That they were not tickling enough?"

"No, I was forgetting the joke in the middle of the laugh."

ReadingRoom@TheHindu.co.in

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May there be a love affair between you and your work